In Vietnam, environmental problems are of great concern to government and society. Major problems include forest and soil degradation, disruption of water flows, loses of biodiversity, unsustainable use of marine resources and escalating urban pollution. Great efforts are needed from departments/organizations and Vietnamese people to overcome environmental problems. On the other hand, many staffs of Provincial government departments do not have a background in environmental studies. 

The aim of the TOTEPAM project is to build a group of selected Provincial government staff who have the skills to be able to train their colleagues in environmental planning and management.

Through this programme, HUA will provide a series of training courses for staff at selected provinces under the DCE program in Vietnam including Ha Nam, Thai Nguyen, Phu Tho, Nghe An, Ben Tre and Quang Nam. The training of trainers programme will focus on producing trainers with basic environmental planning and management skills.

The output of the project is well qualified Provincial-level government staff, who will play key roles in transfering knowledge and skills to their colleagues through training courses and on-job training. In addition, training manuals and publications for Provincial government staff will be developed. Finally, the capacity of HUA and other universities will be improved.

Project objectives

General objectives

To enhance Provincial capacities and skills for training Provincial and District government staff in environmental planning and management.

Specific objectives

1. To develop a group of environmental planning and management trainers from  provincial Departmental DCE partners, lecturers from provincial state-owned and private universities and colleges, and district government staff.
2. To develop training manuals and publications for Provincial government staff;
3. To organize training series for selected Provincial government staff, and to assist the chosen trainers to develop at least one training course for staff in the trainers’s agencies.
4. To disseminate the outcome of TOTEPAM to other Provinces and government agencies outside of the DCE programme.

Project target groups and locations

            The main target group is the existing Provincial staff in the five Departments associated with the Ministries implementing the DCE programme (ie DPI, DoIT, DoNRE, DARD, DoC), and in the five selected provinces of the DCE program (Thai Nguyen, Ha Nam, Phu Tho, Quang Nam, Nghe An and Beb Tre). 

A secondary target group will consist of:

*    junior lecturers from provincial state-owned and private universities and colleges; and

*    district government staff.

After completing the first training series (module 1), the best trainees will be selected for further training and finally, they will gradually become local trainers through joint training with local partners (module 2), and independent training by local trainers (module 3).

The training courses will be firstly organized at Hanoi University of Agriculture, followed by  pilot training in Nghe An, and then the training courses will be extended to the five selected provinces under the DCE program.

Agencies sending trainees will be required to make a money deposit before trainees begin the programme, to ensure that their staff participate for the entirety of the programme.

Implementation process

            This project is divided into major objectives, followed by specific activities to achieve the proposed goals.

•   Exchanging experiences in environmental training
•   Syllabus and manual preparation and publications
• Training Organization
• Dissemination and evaluation of demonstration project

Project duration

Duration: 18 months

Proposed starting date: 1^st, July 2008;                 Ending date: 30^th, December 2009