VinAWARE training enhances disaster management capacity in Vietnam

Vietnam, which is prone to powerful storms and reoccurring floods, is continually working to mitigate and prepare for potential impacts from these hazards. As part of the second phase of the Flood Modeling and Early Warning Capacity Development Project (FEW2), the country is strengthening internal capacity for hazard monitoring and early warning.

Working with Vietnam’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) Disaster Management Center (DMC), Pacific Disaster Center (PDC) is implementing FEW2, a two-year project supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA), to advance the use of VinAWARE, a web-based early warning decision support system based on PDC’s DisasterAWARE.

From January 6 to 17, PDC’s Southeast Asia Program Advisor Victoria Leat and Senior Geospatial Information Analyst Lara Payne conducted VinAWARE training sessions to build capacity for its use by national and provincial decision makers and disaster management practitioners.

In Hanoi, nine government representatives attended a four-day “Train-the-Trainer” (TtT) session to become certified VinAWARE trainers. Participants learned basic training principles and techniques in addition to VinAWARE functions, and had the opportunity to demonstrate their newly-acquired skills, receive feedback, and identify strategies for future training success.

A one-day user training session was also held in Hanoi to increase proficiency in the use of the customized system by government officials and nongovernmental organization (NGO) representatives. The Director of the Vietnam Disaster Management Center (DMC) Dr. Nguyen Huu Phuc and USAID Program Development Officer Alex Zvinakis provided support throughout these training sessions and issued completion certificates to the 15 participants. During this training session, both Dr. Phuc and Mr. Zvinakis stressed the importance of cooperation in disaster management.

After the activities in Hanoi, PDC held user training sessions in Danang City for 51 provincial-level disaster managers and responders from 10 central Vietnam provinces. Two training sessions, each two days long, provided VinAWARE users with increased familiarity with the application and a working knowledge that will allow them to incorporate the system into their daily operations.

At the end of February, PDC will return to Hanoi to conduct training on applying flood model outputs to support preparedness and planning.

Learn more about the FEW Project with these resources:
• Information from the FEW2 stakeholder meeting,
• The launch of the USAID-supported FEW2 Project,
• Special training in the use of PDC’s DisasterAWARE was conducted in Vietnam
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• News of PDC commitment to DM in Vietnam,
• A description of the first use of the VinAWARE decision support system,

• The first Flood Early Warning Project launched in 2009, and

• To see what Dr. Phuc and the DMC are doing, go to www.dmc.gov.vn.