ADB-Viet Nam Partnership Strategy

Having reached lower-middle income status in 2010, Viet Nam has made rapid progress against poverty reduction and in lifting the quality of health and education. The country however is starting to face new and more complex challenges. Growth is creating environmental damage and the country is highly exposed to climate change. Previously rapid growth in the working age population is starting to fall and pockets of poverty still remain, particularly in remote and rural regions.

Viet Nam needs to develop a more dynamic market economy that can compete globally and deliver sustainable and equitable growth over the long term.

ADB's country partnership strategy (CPS) 2016–2020 for Viet Nam will support investments and policy reforms that promote more inclusive and environmentally sustainable economic growth.

ADB’s strategic framework will be based on three pillars:

• promoting job creation and competitiveness,
• increasing the inclusiveness of infrastructure and service delivery, and
• improving environmental sustainability and climate change response.

Priorities of the CPS are strongly aligned with the government’s socioeconomic development strategy (SEDS), 2011–2020 and its accompanying socioeconomic development plan (SEDP), 2016–2020, which lay out a vision for environmentally sustainable and socially equitable economic development.

The CPS highlights that Viet Nam’s transition from lower-middle income status to middle-income status requires improvements in the efficiency of public expenditure and greater private sector investment. ADB will promote both, and help leverage private sector investment through public–private partnerships, to improve efficiency and service delivery to citizens and gain access to new expertise and technology. ADB will also support sustainable natural resource use as well as climate change adaptation and mitigation measures to respond to the heightened risks facing the country.