Objectives and Priorities  

The main objective of the Italian cooperation is to assist Vietnam in pursuing its objectives as defined along the time by its national development strategies and plans. At the moment, the New 2006-2010 Socio-Economic Development Plan (SEDP) has superseded the Comprehensive Poverty Reduction and Growth Strategy (CPRGS) that has indicated the main directions of the past five years period of development. Within the main objective, the Italian Cooperation is engaged in the implementation of the principles of harmonization and complementarity’s, underwritten by the Vietnamese Government and the Donors community and stated in the so called Hanoi Core Statement.
Therefore, the Italian Cooperation in Vietnam aims at: 

• Contributing to improve basic social services (drinkable water and sanitation; health care, especially for mother and child, and disability rehabilitation; human resources enhancement through training) for the poor;
• Supporting sustainable productive activities to the benefit of poor communities, especially in Vietnam’s Central Highlands (CHL) and northern mountainous areas and through Small and Medium sized Enterprise (SME) sector development;
• Supporting Vietnam’s effort to provide protection from exploitation and trafficking of women and minors;
• Assisting Vietnam in further integrating into the world economy;
• Assisting Vietnam in managing and protecting its natural resources and environment;
• Assisting Vietnam in preserving and promoting its cultural heritage and ethnic minorities' cultural identity.   

The Development Cooperation Office’s activities  

The Development Cooperation Office of the Italian Embassy in Hanoi was officially established in January 1998. Its structure and organization follows the Art. 9 of the Law 49/1987 and the Steering Committee Deliberation N. 48 dated 11 February 1992. Its main mandate is the coordination and monitoring of the implementation of the Italian Government funded ODA projects in the Country.  
The Italian Cooperation program follows the following main modalities:

• To establish a close coordination with the partner Country allowing maximum programme’s ownership by it, through:
  • Projects selected from Vietnam’s Public Investment Program (PIP);
  • Adoption of local administrative and regulatory framework, particularly for bid preparation and execution;
  • Capacity building through technical assistance and training.  
• To ease grant disbursing procedures through:
  • Grant funds are untied and managed by Project Coordination and Monitoring Units, staffed exclusively by local experts from and within the structures of the concerned public administrations;
  • Balance of payments support via sector’s program aid;
• To build up coordination and harmonization within the EU action plan, through:
  • Sector selection (health, SME sector) and geographical focus (CHL); 
  • Selection of EU procurement guidelines as the reference set of requirements against which to validate local procurement regulations;
  •  Co-financing with other EU Member States. 
• To carry out multi-bilateral financing of Banks (ADB), International Organizations (FAO, IFAD, UNODC, UNESCO, UNFPA, UNICEF) and Italian NGOs (GVC, CESVI, UCODEP, AIFO, CIC, Centro ELIS, VIS) projects when consistent with the programme’s main and specific objectives.  

The Development Cooperation Office has also been carrying out information and communication activities, namely organizing seminars and producing publications, with the aim of further promoting the dialogue between the two Countries and exploring the possibilities for future cooperation projects.  

Since 2004 the Development Cooperation Office has been organizing the following seminars:

• Workshop on “Natural Environment, Sustainable Protection and Conservation: Italy - Vietnam Cooperation Perspectives”, Hai Phong, Vietnam, 15-17 November 2004;
• Bilateral Seminar “Co-operation perspectives and commercial opportunities between Italy and Vietnam in the field of small and medium-sized enterprises”, October 25th 2005, Hanoi;
• Bilateral Seminar “Health Sector Decentralization: Italy-Vietnam Cooperation Perspectives”, March 7th, 2006 – Hanoi;
• International seminar “Vietnam in the WTO: future trends in subsidy policies”, October 4th, 2006 – Hanoi.

In 2007, the Development Cooperation Office has planned to organize the following seminars: 

• ­The Symposium “Living the environment: city and territory between growth and sustainability”, 24 May 2007;
• Conference “rescuing the past: challenges and opportunities in cultural heritage preservation and development” 21 - 22 May 2007    

Among the Office’s publications, it is worth to mention:

• Proceedings of the workshop “Natural environment, sustainable protection and conservation: Italy-Vietnam cooperation perspectives”, 2005;
• Proceedings of the bilateral seminar “Cooperation perspectives and commercial opportunities between Italy and Vietnam in the field of small and medium-sized enterprises”, 2006;
• Proceedings of the bilateral seminar “Health sector decentralization: Italy-Vietnam cooperation perspectives”, 2006;
• “Community based rehabilitation in Vietnam. Guidelines to design a pilot project”, Italian Development Cooperation in Vietnam: Notes n. 1, 2006
  

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