Between 1993 and September 2024, the World Bank has committed US$25,792 million in grants, concessional loans, and credits to Viet Nam since 1993. Viet Nam’s existing portfolio consists of 11 active projects, with a net commitment of US$1.62 billion. In addition, Viet Nam benefits from a large and diverse portfolio of Advisory Services and Analytics (ASAs), 17 of which are currently being implemented, leveraging partnerships and trust funds from development partners.
COVID-19 Response
When COVID-19 hit the country in early 2020, the World Bank Group worked with Viet Nam on multiple fronts to support the national response strategy – from health crisis management to fostering a resilient recovery. Through a grant from the Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility, the World Bank helped ramp up testing capacity for 84 laboratories nation-wide, cutting the turnaround time from 24–48 to just 4–6 hours.
Viet Nam also received support from the Japan Social Development Fund to enhance grassroots COVID-19 preparedness and response. Health staff training improved pandemic response knowledge from 28% to 50%. The project benefited 3,500 vulnerable people, including the elderly, people living with HIV/AIDS, female sex-workers, drug users, informal workers, and ethnic minorities.
Building on global expertise, the Bank issued a series of policy notes on strategies to protect vulnerable groups from the negative impacts of COVID-19 and to stimulate a broad recovery. During COVID-19, the World Bank conducted seven rounds of household high-frequency surveys, and five rounds of Business Pulse Surveys.
Clean Energy
The Viet Nam Transmission Efficiency Project (2015-21) significantly boosted the electricity grid in four key economic hubs. The critical infrastructure improvements it funded increased transmission capacity by 15 percent and reduced the average operation and maintenance costs per megawatt hour transmitted by 20 percent. System reliability also improved dramatically, with the average fault duration reduced by 80 percent, from 76.2 minutes in 2013 to just 15.4 minutes in 2021. Beyond these immediate benefits, the project paved the way for a more sustainable future. By facilitating the integration of renewable energy sources on a larger scale, it helped reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an estimated 95,000 tons a year. The project's smart grid component laid the groundwork for Viet Nam's digital transformation within the power sector.
The Viet Nam Renewable Energy Development Project (2009-18) supported some of the first large-scale private-sector led deployments of renewable energy. It provided early-stage investment and technical support to build the capacity and incentives of all stakeholders for scaled-up development. It financed the construction of 19 small hydropower plants with a total capacity of 320MW, which supplied an annual volume of 1,260GWh. All these plants followed global best practices on environmental and social risk management, setting new industry benchmarks in Viet Nam.
Environment and Natural Resources
The Mekong Delta Integrated Climate Resilience and Sustainable Livelihoods Project (2016-24) helped more than one million farmers in the region transition into more climate-resilient and resource-efficient ways of living. The project leveraged an extensive network of scientists working with farmers to find new production models that best fit the agro-ecological and socioeconomic challenges, and scale them up. It also focused on creating an enabling infrastructure network and improving regional cooperation on water and land management.
With the support of the World Bank, Viet Nam mandated the establishment of a carbon market in January 2022. The Partnership for Market Readiness (PMR) Program (2016 -21) helped lay the legal foundation and build capacity for using this market-based instrument. The program supported the government in assessing institutional, policy, and technical gaps for using carbon pricing. It also helped develop the main building blocks for carbon pricing including data collection, measuring, reporting, verifying, and crediting process.
In March 2024, Viet Nam received the largest ever payment (US$51.5 million) from the World Bank's Forest Carbon Partnership Facility for verified forest emission reductions. This benefits over 1,300 communities and 70,000 forest guardians across six north-central provinces. The World Bank is helping Viet Nam maximize financial returns from forest protection and scale this program to capture its full potential, estimated at up to 40 million tons of CO2e annually.
Water Management
Building on the success of its predecessor, the Results-based Scaling Up Rural Sanitation and Water Supply Program (2016-23) expanded access to clean water and sanitation for nearly seven million people in Viet Nam's 21 poorest provinces. Over 144,000 households gained access to sustainable water through 285,000 new or rehabilitated water connections. More than 69,000 households built improved sanitary latrines with program-facilitated financial support while over 700 communes achieved commune-wide sanitation. Hygiene promotion efforts in nearly 450 communes ensured schools and health clinics maintained proper hygiene standards.
The Viet Nam-Irrigated Agriculture Improvement Project (2014-21) helped modernize the irrigation infrastructure in six provinces in the Central and Northern Mountain regions of Viet Nam. It supported a total area of nearly 95,000 hectares, enabling the application of climate-smart agricultural practices by nearly 252,000 farmer households. These practices helped farmers reduce production inputs, save water, and boost incomes per hectare per crop by nearly six-fold. It was estimated that farming practices supported by the project helped reduce 4.3–4.4 tons of CO2-equivalent per hectare per year.
The Dam Rehabilitation and Safety Improvement Project (2016-23) supported the implementation of the Government’s national dam safety program. This project is critical for ensuring water security and protecting downstream regions from potential dam failures. It improved the safety of 438 multi-purpose dams, protecting approximately 4.3 million people in downstream communities. It modernized dam safety management with the use of geotagging technology and guidelines and procedures towards safety inspection and reporting.
Urban Development and Disaster Risk Management
The Can Tho Urban Development and Resilience Project (2016-24) helped protect 420,000 residents in Can Tho’s urban core from severe flooding that annually causes nearly US$200 million in economic losses. As the largest city in the Mekong River Delta, Can Tho plays a crucial role in the region's transformation. The project built 14.2 km of flood defenses, upgraded 11.6 km of canals, and constructed 12 km of sewers. It also built new roads and bridges spanning 10.4 km, connecting urban areas with safer zones. To enhance urban development and investment planning, the project combines infrastructure and digital systems such as the Flood Risk Management Information System and Disaster Responsive Safety Net and Spatial Planning Platform with co-financing from Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs. By blending technology with traditional approaches, the project established a robust defense against flooding, showcasing a sustainable model for urban development and bolstering resilience in Viet Nam.
The Emergency Natural Disaster Reconstruction Project (2017-21) helped four disaster-affected provinces reconstruct and rehabilitate infrastructure and strengthened government capacity to respond to future disaster events. The project improved access to resilient transport, flood prevention and control, irrigation, and drainage infrastructure assets for nearly 1.3 million people. It also addressed institutional gaps for effective disaster risk management and prepared plans for integrated flood risk management in key river basins.
Agriculture and Rural Development
The Viet Nam Sustainable Agriculture Transformation Project (2015-23) scored a triple win, raising farmers’ incomes, lowering their costs, and creating a greener future by cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Mekong Delta farmers working across 182,000 hectares of land reduced their use of inputs by up to 50 percent and boosted their profits by 30 percent. Their sustainable farming practices have helped cut approximately 1.5 million tons of CO2e emissions each year. Inspired by the project’s success, the Vietnamese government, in partnership with the World Bank, has pledged to scale up the project aiming to cover an additional one million hectares and reduce up to 10 million tons of CO2e in the Mekong Delta by 2030. In September 2024, the Transformative Carbon Asset Facility (TCAF) Board approved a proposal from Ministry of Agriculuture and Rural Development, committing up to US$40 million for carbon purchases based on emission reductions from the "1 Million Hectare Low-Carbon Rice Program."
Human Capital
Education
The Viet Nam Enhancing Teacher Education Program (2016-21) improved the quality of teaching and learning by delivering school-based continuous professional development to more than 600,000 teachers and school principals in general education. Similarly, the Viet Nam Quality Improvement of Primary Education for Deaf Children Project (2018-22) recently completed developed Vietnam-sign-language based material for primary education, contributing to significantly improving the enrollment and learning results of deaf students.
The Support for Autonomous Higher Education Project (2017-23) significantly improved research capacity with 278 new collaborations, enhanced teaching quality by reducing students per lab workstation from 158 to 81, and helped 28 programs gain international accreditation. It also strengthened the national higher education system by developing a management information system for 222 institutions and creating an e-Library with over 2.7 million downloads.
The Viet Nam University Development Project (2020-25) has enhanced teaching and research quality at Viet NamNational University-Hanoi, Viet NamNational University-Ho Chi Minh City, and the University of Danang. These universities have increased internationally accredited programs to 263 and articles published in Web of Science and Scopus journals to 27,663. Additionally, it promoted gender equality in research, with female-authored articles rising to 38.2% across these universities.
Health
The World Bank supports Viet Nam’s efforts to provide quality, affordable health care services for all citizens. As a result, 13.7 million people in northern Viet Nam — many of them in remote areas — have better access to quality healthcare. The Northeast and Red River Delta Regions Health System Support Project (2013-20) improved treatment capacity for 74 public hospitals at the district and provincial levels by investing in upgrades to the medical infrastructure and training for health workers. Key interventions in cardiology, obstetrics/gynecology, pediatrics, oncology, and trauma are now available at these hospitals, sparing patients the need to seek care far from home. The World Bank is extensively supporting the government to strengthen its health financing functions towards an efficient and fiscally sustainable health system.
The Investing and Innovating for Grassroots Health Service Delivery Project (2020–24) has significantly improved the quality and use of grassroots health services in Viet Namacross 13 provinces. The project facilitated the construction of 129 and the upgrading of 332 Commune Health Stations (CHSs). Consequently, over 65% of CHSs now meet the national benchmark, up from a 40% baseline. Additionally, the project has enabled the management of approximately 800,000 patients with non-communicable diseases at the grassroots level, doubling the baseline number.
Social Protection and Jobs
The World Bank provides strategic advice to Viet Nam to address workforce challenges and support vulnerable populations, contributing to the adoption of the amended Social Insurance Law in 2024 and offering insights on green jobs, as the country aims for 60% pension and contribution coverage by 2030 amidst rapid aging and high informal employment.
Transport
The Local Road Asset Management Program (2016-24) transformed rural Viet Nam, improving the lives of over 11 million people across 51 provinces. New and rehabilitated roads and bridges brought essential services closer to remote communities. Over 1,800 communes, home to Viet Nam's most vulnerable populations, now benefit from reduced transport costs and improved access to schools, hospitals, and markets. This project also marked a shift in Viet Nam's transport asset management strategy. Previously focused on new construction, the program successfully promoted the importance of routine maintenance. Nearly 51,000 km of rural roads received regular upkeep, safeguarding them against deterioration and natural disasters.
The Northern Delta Transport Development Project (2008-23) upgraded waterway corridors, constructed a maritime-waterways access channel, built a navigation lock, and enhanced port and passenger ferry boat stages. These initiatives resulted in reduced logistics costs, transport time, increased safety, and decreased emissions compared to trucking. The project saved up to 36 hours in cargo transport time on key corridors, reduced waiting time by 20 hours at the Lach Giang estuary access channel, and lowered pollution at ports by up to 36%. Additionally, over 35,000 people, the majority are women, benefited from improved passenger ferry stages, particularly in rural areas where waterways serve as vital access to jobs, education, and social services, preventing accidents and contributing to the government's transport priorities and climate goals.
Poverty Reduction
Viet Nam has made great strides in reducing poverty and improving quality of life for millions. The World Bank has worked closely with Viet Nam to address the last mile chronic challenges in poverty eradication. In 2023, the poverty rate was less than 4 percent based on the World Bank lower middle-income poverty line (US$3.65/day, 2017 PPP).
Last Updated: Oct 8, 2024
