Governor Nguyen Van Binh of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) and Country Director Tomoyuki Kimura of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in Vietnam signed two loan agreements worth USD 165 million on January 23 for the Second Lower Secondary Education for the Most Disadvantaged Areas Project and for the Integrated Rural Development Infrastructure Sector Project.
Attending the signing ceremony were representatives from the President’s Office, the Government’s Office, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Planning and Investment, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Education and Training, the Ministry of Transportation, and SBV entities…
The new project has been designed on the success of the first phase with several new features and innovations, including new textbooks for every areas on the bases of the competency of the ethnic minority students; a new platform for in-service teacher training; more attention to life skill education; a system of school clusters and teachers’ network; e-learning for training of teachers and education managers; model libraries for extracurricular academic support and recreation for ethnic minority students; and typhoon resilient facilities and disaster management education. The implementation duration of the project is 6 years from early 2015. The Second Lower Secondary Education for the Most Disadvantaged Areas Project aims at improving the net enrolment rate of lower secondary education in the target areas by 5% toward 2020 through the construction of 660 more classrooms, 350 semi-boarding facilitates, around 250 teacher housing, training of some 24,000 teachers, and development of about 344 new school clusters.
The second loan of USD 85 million is for additional financing of the Integrated Rural Development Infrastructure Sector Project, which was approved by the ADB Board in October, 2007. ADB provided USD 90 million out of the total cost of USD 168.17 million. The original project targeted critical rural infrastructure in 13 provinces in the Central Region, including rural roads, irrigation drainage and flood control systems, rural markets, domestic water supply schemes and coastal works. As of August, 2014, the project has achieved intended outcomes, and has made a great contribution to meeting the provincial infrastructure development targets for boosting agricultural productivity and employment opportunities, improving access to public services, and reducing the exposure of the rural population to natural disasters.
The additional financing will support the improving and expanding irrigation infrastructure over four years in 6 provinces of Binh Dinh, Binh Thuan, Ha Tinh, Ninh Thuan, Phu Yen and Thua Thien Hue based on their good performance in the initial projects.
Speaking at the signing ceremony, SBV Governor Nguyen Van Binh emphasized that education and agriculture are two priority areas in the strategy and planning for economic development of Vietnam for 2011-2020 period. ADB’s support for the two projects will contribute to promoting economic development of the provinces to catch up with the development of the whole country. Governor Nguyen Van Binh expressed his belief that, with the active support of ADB together with the administration and close cooperation of relevant ministries and agencies, the two projects will be implemented on scheme, fulfilling the objectives, ensuring effective utilization of ADB’s fund.
For his part, Mr. Tomoyuki Kimura, ADB Country Director in Vietnam, said that on the basis of the implementation experiences and lessons learned from the first phase of the project, ADB provides further support to Vietnam to continue delivering lower secondary education of ethnic minority in the poorest regions, and addressing the rural infrastructure constraints in line with ADB’s country partnership strategy, 2012 – 2015 for Vietnam.
Le Hang