USAID administrator addresses environment issues in Vietnam

Administrator Samantha Power met with a local women-led start-up in Ho Chi Minh City on Wednesday to hear how their USAID-supported app, called VECA, is boosting the efforts of freelance collectors to increase urban recycling and help prevent plastics from entering the ocean, according to a statement from the U.S. embassy in Hanoi.

The mobile app is available both on iOS and Android to connect sellers and recyclable waste collectors.

On the occasion of the International Women’s Day of March 8, she highlighted USAID’s commitment to empowering women to earn sustainable incomes and advance locally-led solutions.

Power then visited a factory of American-owned VF Corporation to observe its renewable energy systems installed with USAID regulatory support, that are powering factory operations.

She highlighted how USAID is partnering with Vietnam to accelerate its clean energy transition and achieve its net zero emissions commitments made at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP26.

She visited Phu Ly Pagoda in the Mekong Delta’s Vinh Long Province later on Wednesday, learning from local leaders and members of the Khmer community about how climate change has been harming their harvests and affecting the future of farming in the delta.

Power also visited one of more than 10,000 floating aquaculture farms in the delta, where farmers have been coping with the changing water level and growing salinity in the Hau and Tien rivers, the two main tributaries of the Mekong in Vietnam.

USAID administrator Samantha Power (L, 3rd) visits a floating aquaculture farm in the Mekong Delta’s Vinh Long Province, March 8, 2023. Photo by USAID

The administrator said that a critical part of the future of the bilateral partnership with Vietnam is USAID’s commitment to addressing the impacts of climate change in the Mekong.

Previously, during the first day of her Vietnam’s trip on Tuesday, Power visited Bien Hoa Air Base in Dong Nai Province that borders HCMC where together with the Vietnam government, the USAID has been cleaning contaminated soil at the largest remaining dioxin hotspot in Vietnam.

She announced a new contract of up to $73 million over five years to begin the next phase of remediation and commemorated a new park on land recently cleaned by USAID and handed over to the Vietnamese Ministry of National Defense.