Climate change, with its resultant phenomena global warming and rising sea levels, is seen as
one of the biggest challenges for mankind during the 21
st
century. Vietnam is one of the coun-
tries set to experience the most severe impacts from climate change. Therefore, adaptation
to and mitigation of climate change impact has now become a priority task, both in the long
term and in the short term, for Viet Nam.
Climate change is of central concern for sustainable development, impacting on all regions, areas
and fields throughout the world. Thus, climate change adaptation must be addressed in an aligned
national program/plan and in close cooperation with the global community so as to protect our
common shelter - the Earth - on which the most valuable resource - human beings - are living.
Based on analyzing results and experiences of previous programs/projects such as the
Vietnam - Sweden Cooperation Programme on Strengthening Environmental Management
and Land Administration (SEMLA), the Poverty and Environment Project at MONRE, and oth-
ers, a procedure of 6 stages for mainstreaming environmental and climate change issues into
development planning, plans, programs and projects has been proposed. The procedure gen-
erally is based on a new version of the MONRE/SEMLA General Technical Guidance on
Strategic Environmental Assessments which includes the integration of climate change adap-
tation and mitigation into the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) process.
