Socio-Ecological Determinants of the Population in Nam Curong Commune of Tien Hai District, Thai Binh Province, Vietnam
Discuss about the Local Energy Planning for Community Resilience in Vietnam.
Climate change is one of the problems that the global community has been battling for many decades now. The sharp changes in temperatures have become a major issue of concern in the entire world especially the less developed countries which have become vulnerable to climate change. Vietnam is one of the developing countries in which climate change has become a great problem.
Local Energy Planning for Community Resilience (LEP) is one of the flagship projects that have been implemented to help in dealing with the problem of climate change in Vietnam. It is an integrated approach that was introduced by the Green Innovation and Development (GreenID) in 2012. GreenID is a Non-Profit Organization (NGO) which the Vietnam Union of Science and Technology Associations established to help in addressing energy and other technology-related issues in the country. Therefore, to demonstrate its commitments towards the promotion of the use of the environmental-friendly, carbon-free, and green energy, the organization decided to launch the LEP and chose to locate it amongst the Nam Curong Commune of Tien Hai District, Thai Binh Province. If properly implemented, the project would help in empowering the community and salvaging it from the yoke of landslides, salination, storm surges, and torrential rains that had been troubling them for many years (Martinez-Fernandez, et al. 2016). However, the project would achieve this by focusing on the introduction and promotion of the use of green energy.
The LEP project was not to be rolled-out in the entire Vietnam, but only localized within the Nam Curong Commune, Tien Hai District, Thai Binh Province. The choice of the location was guided by a number of factors. It is an example of the places in Vietnam which have been suffering because of climate change (Khan & Amelie 2015). Although Vietnamese do not contribute to climate change as compared to other developed countries like the USA, UK, and China, its people have become quite vulnerable to the downpour of erratic rainfalls, and eruption of droughts, floods, typhoons, hurricanes, and wind storms. However, all these are mostly attributed to the anthropological acts such as the use of fossil fuels, felling down of trees, and the general pollution of the environment (Ellabban, Haitham & Frede 2014). However, no matter how challenging it might be, the cases of climate in Vietnam can still be addressed if appropriate measures are taken.
The Efficacy of LEP
The community was chosen to be the beneficiaries of this particular project because of its vulnerability. A thorough study of its history reveals that the community has been facing a myriad of challenges as far as climate change is concerned. Meaning, its condition has been contributed by the wide range of ecological and social factors that have been making it to be more deserving than other people (Moustafa 2017). The community has been worse-off because of the social and ecological challenges that have been hindering it from competing with the rest of the advantaged sections of the Vietnamese and the global population. The poor status of the community has been caused by the ecological factors that have been playing a major role in determining their status (Nguyen & Tuan 2015). For example, the cases of poverty and suffering have persisted because the entire community is living in a reclaimed land. Since it was initially a sea, the region has become challenging to live in and comfortably fit because it has become vulnerable to a wide range of environmental problems like landslides, salinisation, storm surges, and torrential rains. What it means is, therefore, that the people must be empowered to enable them overcome such challenges and minimize the magnitude of their impacts on them.
Figure 1: Concept Map for the Socio-Ecological Determinants
The social factors that have been determining the status of the community is its isolation from the rest of the people in the country. According to official records, Nam Curong Commune is located in a pace far from others. Meaning, they live together as a community and share most of their issues without unnecessarily involving others. This has negatively impacted on the community because it has made its people to engage in certain undesirable cultural practices that do not add value to them (Mundkur, Langendoen & Watkins 2017). Although it is good to appreciate the culture of these people, the truth is that there are some cultural practices that cause more harm than good especially when it comes to environmental matters. For example, the culture of indiscriminate felling of trees and usage of fossil fuels has been disastrous because it facilitates the accumulation of green gasses (Tran, Moreno-Santander, Vélez-Hernández, Giraldo-Toro, Piyachomkwan, Sriroth & Dufour 2015). Worse still, the community is inhabited by the poor people who are not empowered enough to get employment opportunities, and be able to make rational decisions regarding the use and preservation of the environment.
LEP is a program that was started for the right purpose. It must be called a right purpose because the NGO that was launching this program knew exactly the problem that was to be addressed and the strategies that would be used to do so. Hence, to achieve that, the NGO came up with reasonably feasible goals and objectives to guide it because their accomplishment would eventually be relied upon to determine its overall success (Hosenuzzaman, et al. 2015). Having said this, it is important to acknowledge that the promotion campaign was effective because it adhered to the standards set by the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion. According to this charter, the achievement of the ‘Health for All’ initiative must be done by complying with five action areas which even the LEP project did (World Health Organization 2016).
The first action area that determines the efficacy of a health promotion program is called the building of a healthy public policy. According to this action, all the promotion policies should be geared towards the establishment of a healthy society. This is exactly what the GreenID wanted to achieve because it means a lot to the organization, the target communities and the government at large. By coming up with the LEP project, the NGO was demonstrating its concern for the health of the people especially those who live in the isolated Nam Curong Commune. The second action that the project adhered to is the creation of a supportive environment. According to this action, any policy framework should create room for the empowerment of the people (Singh, Roy, Spiess & Venkatesh 2015). If this does not happen, such policies might not be useful because they may not make a positive contribution on the lives of the target communities. The LEP project complied with this action because it acknowledged the community members and looked for resources to give them all the necessary economic and social support that they need to enable them improve their lives (Ngan & Huong 2016).
The third action that a policy must consider is the strengthening of the community action. This simply means that a policy should seek for the participation of the community members. One of the major aims of the LEP project was to work hand in hand with the community leadership and community members. Hence, to achieve this, the NGO created room for everyone to be directly and indirectly involved in the project. It was a bright idea because it would motivate the community and encourage it to fully support the project. The other action that the project complied with is the development of the personal skills. Although some healthcare promotions target families and communities, they can be more effective if they reach out to individuals. This is exactly what the GreenID did when it took the initiative to educate each person on the dangers of climate change and fossil fuels as well as the significance of green energy to them as individuals, community, nation, and the globe at large (Kahia, Aïssa & Lanouar 2017) By taking the initiative to engage in all these, the GreenID was definitely a success.
LEP is an initiative that was started with the poor people of Nam Curong Commune in mind. It was a standard project that was in a strict compliance with several policy guidelines such as the Ottawa Charter on Health Promotion and the Commission on Social Determinants of Health. According to the latter, health-related programs should always seek to address certain determinants of health (Ngo, Hales & Lohmann 2018). Basically, the commission came up with three principal areas of action: 1) improvement of conditions of daily life, 2) tackling the problem of inequality in the distribution of power, money and other resources, and 3) measurement of the problem, evaluation of its impacts, and coming up with an action plan (World Health Organization 2016). Without any fear of contradiction, this paper asserts that LEP fits into two of the above principals.
LED fits into the first principal which expresses that all programs must be aimed at the improvement of the conditions of the daily lives of the target population. As already hinted, the GreenID had expressed its displeasure with the status of the Nam Curong Commune commu. The cases of poverty and suffering have persisted because the entire community is living in a reclaimed land. Since it was initially a sea, the region has become challenging to live in and comfortably fit because it has become vulnerable to a wide range of environmental problems like landslides, salinisation, storm surges, and torrential rains. What it means is, therefore, that the people must be empowered to enable them overcome such challenges and minimize the magnitude of their impacts on them. Hence, with the introduction of the LEP, the organization would come up with strategies to address all these changes and improve the quality of life of the people (Jones, Comfort & Hillier 2016). On the other hand, the program fit into the second princiopal which advocates for equality in the distribution of power and other such like essential resources. A thorough analysis of the program reveals that it was deeply concerned about the por status of the Nam Curong Commune people. The isolation of the community from the rest of the Vietnamese population and its susceptibility to natural disasters had deprived it of electricity. However, without electricity, life would not run smoothly because it would interfere with domestic and industrial pursuits in the community. That is why the NGO decided to allocate enough resources to enable these people to get green energy sources such as biogas, LED lights, solar hurricane lump, solar water heater, and other resources like the reverse osmosis water supply system, and the microbial fertilizer that they never had before.
In 2012, Ilona Kickbusch published an article titled “The Determinants of Health and Well-being in the 21st Century: A New Challenge for Health Promotion” in which he came up a comprehensive analysis of the factors that influence human health in the society today. According to this scholar, human health is today influenced by a number of political, social, commercial, behavioral, and environmental factors. Kickbusch argues that the health status of individuals, families, communities or nations become what they are because of the influences from such factors. The more these determinants favor one, the higher the health status. For example, when it comes to economic factors, it must be noted that the wealthy people have higher chances of leading a health life than their poor counterparts. That happens because of the reasons such as empowerment, affordability, and accessibility to healthcare services.
Kickbusch’s ideas were fused into the program because it influenced the decision-makers who eventually chose to settle on the Nam Curong Commune dwellers instead of any other people, across the nation. From the analysis so far provided, it is evident that the Nam Curong Commune people are worse-off as compared to the rest of the Vietnamese population (Kickbusch & Gleicher 2012). The community is economically disadvantaged because it has many poor people who cannot afford the basic necessities such as food, shelter, and clothing as well as electric and other renewable sources of power. Socially, the Nam Curong Commune inhabitants are disadvantaged because they belong to the low stratum. They are poor and not empowered like the rest of the people. At the same time, they have certain cultural values which hinder them from competing with the other Vietnamese especially when it comes to health-related matters (Nsw Department of Health 2010). These people also engage in certain behaviors that hinder them from leading a healthy life. For example, activities like pollution, cutting down of trees and use of non-renewable energy sources makes them appropriate for the intended intervention program (Drolet, Dominelli, Alston, Ersing, Mathbor & Wu 2015). Moreover, these people are politically disadvantaged because their isolation from the rest of the Vietnamese populations makes them subject to political manipulations. For example, being that these people are not part of the major policy-makers, they are discriminated by the powerful political leaders who do not care even if they lack electricity. That is why most of the times; they have been experiencing unlimited power interruptions without anyone advocating for their rights (Promentilla, Thang, Kien, Hinode, Bacani & Gallardo 2016). Last, but not least, the Nam Curing Commune dwellers have been suffering from environmental disasters such as landslides, salinisation, storm surges, and torrential rains. Each of these has made them to be the right people who deserve to be assisted using LED.
The initiation, adoption and the subsequent implementation of LEP was done by applying the principles of the systems approach. Systems approach is a decision-making strategy that involves a through and objective assessment of the in the perspective of completeness and completeness. Meaning, before a decision is made, the authority should look at the whole phenomenon or issue as a complete and whole thing (Allender, Owen, Kuhlberg, Lowe, Nagorcka-Smith, Whelan & Bell 2015). It should not be considered in parts because that might lead to an ineffective decision-making process (Wang & Wang 2017). This ideology was applied in LEP because the GreenID was serious about the success of the intervention.
When making decision on the best way to implement the intervention, GreenID considered the plight of the Nam Curong Commune people in entirety. Although focus was finally made on addressing the environmental challenges facing the community, it would finally be used as a mechanism of addressing inequality that had become a persistent issue in the country’s healthcare system (Bloch, Toft, Reinbach, Clausen, Mikkelsen, Poulsen & Jensen, 2014). Having considered that, the organization took time to study the community, analyze its history, went through the available data, and made observations, before eventually making a decision that the community’s health status was both good because it’s social, economic, political, behavioral, and ecological determinants did not favor it (Bruner 2017). That is how GreenID came up with the decision of addressing the issues of environment and health because they cannot be separated from one another. The benefits of using this approach was, therefore, important because it enabled the organization to come up with the most suitable remedy to address the problem because it was arrived at after analyzing all the available alternatives (Bartus & Fisher 2016). That explains why the intervention became a success
LEP is an intervention that was well-intended. The management of GreenID was aware that it was initiating a project that would positively transform the lives of the beneficiaries. With this in mind, it is justifiable to say that the intervention was useful because it would, in the long run, promote health equity and environmental sustainability.
The intervention’s commitments to the achievement ofhealth equity can be noticed in its short and long-term goals. To begin with, its long-term goal was to minimize the threats that the women and children in the community had been facing. According to the assessment that the NGO had done, the Nam Curong’ Commune’s women had been worse-off health-wise because they had become more vulnerable to illnesses and other infections than any group in the community or Vietnam. Hence, by bridging this gap, the intervention would be striving to demonstrate its concern towards the elimination of inequalities and the promotion of equity and equality in the country’s healthcare. Inequality had been a major problem in Vietnam because it is an underdeveloped country in which healthcare services have not been evenly distributed (Tang, Tan & Ozturk 2016). Since its distribution is determined by a number of social, economic, political, and behavioral factors, the people in this locality had to be disadvantaged because all these determinants still do not work in their favor. Fortunately, with the implementation of this intervention, the community would have to be relieved because they would be put in the right path of competing with the rest of the advantaged Vietnamese populations (Fisher & Baum, 2010).
LEP proved that it was concerned about the preservation of the environment. As a n environmental-friendly organization, GreenID knew that it had to do its best to promote the sustainable utilization of the natural resources. That is why the LEP’s short-term goals were to improve the environment by eliminating all the forms of air and soil pollution; and minimizing the costs of energy (Lee, Chua, Chan, Leung, Wong & Chuh 2015). At the same time, the project was aimed at stopping the persistence inequality in the distribution of electricity. All these objectives were formulated because they would play an integral role in the conservation of the environment and sparingly using it for the benefit of the current and future generations (Rowland, Allen & Toumbourou 2012). Hence, to achieve this goal, the NGO empowered the people by providing them with the reverse osmosis water supply system and the microbial fertilizer and also helped in providing the capacity building services that would adequately empower and put them in the right path of engaging in a sustainable use of the environment.
Conclusion
LEP is an intervention project that had been implemented to help in dealing with the problem of climate change in Vietnam. It is an integrated approach that the GreenID introduced in 2012 to help in addressing energy and other technology-related issues in Nam Curong Commune. To demonstrate its commitments towards the promotion of the use of the environmental-friendly, carbon-free, and green energy, the organization decided to launch the LEP and chose to locate it amongst the Nam Curong Commune of Tien Hai District, Thai Binh Province. The intervention was a success because it achieved most ofits short and long-term goals of helping in empowering the community and salvaging it from the yoke of landslides, salination, storm surges, and torrential rains that had been troubling them for many years. However, the project would achieve this by focusing on the introduction and promotion of the use of green energy.
LEP was indeed above board because it was formulated and implemented in compliance with the policy regulations governing the operation and adoption of such like regional, communal, and national interventions. A thorough analysis of its objectives, aims, scope, approaches, and strategies demonstrate that LEP was actually people-focused and would be relied upon to positively transform the lives of the local community members. Its focus on the social determinants of health of the community justifies that the intervention was in a full compliance with and operated in consideration with the ideas of the Ottawa Charter, and the Commission on Social Determinants of Health, which had, of course, come up with certain concepts to be applied when handling such an intervention program. The incorporation of such ideas in the implementation of this project was a good idea because it enabled it to be a success story that can be emulated by other entities interested in addressing various issues of concern to the general public.
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