Habitat International xxx (2015) 1e7

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Habitat International
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Decentralizing urban disaster risk management in a centralized

system? Agendas, actors and contentions in Vietnam
Matthias Garschagen
United Nations University, Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS), Germany

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 16 August 2015
Accepted 21 August 2015
Available online xxx

The merits of decentralization and public participation for designing disaster risk management according
to local needs, priorities and capacities are now widely discussed in the scientic literature and in global
policy frameworks. However, surprisingly little attention is being paid to the potential fault lines that
may result if postulations for decentralization and local empowerment areddespite being adopted on
the surfacedin conict with the (hidden) policy agendas in centralized states. Tensions between
devolution and a central grip on power can particularly emerge around topics considered of relevance for
national development, notably urban growth centers, or the legitimacy of central leadership (frequently
claimed to be essential for the effective protection against disasters and other risks). This paper therefore
uses the example of Can Tho City, which is the high-growth urban center of the ood-prone Vietnamese
Mekong Delta, to analyze in detail (1) whether and to what extent the city has a decentralized system for
disaster risk management, (2) which opportunities and challenges emerge with decentralization, and (3)
which agendas different actors from the local to the national level have to accelerate or restrict local
empowerment. The analysis, based on the review of policy documents and in-depth interviews with
party-state decision-makers as well as other stakeholders, reveals that the picture of decentralization in
Vietnam is much less clear than often proclaimed. There is a convoluted reality in which contradictory
trends of decentralization and centralization co-emerge from overlapping layers of, rst, internal political
contentions, and second, a transforming actor spectrum within the country's changing political economy
of risk reduction.
2015 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Keywords:
Disaster risk management
Vietnam
Decentralization
Adaptive governance
Urban risk

1. Introduction and rationale

Decentralization is widely seen as having a great potential for
strengthening disaster risk management (DRM) capacities (Scott &
Tarazona, 2011). This link is particularly emphasized for urban and
newly urbanizing areas where local decision-makers are responsible for a high concentration of people and assets at risk, but also
proximate response forces and infrastructure. Being close to the
problems on the ground, the activities of governmental as well as
non-governmental actors at the local level are thought to facilitate
context-specic risk management solutions that are customtailored to the specic needs, wants and capacities of local communities and economies (Garschagen & Kraas 2011). The advantages of short command chains and localized coordination of risk
response measures are also discussed in the literature (Scott &
Tarazona, 2011). Decentralized approaches to risk management
are, further, relevant in terms of integrative governance

E-mail address: garschagen@ehs.unu.edu.

perspectives. It is at the local level where the most direct and

intensive engagement of different actors usually takes place, given
that the decisions directly affect their day-to-day realities in terms
of hazard impacts and risk response activities. Also at this level,
global and national risk management and adaptation policies have
to be enacteddor fail. Decentralization has therefore become a
cornerstone of the mainstream disaster risk reduction paradigms,
advocated, for example, during the International Decade for
Disaster Risk Reduction and in the Hyogo Framework for Action
(UN 2005) as well as the more recent Sendai Framework for
Disaster Risk Reduction (UN 2015). Accordingly, decentralized
disaster risk management approaches have also been pushed forward by many national governments around the globe, notably in
Asia where signicant populations and assets are exposed to a wide
range of natural hazards, coupled with high levels of susceptibility
and considerable limits in response capacity (IPCC 2012). But the
push towards decentralized disaster risk policies goes hand in hand
with wider politico-administrative reforms in many Asian countries, especially in South and Southeast Asia. More general political
and administrative decentralization is therefore often driven

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2015.08.030
0197-3975/ 2015 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Please cite this article in press as: Garschagen, M., Decentralizing urban disaster risk management in a centralized system? Agendas, actors and
contentions in Vietnam, Habitat International (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2015.08.030

M. Garschagen / Habitat International xxx (2015) 1e7

primarily by concerns outside the domain of disaster risk reduction,

by goals such as democratization, the strengthening of administrative efciency or counter-action to local independence movements (Miller & Bunnell 2013).
However, despite the conceptual and political push for decentralization, surprisingly little attention is being paid to the potential
conicts in contexts where the postulations for the devolution of
power clash with otherwise highly centralized political and
administrative systems. Vietnam is a particularly relevant case for
exploring this question. On the one hand, the country has engaged
in considerable decentralization efforts as part of the wider reform
process (doi moi) and specically its endeavor to reduce its significant disaster risk. On the other hand, the political power structure
remains highly centralistic with a persistent one-party rule and a
strong grounding in centralized planning and management paradigms. The tensions between devolution and a central grip on power tend to emerge around topics considered of relevance for
national development. Amongst the most pressing of these is the
growth and modernization of Vietnam's urban centers, which
increasingly serve as engines for wider economic growth and national development. In particular, the country's secondary cities are
seen as essential for a balanced urban transition and regional
development process. It therefore seems important to ask whether
local governments in these cities are faced with stiff political
pressure and control from higher levelsddespite the decentralization policiesdand whether a focus on growth might exceed local
capacities and impair the cautious local decision making necessary
for long-term disaster risk mitigation.
Against this background, this paper combines the interest in
decentralized management, urban growth centers and disaster risk
hot spots. It uses the example of Can Tho City, which is the highgrowth urban center of the ood-prone Mekong Delta. The paper
analyses in detail (1) whether and to what extent the city has a
decentralized system for disaster risk management, (2) which opportunities and challenges emerge with decentralization, and (3)
which tensions and agendas can be observed to accelerate or restrict
the devolution of power. Given the strong urbanization that further
lies ahead for Vietnam and Can Tho City, disaster risk reduction is
interpreted here in a forward-looking fashion, including a long-term
perspective on the mitigation of future risks. Hence, the analysis
needs to include aspects of decentralized climate change adaptation
efforts and general urban planning, and the causal links they bear for
disaster risk reduction.
The analysis draws on expert interviews conducted in Can Tho
City between 2009 and 2013. Over 70 experts have been interviewed as part of a larger research project. These experts comprise
party-state ofcials at province, district, ward and residential block
levels as well as civil society actors and staff of international organizations with a strong track record on DRM and urban development projects in Vietnam, and Can Tho City more specically.
Obviously, only a fraction of this material can be used for the
analysis in this paper. For a more detailed account refer to the full
study (Garschagen 2014). The ndings from the expert interviews
have been complemented and juxtaposed with the analysis of
formal policy documents in order to identify and explain potential
gaps and mismatches between the formal policy framework and
actual DRM and decentralization activities.
The next section of this paper provides an overview of recent
Vietnamese decentralization policies and their achievements as
well as barriersdspecically with regards to disaster risk reduction, adaptation and urban planning. Section 3 analyses the role of
urban growth engines for Vietnam's overall national development.
Section 4 analyses the case study of Can Tho City. The nal section
draws key conclusions and provides an outlook on future directions
in decentralized disaster risk governance in Vietnam.

2. Vietnam's disaster risk governance: between

decentralization and persisting centralism
In recent years, Vietnam has been undergoing a considerable
shift towards decentralization in key elds of its policy and
administration. Many of these policy elds have direct implications
for disaster risk reduction and the capacity (or incapacity) of local
authorities to manage current disasters and to mitigate future
disaster risk in a strategic manner. Much of the shift towards
decentralization in formal policy has to be seen in connection with
the wider reform process (doi moi), specically related to liberalization and grassroots authority policies. Decentralization has
thus become a key goal in many recent policy documents, driven in
part by the standards of good governance set by international
development agencies that actively try to inuence policy-making
in Vietnam. At the same time, however, it has been argued that
decentralization is to a large extent also a by-product of the shift
towards a market economy, rather than a conscious and deliberate
policy choice (Painter, 2009).
In terms of disaster risk management (DRM), provisions for
decentralized authority and action are a key component of the
current legal architecture in Vietnam. The National Strategy for
Disaster Risk Prevention, Response and Mitigation to 2020 (172/
2007/Q-TTg; in effect since 2008) foresees a shared responsibility
between the national, provincial and local governments but stipulates that provincial- and city-level governments are to steer DRM
activities and report to the national level. In order to enable this
process, the strategy explicitly prescribes that the State decentralizes to People's Committees of provinces and districts in
investment and mobilization of legitimate resources for disaster
prevention, response and mitigation (SRV [Socialist Republic of
Vietnam], 2007). The recent Law on Natural Disaster Prevention
and Control (33/2013/QH13; in effect since mid-2014) conrms this
conguration, despite introducing slight changes to the composition of the respective bodies at the national and provincial level. In
addition, though, the new law puts explicit pressure on strengthening the role of preventive and long-term risk mitigation across all
administrative levels in order to move away from the current reality of fairly reactive disaster risk management. Yet, a questions
remains as to whether and how the current institutional set-up
enables or hinders the implementation of this principle at the
city and sub-city level. The paragraphs and case study analysis
below will hence refer back to this point.
Targeting the levels even below the city or province governments, the concept of the four on-the-spot resources has become
one of the key mottos in advocacy for strengthening local DRM
capacities in Vietnam. It refers to leadership, human resources,
materials and logistics, which shall be developed and maintained
down to the commune level in order to be deployed on-the-spot
before, during and after a disaster. The motto is explicitly outlined
in a number of legal provisions by the government and is a core
element of the aforementioned National Strategy and the Law on
Disaster Natural Disaster Prevention and Control. It is the role of
the People's Committees to organize and implement the necessary training and capacity building measures at the respective
government levels. At the same time, the motto is supposed to be
applied even at the household level through raising awareness
and building capacity. In line with Vietnam's interpretation of
socialism, the motto hence emphasizes the strength of local
communities and the general public for self-protection, and their
ability to make an effective contribution to disaster risk management. On that note, this motto links to the principle of
Community-Based Disaster Risk Reduction (CBDRM) which has
been promoted mainly by international organizations working on
DRM in Vietnam, but has found its way into major policy

Please cite this article in press as: Garschagen, M., Decentralizing urban disaster risk management in a centralized system? Agendas, actors and
contentions in Vietnam, Habitat International (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2015.08.030

M. Garschagen / Habitat International xxx (2015) 1e7

documents including the recent Law on Disaster Prevention and

Control.
Apart from the explicit policies and laws on disaster risk management, a number of other areas of policy and legislation have
signicant implications for risk reduction, especially for decentralized opportunities and constraints for long-term risk prevention. They particularly revolve around urban planning and
administration and have in principle been undergoing a shift towards decentralization, yet with distinct exceptions with respect to
major urban centers. Of key importance are the current Law on
Construction and the Law on Land (both in effect since the year
2004) as well as the new Law on Urban Planning (in effect since
2009) which is meant to update and synchronize previously
existing and often conicting legal provisions for urban planning.
The Law on Construction, for instance, species that People's
Committees at all levels shall be responsible for organizing the
formulation of construction master plans within the administrative
boundaries for which such People's Committees have been delegated administrative authority (SRV, 2003: Article 11, x3). Similarly, the Law on Urban Planning stipulates that the People's
Committees at all levels shall perform the state management of
urban planning administration in localities as decentralized by the
Government (SRV 2009: Article 14.4). Through the State Budget
Law of 1996 and its update in 2002 (SRV 2002), these shifts are
accompanied by considerable nancial decentralization (e.g. Rao
2000; Vo 2009). The result is an enhanced provincial independence with respect to the approval of development projects and the
implementation of infrastructure spending, yet with mixed outcomes for economic growth (cf. Nguyen & Anwar 2011). However,
as the next paragraph will show, cities that are considered of great
relevance for overall national development are in many respects
exempted from general decentralization. There the national ministries play a central role in planning and decision-making.
The new Law on Urban Planning draws a number of explicit
links to natural hazards and risk reduction. However, the real
impact of drawing these links on paper remains contested given
that this law only mentions risk reduction in a vague manner and
does not give it a lot of weight. Even though the Law on Urban
Planning prescribes that a central requirement of urban planning is
to protect the environment and to prevent disasters affecting the
community (SRV 2009: Article 6.3), no operationalization, standard
procedure or planning tools are specied. Land use plans and
zoning in urban areas are also required to be controlled through
strategic environmental assessments considering, inter alia, the
present hydro-meteorological conditions as well as climate change
and forecasts about environmental development over the course of
the planning horizon (Article 39.2). Yet the law does not provide
specic quality criteria or methodology standards to guide how
these assessments should be made. Even though follow-up ordinances are, in theory, envisaged to provide more detailed guidance
for operationalization, the vagueness of both the environmental
assessments and the consecutive planning measures poses significant challenges for practical implementation. This is particularly
the case in contexts where urban governments may lack awareness
and capacities to translate such general requirements into concrete
assessment and planning instruments, as the case study on Can Tho
City, below, will show.
In general, it has been argued that decentralization policies have
not had the same effect across all levels of party-state administration (Benedikter 2008). While many responsibilities have been
devolved to the city level (in cases where cities are equivalent to
provinces), the gain for the district and ward levels has been much
smaller. Hence it can be argued that the national centralism has
shifted partly into a province-centralism without having led to a
considerable increase in the opportunities for grassroots authority

(ibid.). This poses relevant questions for this study, with respect to
the freedom of urban governments at district and ward levels to
negotiate and implement local risk management mechanisms
specic to their administrative entities. Furthermore, it raises
questions about opportunities for, and barriers to, local risk
governance that includes local public participation and
empowerment.
In addition, a certain degree of re-centralization during the
1990s has been noted, due to the national government's concern
that it might lose too much control over lower levels and undermine its own power structure (Gainsborough 2004). The confusion
that might result from the contested interplay of decentralization
and recentralization is largely neglected in the literature. Nevertheless, there remain serious questions about whether the capacities (nancial and human) of local urban governments in Vietnam
are sufcient to negotiate the overall increased amount of tasks,
and especially the enhanced level of responsibility (Garschagen &
Kraas 2011; Kerkvliet, 2004). A comprehensive analysis and juxtaposition of the opportunities and challenges of decentralization for
urban risk managementdand particularly for the emerging eld of
urban climate change adaptationdis still lacking to date.
Alongside the explicit move towards decentralization, the
related liberalization reforms have yielded a broadening of the
urban actor spectrum. This leads to increasing pluralism in terms of
the forces (political and monetary) that inuence urban development directions and, hence, potential trajectories of disaster risk (cf.
Garschagen & Kraas 2011). Notably, the real estate industrydoften
tightly linked to the party-state apparatus through crony capitalismdhas gained inuence over decisions on where, when and how
new urban development projects ought to be built, with direct
effect on the generation of new exposure zones with respect to
ooding and other natural hazards. Working towards a fast return
of investment conicts, in particular, with necessary long-term and
risk-sensitive planning horizons that take future climate risks into
account (Birkmann et al. 2014; Sudmeier-Rieux et al. 2014).
Consequently, local decision-making for effective risk reduction
hasddespite the persistence of bureaucratic centralismdbecome
more multi-polar, requiring integrated governance solutions. In
order to better understand this underlying tension between urban
growth engines and risk prevention, the next section examines the
role of urban growth for the general national development
endeavor.
3. The role of urban growth for overall national development
Cities are among the main engines of Vietnam's economic
growth and the wider reform process. Despite signicant aws in
Vietnam's urban statistical data (Jones 2007; Saksena et al. 2014), a
trend towards their increased demographic and economic importance in the national context can be identied. In the mid-1980s,
shortly before the ofcial commencement of doi moi, less than 20
percent of the country's population lived in cities and towns. This
then equaled some 12 million people. The gure rose to over 30
percent in 2010, translating to over 27 million (UN DESA 2015). Also
around 2010, the country's 19 leading cities accounted for 26
percent of Vietnam's population, but contributed 43 percent to the
national GDP, largely through their industry and service sectors
(World Bank 2011). This underscores the considerable role that
cities have been playing in the wider economic transition of the
country. While the agricultural sector contributed over 40 percent
to the national GDP in the mid-1980s, the secondary and tertiary
sectorsdwith their strong basis in urban economiesdaccounted
for a combined 80 percent of GDP in 2010 (World Bank 2015). The
absolute size of the latter two sectors has increased roughly tenfold
over the same timeframe.

Please cite this article in press as: Garschagen, M., Decentralizing urban disaster risk management in a centralized system? Agendas, actors and
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M. Garschagen / Habitat International xxx (2015) 1e7

While Vietnam's two primary cities Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City
have played the leading demographic and economic roles, the secondary cities (such as Can Tho) are of increasing importance for
fuelling the country's urban transition. The Adjustment of the Master
Plan Orientation for Vietnam's Urban Development up to 2025 with
a Vision Toward 2050 (Decision 445/QD-TTg-2009) foresees that
mid-sized cities will take pressure off the two main urban agglomerations and help to reach a balanced and sustainable urban growth
pathway. Providing precise statistical accounts on secondary cities is
difcult given the many challenges in terms of data accuracy and the
mismatches between administrative demarcations and actual urban
extents. Nevertheless, existing data suggests that Ho Chi Minh City
and Hanoi alone account for 16 percent of Vietnam's population and
over 30 percent of its GDP (World Bank 2011). However, also the
country's secondary cities have been experiencing rapid growth. Can
Tho City's most dynamic district Cai Rang, for example, hosted
86,000 residents in 2009 but makes development provisions in its
current development master plan for an additional 120,000 to
150,000 residents in an area of 800 ha by 2025. Moreover, two new
industrial parks are planned for an area of up to 700 ha (SRV 2006).
Can Tho City is therefore envisaged to continue driving regional
progress in the Mekong Delta.
The key role of the major urban centers for national development and economic growth has translated into their special treatment within the legal architecture for urban planning and
administration. That is, those cities considered of highest importance are put under the direct control of the national government
(so-called centrally-run cities). Conrming earlier legal provisions, the Law on Urban Planning from 2009 species that this
status can be received when cities contribute key functions for the
wider socio-economic system and fulll specic criteria in terms of
population size, population density, economic prole and infrastructure. The status of a centrally-run city has ambiguous implications with regards to decentralized planning and decisionmaking. On the one hand, it gives the city increased nancial responsibility and independence in terms of tax revenues and the
approval of investment projects up to a certain threshold. On the
other hand, the general development master plans and the
fundamental decisions on the overall course of the city (and its
large-scale infrastructure projects) is tightly supervised and steered
by the national government.
There is an enormous pressure on citiesdespecially on the most
thriving urban centers under central controldto maintain strong
economic growth that is able to fuel the continuation of the socioeconomic progress of the country. After a few decades of inexplicit
and internally disputed urban development policy, this link is now
emphasized by the political leadership at the national level, given
that its legitimacy and the country's alleged stability increasingly
rest on continued socio-economic growth. At the same time, the
system of urban administrative hierarchy creates incentives for
local government leaders to push for strong growth of their cities.
This allows them to propel their city into a higher class and earn
political credit for their achievement, as well as gaining personal
prot by using their position to inform economic activities such as
land speculation prior to land reallocation (cf. DiGregorio 2015).
However, these multi-layered incentives for strong growth pose
considerable challenges for long-term disaster risk reduction: urban growth is largely guided by short-term targets and political
motives, rather than by long-term risk prevention considerations.
This conict has been analyzed in depth through the case study of
Can Tho City, where the southern Cai Rang ward in particular features extremely strong urban growth which is fuelled by the
agendas of local and national political leaders and their economic
interests, rather than by a consideration of the considerable ood
risk given by climate change trends (cf. Birkmann et al. 2014;

Garschagen 2014; Sudmeier-Rieux et al. 2014). Against this background of the political economy of urbanization and risk, the
following section examines the Can Tho case study with a specic
focus on the current situation around decentralized disaster risk
governance.
4. Can Tho City: capacities, limits and contestations of
decentralized disaster risk governance
Can Tho City, located around 180 km southwest of Ho Chi Minh
City, is one of the centrally-run cities in Vietnam due to its key
demographic and economic function for the Mekong Delta and
the entire country. As such, the local decision makers are under
immense pressure to facilitate not only continued demographic
and economic growth, but also regional development. However,
large parts of the city suffer from frequent urban ooding during
the rainy season, resulting from the combined effects of strong
rainfall, tidal ooding and water-logging. In addition, the city is in
principle vulnerable to typhoon hazards and river ooding: while
it has not experienced an extreme ood or typhoon disaster in the
recent past, both hazards are projected to intensify with future
climate change, resulting in growing disaster risk (People's
Committee of Can Tho City 2011). The combination of its shifting
risk prole and its status as a centrally-run growth center turn Can
Tho City into an interesting case study to examine whether and to
what extent the city has a decentralized system for disaster risk
governance, and what role the mitigation of future ood risk plays
in the context of an urban growth primacy.
The analysis has shown that while the city has formally implemented strongly decentralized provisions for disaster risk management in line with the national legislation, major drawbacks in
terms of decentralized capacity, awareness and empowerment
remain. In compliance with the legal DRM architecture, Can Tho has
a Committee for Flood and Storm Control at the city level and in
each district and ward. The role of these committees is to convene
the major party-state agencies relevant for DRM, and to jointly
assess vulnerabilities and make provisions for disaster risk management in terms of contingency planning, prevention, on-the-spot
response and relief. The general mode of operation is supposed to
be a decentralized approach to planning and action, guided by
general directives and check-ups from the committees at the next
higher administrative leveldan approach that in theory is thought
to foster a sense of responsibility, empowerment and proactiveness at the lower levels.
However, the interview results suggest that this end is achieved
only partially, due to a lack of local resource endowment and capacity buildingdand, particularly, the overall centralized bureaucratic structure, which hampers independent decentralized action
despite its formal codication. In fact, the very existence of de facto
decentralized planning is called into question by many of the
interviewed experts. They repeatedly argued that even if local action plans for DRM are produced at the province, district and ward
level, they often simply mirror the instructions and phrasings
handed down from the national level via the National Strategy for
Disaster Risk Reduction or intermediate circulars. This concern,
shared by many interviewees, is captured distinctively in the
following quote by a senior ofcial of the Red Cross in Vietnam.
[T]he national level cannot know if the local level will be able to
implement all of the instructions [ ]. When a hazard strikes, there
is, therefore, a big problem as the local level may not bedand in
many cases is notdable to deal with the situation. That is the
general problem stemming from the top-down planning in Vietnam. [ ] So, if you go to the planning departments in Can Tho City
and ask them for their tasks, they will just know the things that are

Please cite this article in press as: Garschagen, M., Decentralizing urban disaster risk management in a centralized system? Agendas, actors and
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M. Garschagen / Habitat International xxx (2015) 1e7

in the plan of the Committees at the higher levels. (Can Tho City,
May 2009)
Another expert shares the following view on the role of local
technical staff and party-state bureaucrats within the centralized
and rather mechanistic apparatus of state bureaucracy:
It's almost an unspoken rule, but there is no borrowing, no real
investment in the capacities of these local government ofcials
besides a kind of regular training which more relates to being a very
good bureaucrat and complying with the laws and regulations of
the communist partydand that is of course quite sad [ ]. As long
as this is not combined with an investment in the people who are
running the city, or planning for the city, or managing the city e
yes, then it's e quite difcult! (Ho Chi Minh City, May 2009)
In addition, the analysis has found serious challenges with
regards to the implementation and efcacy of the provisions for
decentralized funding for disaster risk management. The State
Budget Law requires that all local governments at province and
district levels allocate and reserve between two and ve percent of
their total budget for preventing, combating and overcoming the
consequences of natural disasters and for other important tasks of
national defense and security which may arise beyond estimates.
However, while nancial gures are always hard to get in Vietnam,
some of the interviewed experts clearly stated that this obligation is
not even closely met within Can Tho City or any of its districts. Most
experts view the so-called Flood and Storm Protection Fund as a
more relevant nancial mechanism for disaster risk preparedness
and relief work in Can Tho. This is a regular fund that is collected
from the local residents and private businesses in Can Tho City to
enable disaster risk management provisions. However, this nancial mechanism, which is entirely decentralized at the city level,
also fails to meet its targets and is not able to effectively provide for
the regular activities around disaster risk management. A senior
bureaucrat in the responsible city department explained this in
more detail:
The target for Can Tho City has been around 1.6 billion Vietnamese
dong per year over the last years [i.e. around 90,000 USD at the
time of the interviews]. However, the actual collection has usually
only totaled up to around 500 to 600 million dong. It has not been
possible to collect more. (Can Tho City, December 2009)
There is a general expectation that other nancial support for
local disaster risk management activitiesdand especially for relief
measuresdwould reach Can Tho in cases of a severe disaster. The
expectation is that this would come from central government funds
and/or private donations collected in other provinces and globally.
Appraising the potential volume of such funds and the question of
their sufciency is extremely difcult. But experience from previous disasters in other Vietnamese provinces suggests that a
considerable shortage is not unlikely, as frequent examples from
oods in Central and Northern Vietnam have shown.
On top of the consideration of immediate disaster risk management contingencies, it is also necessary to ask how strategic and
long-term disaster risk preventiondemphasized as one of the main
elds for necessary action in the 2014 Law on Disaster Prevention
and Controldrelates to general urban planning and how decentralization plays out to shape capacities and barriers in this policy
eld. The previous section of this paper has already provided a
more general introduction to this question; the interview results
help to examine it in some more detail. One of the major concerns
raised in many of the interviews is that the policy shifts at the

national level have a limited effect on the actual action and capacity
in the city. The new Law on Urban Planning outlines strong requirements for risk-sensitive land use planning to be implemented
in a decentralized manner with regards to current and future
ooding scenarios. However, the interview data suggests that this
has rather minor effects in Can Tho City, as long as awarenessraising and more practical guidance are not delivered adequately.
A senior consultant who has worked with many city governments
in Vietnam, including Can Tho City, therefore draws a rather bleak
picture:
I think the unfortunate conclusion [ ] is that the real impact [of
the new legislation] on local governments is unfortunately limited.
The processes [ ] at the local government level are still very much
the same and the level or the capacity of the people who are
running the process are also are still very much the same e while
the pressure to develop has increased immensely and the pressure
to address issues like climate change, [ ] and urban expansion
and so on e they are intensely growing. (Ho Chi Minh City, May
2009)
In particular, the long-term planning horizon and the weighting
of different priorities and interests have been mentioned as problematic issues in local urban planning practicesdfor instance,
when balancing short-term pressures from mighty real estate developers and long-term requirements for climate-proof land use
planning to avoid the generation of new ood risk zones. One of the
key informants stresses in this regard that:
I personally feel that many of the planners indeed are faced with
so many day-to-day disturbances and day-to-day challenges and
day-to-day priorities they need to address that anything which is
beyond time duration of more than e you know e ve years is very
difcult for them to grasp. (Ho Chi Minh City, May 2009)
On a more general level, the observed paradox between formal
movements towards decentralization and a continued grip of
central power surfaced in many of the interviews. Unpacking this
paradox has relevance for determining the freedom of Can Tho City
to independently plan and implement locally customized adaptation measuresdfor instance, in collaboration with international
development organizations or in accordance with guidelines provided by potential donor agencies such as the World Bank or
climate change adaptation funds. Reecting on these issues, a senior urbanization expert within a large UN organization in Vietnam
concludes the following:
The trend towards decentralization in urban planning mostly exists on paper. We have the feeling that in reality the country's urban
segment is rather experiencing a trend towards centralization
because all the important documents, master plans and so forth
have to be approved by the Ministry or even the PM [Prime Minister] in Hanoi. So in particular for those cities like Can Tho which
are climbing up the ladder of administrative levels, they do now
need to have their plans and strategies approved as they are now
centrally-run cities. They did not have this requirement when they
were smaller cities of lower administrative level in the past.
(Hanoi, March 2010)
Lastly, the case study analysis allows for exploring the local reality of one of the main conceptual and political arguments used to
justify and call for decentralization policies: that decentralization
enables an immediate interaction and active involvement of all
local stakeholders who are directly connected to the local disaster,

Please cite this article in press as: Garschagen, M., Decentralizing urban disaster risk management in a centralized system? Agendas, actors and
contentions in Vietnam, Habitat International (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2015.08.030

M. Garschagen / Habitat International xxx (2015) 1e7

either through the risk they face or through their mandates to

engage in risk reduction. In other words, decentralization is promoted to help move from disaster risk management, in which a
dened set of responsible state agencies have to plan and implement DRM provisions and actions for others (even if at a decentralized level), to a more integrative disaster risk governance
approach which collects the voices of all stakeholders and mediates
their interests as well as their potential contributions and
responsibilities.
The interview data suggest that this shift towards a more integrated governance mode was only implemented at the margins,
despite the explicitly decentralized legal architecture. Even within
the party-state apparatus, some agencies which would be highly
relevant for risk reduction play only a minor role in the city's DRM
decision-making structure. Most notably, DOLISA (the Department
for Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs) has been reported to have a
very weak voice in the Committees for Flood and Storm Control in
the city and its districts. While DONRE (the Department for Natural
Resources and the Environment) and DARD (the Department for
Agriculture and Rural Development) largely approach DRM from an
engineering or natural science perspective, the leverage of DOLISAdwhich would in theory advocate for a stronger consideration of
social vulnerabilitiesdis perceived to be much weaker.
Additional shortcomings can be identied with regards to a
meaningful engagement of the local population in decision-making
on DRM. On the one hand, the interview data shows that there is
considerable personal interaction around risk management measures between the population in ood affected areas of Can Tho and
the party-state representatives at the ward (phuong) and residential block (khu vuc) level. Even though this channel of contact seems
to be diminishing along with changing urban lifestyles and the
softening of socialist community elements, local People's Committee representatives or Fatherland Front ofcers have been found
to be personally issuing storm warnings to the most vulnerable (e.g.
single elderly households), or to engage in preparation, evacuation
or relief efforts for these households. However, given that these
activities are performed by actors at the very local level of administration, the lines between their formal roles and simply personal
ties are uid: party-state representatives at this level are often also
neighbors, relatives or friends of the recipients of formal support.
Hence, the principles of state-society interaction at this level
cannot necessarily be translated upwards. In addition, the narrative
and performance of this support largely limits the respective
population to the role of party-state support recipients, while the
party-state is celebrated as caretaker and risk-manager in a paternalistic manner.
However, more thorough participation and empowerment in
strategic decisions around risk reduction strategies and measures
rarely takes place. It is particularly lacking with respect to controversial measures that have the potential to draw opposition, and
are often implemented against the will of the affected populationdfor example, slum resettlement programmes in Can Tho
City (cf. Garschagen, in press). The following quote by a senior
Vietnamese researcher with ample professional and scientic experiences in assessing planning processes illustrates this point in
very clear language:
The system to protect community participation is lacking [ ].
[T]here is no law to protect them if they have a different idea, or if
they have a controversial idea. So who will protect them? That is
why people [are] afraid. (Hanoi, May 2010)
The ndings therefore underscore that the prospects for local
participation and empowerment depend greatly on the overall
political culture and do not automatically follow from

decentralization provisions. Resettlement programmes as well as

many other risk reduction and adaptation measures related to urban land use planning or protective infrastructure and building
design are not subject to wider participation during the planning
stage, despite the provisions for decentralized planning.
5. Conclusions
The synthesis of the above analysis yields a fairly convoluted
picture due to the opposing trends of decentralization and
centralization in policy agendas. The ndings therefore suggest that
the situation of urban decentralizationdand specically the
conguration of decentralized disaster risk prevention and
response in Vietnam's secondary citiesdis much less clear or
straightforward than often proclaimed. Rather, the ambiguity of the
current set-up emerges as the overarching characteristic.
Decentralization concepts have spread widely in formal policies,
and have been codied in the legal provisions regulating the
Vietnamese state bureaucracy. This includes in particular the policy
eld of disaster risk management, as the strong emphasis on the
local capacity motto as well as on Community-Based Disaster Risk
Management show. As in many other transition countries, these
policy shifts are driven as much by traveling international paradigms of policy and practice, as by the Vietnamese reform process
and the party-state's quest for navigating organizational change
that enables continued socio-economic progress and secures political acceptance (and eventually legitimacy).
However, the analysis of Can Tho City has also shown that the
calls for decentralization, and particularly for decentralized disaster
risk management, are in many respects faced with serious challenges of implementation due to local capacities and resources.
Most notably, decentralization has thus far been interpreted and
enacted primarily as the devolution of tasks and responsibilities,
while no substantial investment can be identied in capacity
building and procedural adjustment at the local level. While some
of these challenges have been acknowledged by other assessment
projects in the past (e.g. van Etten 2007; Garschagen & Kraas 2011),
the analysis in this paper went further and penetrated the more
subtle layers of challenges and conicts for decentralized decisionmaking and risk reduction in Vietnam's transitioning urban political economy. This deeper analysis has yielded a perplexing
paradox: The more risk management action shifts away from
reactive and ad hoc disaster response towards preventive risk
mitigation that is built into the very urban structure, the more
subtle (but at the same time fundamental) the obstacles to truly
decentralized risk governance that adheres to the principles of local
participation and empowerment become.
The analysis of Can Tho City suggests that this discrepancy is
particularly pronounced in the country's rapidly growing secondary cities. On the one hand, these cities contribute strongly to
Vietnam's urban transition and economic growth. The political
leadership expects them to function as incubators of regional
development and modernization and to deliver a balanced national
urbanization process, taking pressure off the two leading megacities. Local decision-makers in these secondary cities are therefore
faced with substantial growth expectations while also being faced
with increasing pressure from the private economy to facilitate
prots from real estate development, industry and other businesses. On the other hand, the capacity and expertise within the
bureaucratic apparatus of the formerly small cities is not sufcient
to navigate and plan for the strong urban expansion and the
emerging disaster risks.
Even more important for understanding Vietnam's urban
disaster risk management, however, is a tension that is equally
fundamental and subtle: On the one hand, there are the

Please cite this article in press as: Garschagen, M., Decentralizing urban disaster risk management in a centralized system? Agendas, actors and
contentions in Vietnam, Habitat International (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2015.08.030

M. Garschagen / Habitat International xxx (2015) 1e7

leadership's political and legal decentralization codications,

which, it seems, are often adopted only on paper, to comply with
international standards and to please the international donor
community. On the other hand, there are the persisting forces of
centralized power and hierarchical, even authoritarian, decisionmaking procedures. Disaster risk reduction might, at rst sight,
appear to be an unproblematic policy eld in this regard: how could
anybody not agree to proper disaster risk management? However,
the issue becomes highly contested when shifting disaster risk
reduction towards preventive measures which are integrated into
wider urban development considerations, but which challenge the
existing political economy of urban growth and the political culture
of paternalistic and authoritarian state-society relations.
On that note, the ndings suggest that truly decentralized and
inclusive risk governance will not be possible in Vietnam's main
cities unless the deeper institutional congurations of power and
political will, as well as the structures of the currently prevailing
urban political economy, are overcome. The paper therefore cautions against a supercial or uncritical engagement with decentralization and local empowerment policies for urban disaster risk
management, in terms of both scientic analysis and practical
work. At the same time, the paper urges a closer examination of the
disaster risk governance implications resulting from the pervasive
political economy of urban growth and expansion that can be
observed in many secondary cities within countries undergoing a
process of urban transition.
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Please cite this article in press as: Garschagen, M., Decentralizing urban disaster risk management in a centralized system? Agendas, actors and
contentions in Vietnam, Habitat International (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2015.08.030