Capacity for disaster risk management Vietnam is a country highly vulnerable to climate change, particularly members of Tinh Thuong Fund (Affection Fund) # TYM (with 100% women) in 12 provinces  in the North and Central of Vietnam are highly vulnerable to the impacts of disaster risks and climate change.
People in these areas are witnessing more extreme rainfall with less predictable and unseasonal, more frequent typhoons and storm surges, and unseasonal fluctuations in ambient temperatures. Livelihoods such as farming and fishing are beingaffected by this, and as a result local communities have less income and face food insecurity. According to the World Bank, Vietnam loses 1-1.5 percentof GDP annually (approximately US $257 million) because of disasters such as floods, typhoons, landslides and drought. The agricultural sector, which contributes about 21 percent of GDP, is particularly affected by disasters and changes in the climate. An increase in the temperature, sea level rise, saltwater intrusion in freshwater and water scarcity canall lead to loss of arable land, loweryields and higher costs for both farmers and traders.
TYM is a micro-finance institution and their mission is to improve the livingquality of low income women and their families, especially poor and disadvantaged women by providing financial and non # financial services, currently serving almost 150,000 poor and low-income women in 12 provinces. However they are facing some challenges: (i) lack of awareness and capacity to identify climate and disaster risks as wellas and mitigation measures to make well-informed decisions on how best to respond to environmental challenges so that they can minimise losses; (ii) their women members in poor households are often the most affected by disasters and climate change impacts but they are coping with these situations in an ad-hoc manner asthey have low awareness on disaster and climate risks that impact their business and less access to information on risks and adaptive measures compared to men; (iii) TYM and their members are lack of capacity to integrate disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climatechange adaptation (CCA) measures into their business strategies to ensure their business continuity; (iv) lack of a resilience standard in the credit system to effectively buildresilience to disasters and climate change risks for borrowers (low income women) and TYM. The natural hazards and climate change have brought negative impact on the business continuity and resilience of TYM members (borrowers who are mainly low income women) leading to economic losses for both members/ borrowers and TYM. Additionally, Oxfam Novib at The Hague has agreed to provide TYM a loan of 1.5 million Euro under the Thematic Unit on Governance and Financial Flows, for that reason there is a strong need of implementing DRR/CCA interventions and support for TYM as a borrower.
This project is designed tobuilding resilience to disaster and climate risks of low income women and their families, especially poor and disadvantaged women through increased capacity and credit system which is piloted in 3 provinces (Nam ##nh, Thanh Hóa and Ngh# An) and develop a plan forreplicating in all TYM#s operation areas (12 provinces)