INDICATORS OF SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC VULNERABILITY TO CLIMATE CHANGE IN VIETNAM by W. Neil Adger CSERGE Working Paper GEC 98-02 INDICATORS OF SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC VULNERABILITY TO CLIMATE CHANGE IN VIETNAM

This paper outlines a framework for analysing social vulnerability to the impacts of global warming-induced climate change in the context of an agrarian centrally planned country in transition to a market economy. This approach explicitly highlights the winners and losers in adaptation, based on the concepts of entitlements and social vulnerability. An approach to defining and observing social vulnerability is proposed and an illustration of the approach is outlined for the impacts of climate extremes in rural Vietnam. Vulnerability is the exposure of individuals or collective groups to livelihood stress as a result of the impacts of climate extremes and climate change. The framework therefore suggests that social vulnerability to climate change is made up of individual and collective aspects which can be disaggregated, but are linked through the political economy of markets and institutions. The indicators of individual vulnerability are the incidence of poverty and the riskiness of income sources to extreme events. Changes in collective vulnerability are indicated through changes, in distribution of resources within a population, and by institutional changes which can either enhance security or exacerbate vulnerability. Field based research in one agricultural District in northern Vietnam gives an empirical example of the implementation of this theoretical framework. Results show that baseline social vulnerability is enhanced by some institutional and economic factors associated with Vietnam’s economic transition from central planning, known as Doi Moi or renovation, namely the breakdown of collective action on protection from extreme events; increasingly skewed income; and increasing non-farm investment in aquaculture and other resources. Poverty, as measured through poverty severity and other composite indices, is falling in the case study area, and hence economic growth is shown to be enhancing security through reducing individual risk. A model of changes in inequality parameters and decomposition of these by income source, shows that increasing reliance on aquaculture in coastal Districts Vietnam is both driving income inequality and increasing livelihood risk. Offsetting these trends are other institutional changes associated with the dynamic nature of the economic restructuring and evolution of the market transition in Vietnam, which enhance security and decrease baseline vulnerability. The paper concludes that the economic structural causes of vulnerability can be determined within such a framework which expands on the present analysis of vulnerability within climate impact analysis. It further suggests policy lessons for economies in transition in the areas of public policy for poverty alleviation and environmental management.