In Da Nang’s many coastal storm- and flood-prone neighborhoods, climate impacts threaten to erode the local quality of life. A microcredit and technical assistance program was designed by ISET-Vietnam and Da Nang Women’s Union and funded by the Rockefeller Foundation to address this problem, with three core activity areas.

The project made sure that the provision of loan is accompanied with adequate assistance in the management of families’ income and repayment of the loan. A small grant alongside the loan will provide an extra boost for very poor households. If a loan is given without the help in spending it wisely, or in managing repayment, it might end up not doing any good for the household, and even become an extra burden to them.

• Revolving loan scheme and savings offer poor and near-poor living in substandard housing with low-interest financing support that they can use to reinforce or reconstruct their homes to storm-resilient standards. The loan size, term and payment schedule are customized to suit households’ financial situation and income flow. Each household was provided with a credit loan for house retrofitting or rebuilding, with loan amount and payment schedule tailored to the needs and income stream of specific households, given the household’s commitment to following recommended storm-resilience guidance. The credit loans, granted at a low interest and with a prolonged payment schedule, were managed by the Da Nang Women’s Union, who with a network extended to the grassroots level, stayed attune to the personal and financial situation of each household to make sure repayments are made on time, and that if the household face any unexpected difficulties, to reasonably delay their payment schedule as needed.
• Technical assistance provides technical support from a local architecture firm (CVAC) to conduct surveys, assess technical needs, design housing improvements or new construction, and supervise construction.
• Capacity development provides training for Women’s Union staff on climate, community- based disaster risk reduction, and micro-finance management. Through this new team of Women’s Union trainers, program participants at the community level learned skills for financial management and community-based risk reduction. The trainings focused on:
  • How to manage their finances, because all participating households received either a loan or a grant which they put together with their own savings for the house construction/retrofitting. This helped to ensure that the households manage their finances wisely to repay the loan on time, or if they encounter any difficulties, they know how to get support and apply for an adjustment in repayment schedule. The repayment rate of all the program’s loan was 100% which was a great success.
  • Storm-resilience construction techniques. This was provided to the families by the same Architecture company who provided customized design for the houses (CVAC). It is typical that the families are very involved in the construction process, many of the families also have member(s) who work as construction workers, and they participated directly in building/repairing their houses. Therefore, they had an opportunity to apply the technique directly and can help to replicate the application of the techniques on other houses. The architecture company also provided close monitoring of the construction process to make sure it followed the design and techniques, and this also helped households to see and learn.

Examples of houses adopting the storm-resistant design

Luu Thi Kim Hoang, Tho Quang, Category 4 house, retrofitting

Address: Area 38, Tho Quang ward, Son Tra district, Da Nang City

 Nguyen Thi Sang, Man Thai, single mother, reconstruction

Address: Area 9, Man Thai Ward, Son Tra district, Da Nang city

Mrs. Sang is a single mother who is now living with her younger daughter. Total cost for the 40m2 house to be rebuilt to storm-resistant standard must have been around 250 million dongs, but she had been able to save up to 80 million of labor cost with the help of her brothers. Her older brother is a local builder and her younger brother is a construction worker. They, especially the younger brother, helped her do all the construction work for the whole 3 months.

With the 30 million dong loan from the WU and some self-savings, she also had to summon most of the cost from borrowings from relatives. Time has been hard for her and her daughter.

But also because of her difficult situation, Mrs. Sang received special care and support not only from her family, but also the “favorable treatment” from the project architecture consultant – Mr. Binh and his staff. Mr. Binh is the designer and supervisor of all houses under this project. The design is provided for free – tailored house by house.

“He dropped by every now and then, I just have to make a phone call and he’d be here. If not him in person, he’d send Tuong. But very often he would come. He didn’t visit any other household so often.”

“Tuong is also a very good boy.” Everybody agreed about that. He often helped take the WU girl – Ms. Dung – to Mrs. Sanh’s house any time they went on the monitoring visit. “Just so you can save some money on petrol. The project households are very far apart.” Dung quoted what Tuong said to her.