The cooperation between the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Government of Vietnam in the past 43 years has obtained remarkable success. More importantly, FAO always supports Vietnam to respond to climate change to minimize harmful effects on the agricultural sector and carry out the 2030 Agenda to ensure global food security.

With its effective agricultural cooperation with FAO, Vietnam changed from a food-short country to a rice exporter. However, increasing natural disasters and climate change adversely affected people's livelihoods and trade performance at both national and global scales.

According to the World Bank, Vietnam is one of five countries in the world that will be severely exposed to climate change and sea-level rise. Climate change poses potential risks to national stability and development and results in migration waves. In the last 10 years, 1.7 million people have migrated out of the Mekong Delta while only 700,000 people have moved in. This migration rate is twice as high as the national average.

In that context, responding to climate change to minimize impacts on agriculture is one of the important cooperation goals between FAO and Vietnam. Mr. Nguyen Song Ha, Assistant Chief Representative of FAO in Vietnam, said, in the past years, FAO has introduced many plant varieties and farming techniques to Vietnamese farmers to meet local people’s food needs. Since the mid-1990s, FAO has taken the lead in the Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Program, which has created sustainable growth in crops and laid the foundation for Vietnam's IPM Project, which was launched in 2015. Since 2012 when the United Nations Secretary-General launched the “Zero Hunger” Initiative, Vietnam immediately joined. Since 2004, FAO has cooperated with Vietnam's agriculture and health sectors to continuously deal with disease risks, including establishing an epidemiological surveillance network, building a management framework to reduce drug resistance in livestock and aquaculture.

Currently, FAO and Vietnam are implementing the “One Health” Program and reviewing the IPM Program in the spirit of the United Nations International Year of Plant Health 2020, aiming to provide radical solutions to ensure long-term national food security. In particular, FAO also worked with the United Nations and Vietnam agencies to develop the Action Program "Zero Hunger by 2025" and joined the United Nations Decade of Nutrition Action (2016 - 2025). 2025) with many integrated nutrition and agriculture programs and projects implemented effectively.

Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Quoc Doanh said that FAO has been committed to jointly promoting a smart food system to adapt to climate change and develop sustainably, not only to ensure food security and nutrition for nearly 100 million Vietnamese people, but also strive to become a transparent, responsible and sustainable food supplier for the world.

Ms. Rana Flowers, Chief Representative of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and Chief Representative of FAO in Vietnam, said that stakeholders will work together to find plans to restructure and operate the national food system, plans to solve arising problems; open further dialogues at national and local levels, thereby determining appropriate approaches to national and local realities to make Vietnam's food system more comprehensive, sustainable and resilient.

In the future, FAO is committed to supporting Vietnam to realize the 2030 Agenda, while fully supporting Vietnam's changes, including regional and global issues.