The Infrastructure Bias in Vietnamese Climate Change Adaptation

The impacts of climate change become increasingly evident and prevalent, and adaptation responses are taking shape around the world. This working paper hones in on adaptation in central Vietnam, an area highly vulnerable to floods and storms as well as to climate change.

Government officials in central Vietnam consistently prioritise 'hard' infrastructure solutions over so-called 'soft' adaptation strategies. But this preference comes with a price: It is inflexibleto unknown future changes and the opportunity cost of overlooking soft adaptation strategies.

This DIIS Working Paper examines the infrastructure bias, the drivers behind it and the path dependency they create. It goes beyond a focus on climate change adaptation, also considering the costs of the infrastructure bias for socio-economic development and the relationship of local people to their environment. The findings are pertinent to other climate change adaptation contexts globally and will inform a cross country comparison of institutions and adaptation through the Climate Change and Rural Institutions programme.