Warning signals, wind speeds and what next: A pilot project for disaster preparedness among residents of Central Vietnam's lagoons

This paper describes a pilot disaster preparedness campaign for Central Vietnam. Central Vietnam is highly prone to water related disasters, which result in an enormous loss of lives and livelihood and make sustainable development almost impossible. Residents in the lagoons of Central Vietnam, who are particularly vulnerable because of their proximity to water, were the target audience for this project. The project first built social marketing capacity among Vietnamese government officials and community leaders, and then used their input as well as secondary and primary research to prepare the campaign. The significance of the project lies in the fact that this may be one of the first projects in Vietnam to systematically plan a campaign based on social marketing principles. These principles are new in Vietnam, a communist country that has only recently introduced economic reform. The project thus signals the greater acceptance of nonstructural and particularly social marketing= communication approaches to disaster preparedness, where in the past the emphasis has been on structural solutions such as building dykes and dams. The project is also part of a shift that is taking place in disaster mitigation where disaster relief, the mainstay to date, is now coupled with disaster preparedness.