Central Vietnam is highly prone to water related disasters, which cause enormous loss of lives and livelihood and make sustainable development almost impossible. In late 2002 and early 2003, a pilot disaster risk communication campaign was conducted in hamlets in the lagoons of Central Vietnam, which are particularly vulnerable because of their proximity to water. The project built disaster risk communication capacity among Vietnamese government officials and the target communities. It also worked to create preparedness among the target public for storms and floods through the use of a creative campaign. The campaign itself was based on secondary and primary research and used both media and interpersonal elements.

This report provides a description of a three to five year disaster risk communication campaign strategy for Central Vietnam based on the experience of the pilot, secondary research, information provided by ADPC on pilot project implementation, monitoring and evaluation, and directions from ADPC on the content of the report itself. Because of the expanded time period and geographical focus, the report proposes a plan that encompasses two major target audiences: the public who suffers the effects of floods and storms and complementary audiences-schools/school children and youth and adult groups-as well as potential project implementers. For the same reasons, the report proposes inclusion of several (not one) knowledge, attitude, practice (KAP) foci starting with basics such as dangers of flooding and warning signals/response plans to building safe houses.

The first target audience is composed of farmers and fisherfolk who may live in Central Vietnam's lowlands and lagoons and along its coastline. The main objectives of the campaign for this group are to increase knowledge (awareness and recall) and understanding and create an intent to act, practice, and action in relation to the various KAP foci. The major creative strategy suggested for this target audience is an enter-educate approach, which embeds educational messages related to social development and issues in creative video programs. Community viewing is recommended to spread the benefit to those without television sets. Supplemental strategies include the creation of posters, booklets for children, one-pager information sheets for discussion groups, demonstrations of action foci such as safe storage of valuable materials, and contests with relevant prizes. A timeline that both intensifies the campaign within selected communities as well as expands it to other communities is outlined. A campaign calendar is recommended as a means of reminder to the public to enhance participation in scheduled activities, but also to force advance planning and maintenance of the schedule by implementers. Also as part of this campaign, it is recommended that school teachers receive content training in disaster related topics and develop (with help, if necessary) a disaster related curriculum for schools. This should be supplemented by extracurricular activities for school children. The idea is to create an integrated campaign in terms of creative, media, timeline, and audience selection strategies.

The second target audience (implementers) is composed of government officials at various levels as well as volunteers. The major suggested strategy is to provide training to this group in disaster risk communication campaign planning, implementation and evaluation as well as in content (disaster related) knowledge. This training should be experiential and if possible use the three to five year campaign as the prime exercise.

The media would be an important partner in these efforts. They are message multipliers and also serve to keep the people and leadership of a country informed. This in turn may influence public policy in a direction important for disaster preparedness. The Vietnamese government already considers disaster mitigation an important priority, but the focus on disaster preparedness to complement disaster relief, and within disaster preparedness on non-structural measures such as disaster risk communication could be reinforced by such attention.