While environmental protection strategy, laws and policies are developed at the national level in Viet Nam, the primary responsibility for implementation is at the provincial authorities level. Provincial authorities, therefore, play a critical role in enabling Viet Nam to achieve national and international environmental protection goals. But how are these governments performing in terms of meeting benchmarks, and how do they compare against each other? The lack of provincial environmental performance metrics by which to evaluate sub-national results has been identified as a critical gap in Viet Nam.

Building on 15 years of experience ranking environmental performance in countries around the world, the global Environmental Performance Index (EPI) is a proven tool in bringing a much needed, data-driven approach to environmental management. Applying the EPI methodology at the sub-national level allows for a more fine-grained assessment of baseline data and trends on key environmental issues related to ecosystem management and human health. Conducting a sub-national EPI in Viet Nam is an important diagnostic and assessment tool to help improve future environmental performance that is tailored to fit local contexts and reflect data realities on the ground.