Quality Assurance and Support for Phu Quoc Sustainable Water Management Project Preparation

Phu Quoc is the largest island of Vietnam, located in the south-west province of Kiên Giang. It benefits from a rich natural environment, which contributed to the booming of touristic activities. However, its rapid development did not go hand in hand with the planning of adequate infrastructure and has brought about a series of intertwined environmental issues which are exacerbated by an increasing vulnerability to climate change, and have deteriorated its local ecosystems, thus posing a growing threat on the sustainability of its development.

To address these challenges, the Kiên Giang Provincial Government is preparing the World Bank financed Phu Quoc Sustainable Water Management Project (SWMP) to:

• Secure water supply and improve access to clean water;
• Mitigate flood risks;
• Improve water quality and reduce environmental pollution from waste;
• Build capacity for sustainable management of local service provision and infrastructure and raise community awareness.

The assignment aimed to support the World Bank Task Team in ensuring and enhancing the quality of Phu Quoc SWMP preparation by carrying out a review of project preparation documents and providing recommendations to the World Bank.

The objective was to verify the reliability of analyses and provide recommendations aiming to improve these, to safeguard the proposed infrastructure’s design met the Project Development Objectives, was technically sound, economically, and financially viable, and environmentally and socially sustainable.