Date Milestone Highlights
1985 Hanoi Water Supply Project
Establishes the brand ‘Nước Phần Lan in the minds of Hanoi and boosts reputation of Finland in Vietnam
1990 Haiphong Water and Sanitation Project includes:
1. Conversion of bucket latrines
2. Introduce sewer jetting and dredging techniques 3. Improve faecal sludge management system 4. Improve solid waste management collection 5. Capacity development of SADCO/URENCO
6. Preparation of WB Haiphong Sanitation Project – upgrading and extension of combined DS system
7. Proposed first separate sewer system in Haiphong is abandoned when demarcated land for wastewater treatment ponds cannot be secured by the PPC.
Dec 2003 Appraisal Report The recommendations of the appraisal include:
1. Focus TA on the strengthening of the PWCs 2. Support government’s ‘equitization’ process 3. Emphasizing water sector investments 4. Focus on improving the storm water network 5. Piped wastewater systems are unaffordable Apr 2004 Phase I Programme
Document Red River Delta (Haiphong City plus 3 provinces) Budget: Finland €19 million | Vietnam €1.8 million Investment Budget for DS: EUR 2.7 million
May 2004 Signed Agreement on WSPST
Phase I
Aug 2004 WSPST Begins Mobilisation of the Management Consultant
Aug 2005 Provincial TA Mobilized TA Consultants: Plancenter Ltd (later FCG) | POYRY Jul 2006 Phase I Mid-Term Review Recommends “sewage conveyance system could be
combined with run-off waters. Wastewater treatment could consist of low-cost aerated lagoons dimensioned to treat sewage flow and ‘first flush’ of rain water”
Finds “community not yet a high demand on sanitation services, especially DS and not willing to pay for them”
Finds “management of DS schemes requires careful consideration to find proper and effective solutions.
Nov 2008 Phase II Final Draft PD Mar 2009 Comments on Phase II Draft
PD Key Recommendation: “In principle, no further new investments in centralised sewerage schemes should be approved, unless overriding arguments apply, instead we recommend regarding the development of the centralised sanitation services as a pilot and learning area and to use the Phase I towns with sewage schemes as test towns. In addition, we recommend that in these test towns a model will be developed, which aims at achieving 100% coverage in the use of sustainable sanitation services. For this, on- site options should also be considered”
Date Milestone Highlights Phase I
Apr 2009 Phase I Final Evaluation
Report Basic designs cover only town centres and do not take into account possible future expansion of DS schemes making it technically difficult to connect other clusters
“TPCs, whose experience and capacity with O&M reaches not much further than cleaning open drainage channels, which often is not managed properly due to lack of resources and/or capacities. The management model for sewerage that is developing in WSPST does not foresee support to the owner or service provider, which raises serious concerns for the sustainability and quality of these services. A not properly managed DS scheme may pose a higher risk to the environment and public health than present sanitation practices”
Jun 2009 Phase II Programme Document
Aug 2009 Phase I Completion Report 07 DS schemes under construction in ‘old’ provinces 23 investment reports, basic designs (including 12 DS projects) and bid documents for Phase II are complete Concerns regarding quality of local design consultants Concerns raised with regard to future O&M for the DS Suggests more on-site sanitation, and raises concerns regarding future connections and willingness to pay Phase II
Sep 2009 Phase II Begins TA Consultants: WSP | ANYCON | POYRY
Apr 2010 Annual Report 2009 None of the 7 DS schemes that started construction in Phase I have been completed by the end 2009
Jun 2010 Review of Basic WS/DS
Design Identifies multiple flaws in the design of WS and DS designs prepared during Phase I. Flaws mostly related to technical issues, design standards, functionality of the system and contractual matters. Includes method for checking basic design report and bidding dossiers.
Nov 2011 Phase II Mid-Term Review 1. Identifies a need for sanitation design guidelines 2. Contractors operating DS, do not report defects 3. WWTPs not operating, sludge treatment unresolved 26.10.2012 Status of DS in Phase I
Towns
[A report requested by the SC]
1. Multiple problems preventing hand-over of schemes 2. Multiple concerns of residents and project owners 3. Low connection rates and low willingness to pay 3. Access roads to WWTP for O&M missing in designs 4. Need to calculate O&M costs for most DS schemes Nov 2012
[21.11.2012]
Analysis of options for the implementation of Phase II DS
[MOC, Embassy and TA meet to discuss options for Phase II DS in light of report of 26.10.2012]
TA provide an opinion on 3 options for Phase II DS 1. Complete 3 DS and cancel the remaining 9 DS 2. Complete 2 DS in each province and cancel 4 DS 3. Convert all planned 12 DS into combined sewers to avoid building a further 12 non-functional WWTPs
Programme Management and Provincial Programme Directors ‘agree on the application of Option 3’
03.12.2012 TA Proposal for Phase II DS MFA request TA for more information and justification for Option 3 to allow SC to make an informed decision regarding the 12 Phase II DS projects.
Date Milestone Highlights Phase II
18.12.2012 Implementation of Phase II DS
PowerPoint presentation to 10th SC by TA consultants 18.12.2012 Minutes of the 10th SC
Meeting “The Embassy of Finland welcomed the improvement proposal by the TA team but noted a Second Opinion has been commissioned and its recommendations should be incorporated into the implementation plan”
“The key issue for MFA is that water supply and sanitation always go hand in hand. Therefore, waste water treatment plants must be constructed in all towns where Finland finances water supply”.
Dec 2012 Second Opinion on DS schemes
Recognises that savings on construction of the WWTPs would accrue to PPCs but recommends proper end-of-pipe treatment plants shall be provided to all networks but only after connection rates reach a threshold.
Multiple recommendations to overcome the problems in Phase I but most of these are only statements of intent of what needs to be done, rather than solutions.
Oct 2013 Completion Report Lessons learned include:
1. Design-Build concept results in poor quality designs 2. Severe problems with the quality of construction 3. Continued unresolved O&M management model 4. Continued unresolved budget allocation for O&M 5. No facilities at WWTP for sludge treatment + FSM 6. Major sustainability risk for DS – low connection rates lead to low income and low sewage flows
Nov 2013 Phase II Ends 4,870 HH are connected to DS in 7 towns in 9 years Phase III
Nov 2013 Programme Document Target DS HH connections at end Phase III is 14,500 Dec 2013 Phase III Begins TA Consultants: ECONET/Finland | HALCOM/Vietnam Nov 2017 Completion Report Phase III Additional 4,430 HH connected to DS during Phase III
Lessons learned include:
1. Demand for improved wastewater management is still low in Vietnam. Pushing wastewater infrastructure development as a condition for investment in WS leads to mis-investments. There are many WWTPs with very low (sometimes negligible) influent in WSPST towns and elsewhere in Vietnam. In such cases investment in wastewater treatment has been premature. In terms of public health, it would be more important – in most cases – to get sewage out of densely populated areas to be discharged further away, even at the cost of temporary concentration of negative environmental impacts.
2. Service areas of WS and DS only cover central areas of towns [and by extension many poor/vulnerable and ethnic minority people live outside the service areas.]
Nov 2017 Project Completion Dossier Project description + drawings for all WS/DS schemes Source: As indicated in the table above