Leadership Training for Sustainable City Development Strategy of Danang

(Danang, 14/10/2012) Danang Institute for Socio-Economic Development (DISED), United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) in collaboration with Centre for Leadership and Policy Studies of Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics and Public Administration (HCMA), GIZ and Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) organized the course on “Leadership training for Sustainable City Development Strategy of Danang” to increase capacity and ownership local leaders in planning and implementing development policies and programs for Danang City. Distinguished guests attending the training course were officials of DISED, representatives of departments, boards and branches of People’s Committee, People’s Council and senior officials of concerned agencies and boards.

Danang is one of the most dynamic cities of Vietnam. Thanks for proper socio-economic development policies, political determination of the leaders and the consensus and support of citizens, Danang has achieved miracle breakthroughs. Infrastructure especially traffic infrastructure has been invested for improvement, urban areas have been renovated and extended, environment for investment and business is enabled. Those partly promote the development of agriculture, fisheries and industry as well as commerce and services.

Although Danang has received outstanding achievements, Danang is still having many difficulties in building up a sustainable development strategy. At the opening ceremony of the course, Mr. Phung Tan Viet, member of the Municipal Party Committee, Vice Chairman of Danang People's Committee, said: "This is a precious opportunity for the leaders, elected representatives and planning specialists of Danang to learn and share experience, enhance their leadership capacity in order to address the challenges of sustainable development, increase the accountability and transparency, enhance the capacity to direct and develop policies, integrate emerging cross-cutting issues into long-term development strategy. I believe that with the consultation and training of lecturers who are international and local experts, the course will help the attendants to find dynamic ways of thinking and build up a new vision to change their old attitudes and thinking in leadership."

Dr. Nguyen Quang, Habitat Programme Manager of UN-HABITAT stated that " United Nations Human Settlements Programme is always ready to assist Danang City in developing Socio-Economic Development Strategy with focus on mainstreaming green growth, climate change response and sustainable urban governance and in acting as a bridge to promote policy dialogue between city leaders and stakeholders. Danang is a dynamic city which is recognized as development model of Vietnam. If Danang achieves the sustainable socio-economic development, it will provide valuable experience for other localities across the country".