by Carol Haffke, Public Information Officer

03 June 1999

Bonn, Germany: With his boots sinking slowly into the mud and relentless heat forcing him to squint and wipe sweat from his brow repeatedly, Kester Scandrett was nevertheless delighted at the scene before him. About a dozen women were carrying bamboo poles across their shoulders with baskets balanced precariously on either side, each filled to capacity with mud dredged from a nearby river. Another group of workers packed the mud firmly into the crest of a 10km-long sea dyke. "They’re filling in the cracks," Kester said delightedly, to no one in particular. The 26-year-old Australian engineer was genuinely excited. Based at Dap Day, a rural area one hour from Hanoi where the main laboratory for the UNDP project is located, he had spent 18 months as a UNV, sharing valuable advice with the Vietnamese people in their never-ending battle with the elements.

Vietnam is one of the most disaster-prone countries in the world. It suffers regularly from severe drought, while often elsewhere in the country, floods can threaten lives and livelihoods. In fact, it is estimated that more than 70% of the country’s population is at risk from typhoons, floods, storm surges, flash floods, landslides and mudflows. Over the past 25 years, more than 13,000 people have been killed by such disasters. The peak typhoon season, from August to October, is particularly threatening in northern Vietnam. In 1997, Typhoon Linda – the most severe typhoon to hit southern Vietnam in more than 90 years – killed more than 3000 people and caused more than US$400 million in damages. Vietnam is a poor country and while it enjoys an admirable and age-old tradition of constructing sea dykes, further assistance and advice is always welcomed.

As a sea dyke engineer on a UNDP project, and working in conjunction with two larger World Food Programme (WFP) projects, Kester’s main task was to co-ordinate much-needed technical assistance for Vietnamese engineers and laboratory technicians to train them in advanced methods and international standards for quality control management. Provincial laboratories were also established to allow more detailed analysis of soil and concrete construction materials.

With more than 2,000 years of practice in building sea dykes the Vietnamese have developed elaborate systems to counter the threat of water disasters, and today more than 7,000km of river and sea dykes have been constructed. The UNDP and WFP projects have helped 830,000 people enjoy better protection from natural disasters while 28,000 hectares of land have been made safe for cultivation. "People living in coastal areas and people in low-lying provinces are very vulnerable to typhoons and storms and flooding," Kester explained. "The dykes are pretty much their only defence against getting washed away. It has been my observation that as dykes are being built or rehabilitated, people become more confident about living in these areas and so plant their crops and build their homes there. That’s really good to see."

Local engineers have also neglected information sharing in the past, but international donors and aid agencies are increasingly insisting on comprehensive data which accounts for every dollar spent. "Our goal was to help the Vietnamese to be more clear about what they were doing, why they were doing some work in a particular place, for example, and at a particular time, and then assist them to explain all of this to their funding organisations," Kester said. "There is a lot of work that needs to be done and a lot of money will be spent and they need to be able to prioritise. I also spent a lot of time writing reports and organising information, what we needed from our counterparts and what we could share with them. We showed them how to use the computers, which the WFP had provided. They could then write quarterly reports via computer, detailing where they planned to do work and when it would be completed and they could include quality control data and test results."

Kester has returned home to Australia now. He describes his experience as a volunteer as challenging, but rewarding.