International lessons learned and recommendations on business and funding models for the Mekong Delta Center (2022)

The Mekong Delta in Vietnam is facing severe climate change related challenges. Home to almost a quarter of Vietnam’s population, the Delta is an important agricultural region contributing to 41% of Vietnam’s agricultural production, nearly 70% of its exported aquaculture products and 90% of the country’s exported rice. The Government of Vietnam’s (GoV) Resolution on the Sustainable Development of the Mekong Delta in Response to Climate Change is taking action towards a climate resilient and sustainable Mekong Delta. As part of its response, the GoV is establishing the Mekong Delta Center (MDC) as a ‘knowledge management platform’ or Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) to share data with multiple stakeholders, enhance decisions, monitor changes, assess impacts, and develop digital ecosystems in the Mekong Delta. The MDC is under the auspices of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE) and its Department of Information Technology (DINTE).

The MDC is financed by the World Bank funded Mekong Delta Integrated Climate Resilience and Sustainable Livelihoods project (P153544). To assist the MONRE and the DINTE in planning funding of the Center, the report provides international lessons learned on business and funding models of SDIs, case studies of selected SDIs, assessment of the legal framework of Vietnam related to funding of public organisations, and based on those, recommendations for the business and funding models of the MDC.

The report discusses the background and scope of the study, how business models are linked to the geospatial information value chain, what SDI funding involves and an overview of existing SDI funding models with examples of innovative case studies. The wider funding and governance context of Vietnam is discussed and recommendations for the short-term and long-term funding of the MDC are formulated.