The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) is committed to enhancing the evidence base for community-based disaster risk reduction (DRR) interventions. In an effort to further highlight the impact, efficiency and sustainability of DRR interventions, an external evaluation was conducted on the community-based 'Mangrove Plantation and Disaster Risk Reduction' (MP/DRR) project in the disaster prone coastal provinces of northern Viet Nam. The evaluation assessed the

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... project's performance and progress against set objectives and analysed the extent to which it has contributed to the building of safer, resilient communities. This case study will focus primarily on the evaluation's findings which provide a quantitative analysis of the project's benefits in the coastal provinces. In particular, it will examine how the: • Project's output over the course of its 17-year implementation, directly or indirectly, increased the resilience of communities. • Protective, economic and ecological benefits of the interventions outweighed the costs. • Accrued benefits of the project will be sustained in the long-term, with particular focus on local capacity and ownership (in the absence of donor funding). General context Viet Nam, with its 3,260 kilometres (km) 1 of coastline spreads across seven different climatic zones, 2 is vulnerable to natural disasters including storm surges, flooding and droughts. Extreme climate variability increasingly threatens the country's coastal zones and extensive deltas. Viet Nam has a history of coping with extreme weather-related events, and is ranked amongst the most affected countries, both in terms of fatalities 1 http://sdwebx.worldbank.org/climateportal/doc/GFDRRCountryProfiles/wb_gfdrr_climate_change_country_profile_for_VNM. pdf 2 UNEP and IPONRE.