Managing Knowledge for the Development of the Mekong Delta

Abstract

The Mekong Delta in Vietnam is one of the most productive areas in terms of rice cultivation and aquaculture in the world. Ambitious water resources management and flood control have largely contributed to this success. Nevertheless, agricultural intensification and diversification have generated new ecological and socio-economic challenges in the region. Vietnam’s science and technology policy, described in this chapter, emphasises research on the water sector, focusing on the delta’s sustainable and integrated water resources management. Several research institutes have been established and numerous research programmes, partly in cooperation with foreign organisations, have been initiated. The emergence of knowledge clusters of water-related research in these regions is the result of Vietnam’s science policy, in which Ho Chi Minh City and the Mekong Delta are playing decisive roles. Clustering has a positive effect not only on the increase of knowledge output, but also on the economic growth of these regions. Ho Chi Minh City and Can Tho City are knowledge hubs with favourable conditions and a large pool of skilled people and advanced infrastructures. This chapter will analyse to what extent proximity and clustering have led to inter-organisational networking and knowledge sharing in academia. It will be shown that limited knowledge sharing has greatly reduced the effectiveness of water-related knowledge production and knowledge output in the south of Vietnam. This finding is mirrored at the local level, where the access of rural communities to water-related innovations and technologies will be examined and alternative local knowledge strategies of managing livelihood insecurities investigated. The current transformation process of agricultural modernisation – as heavily enforced in the Mekong Delta – will aggravate livelihood insecurities in the future. Water-related knowledge needs thus to be produced and disseminated more effectively to the targeted communities. Further, the importance of local knowledge has to be taken into account for a coherent strategy to develop a knowledge-based economy.