Piteå and An Giang – Sustainable Municipalities

The project is focusing on development of a strategy program for waste to energy, focusing on rice waste to energy which would be carried out during a time span of three years.

Rice straw and rice husk are a potential natural biomass source for energy production. As of now, only a small part of rice husk production has been used as fuel in brick kilns, but most of it has been dumped illegally into the rivers or burnt openly, emitting huge amount of greenhouse gas (GHG).

In 2010, Piteå revised their waste plan and approved an Energy and Climate plan which will be revised in 2014/2015. In An Giang a strategy program focusing on waste to energy from rice production will be submitted 2014. It will be developed through a process where local stake holders as the business community, farmers, the regional university and the municipality will be involved. Vietnam is known as the second largest exporting country of rice. Rice production has the most important role in the economy of the Mekong delta where An Giang is located, which at the same time also is the part of Vietnam which is anticipated to suffer the most serious climate changes. 

The work in Piteå by developing the Climate and Energy Plan has been conducted with some methodological support from The Swedish Energy Agency’s project Sustainable Municipality, where Piteå is one out of 31 municipalities further on into a third phase. In the process of developing the plan people from many areas in the civil society have participated. In An Giang there is an eagerness to learn and apply the experiences from Piteå in the Vietnamese context.

A strategy program developed by participation from different actors should be able to contribute to facilitate an implementation phase where one target is to develop a strategy program which would contribute to an improvement of the living condition for the poorest of the people.