Eighty-five percent of urban residents in six Mekong delta provinces and cities will benefit from the second phase of a safe water supply programme sponsored by the French Development Agency (AFD).
The 32 million EUR water programme is being carried out in An Giang, Ben Tre, Dong Thap, Tra Vinh and Vinh Long provinces and Can Tho city from 2009 until 2011.
Between 7 and 15 water supply projects in the region are scheduled to receive funding from the programme.
Earlier, the European Union provided 3 million EUR to help the Mekong delta provinces in preventing urban environment pollution through training environmental workers and purchasing equipment, as well as environmental forecast and information dissemination.
According to the Southwestern Environmental Protection Department, the Mekong delta provinces have failed to meet its residents and industrial production’s safety water requirement.
Each year, urban areas discharges around 102 million cu.m of water waste, more than 600,000 tonnes of solid waste and 47 million litres of liquid waste. In addition, these areas in the region are suffering from air pollution.