A partnership of Dutch Water Authorities in Mekong Delta to exchange knowledge and experience in Water Resources Management.

The main work package of the Blue Dragon Program is the Blue Dragon Pools.  These pools are the training sessions that will be held from time to time at partner provinces to assure cooperation and coordination between the participating departments and provinces. Each Pool will focus on discussing these general themes designed to meet the actual need of partner provinces: Operation & MaintenanceWater GovernanceFlood Risk ManagementClimate AdaptationProject ManagementWater QualityInformation ManagementBlue Dragon Pools ConceptThe program of each Blue Dragon Pool will focus on:Making a positive impact on the case project; through joint hands-on support and advice from for instance employees from other regions and departments leading to improvement and acceleration.Increase knowledge & expertise regarding the specific issue; through collaborative learning and training.Building strong institutions; through developing new ways of working and offering perspective and inspiration to future water managers.Enabling relations and new partnerships; through working on an actual collaboration between participating departments, regions and cities.

Blue Dragon Academy is to introduce a multi-level training program not only aiming for increased knowledge & expertise but also in an increased Vietnamese training capacity. From the Blue Dragon Pools, Vietnamese participants will be selected by Dutch experts to further training courses in Vietnam and The Netherlands.Then, These trained Vietnamese experts will be part of the new Blue Dragon Pools with similar themes elsewhere in the Mekong Delta but with a link to the regions of Hau Giang and Kien Giang and the city of Can Tho. Through this link experiences from earlier executed pools are transferred as well to other regions in the Mekong Delta.

The Blue Dragon Community serves as both an online and offline platform designed to support and ensure the accessibility of information within the community which is formed from the officials/experts of our Provincial Partners (local government), trainers from Can Tho University and Dutch Water Authorities and extending possibilities to relevant stakeholders. Even in the absence of an active pool on a specific topic, the community remains dynamic and engaged through regular training sessions and meetings hosted by Blue Dragon Academy participants, in collaboration with CTU. These initiatives encourage professionals to continue discussions within the online community and foster cooperation, benefiting both individuals and the broader network.The primary goal is to facilitate quadruple helix collaboration across the public and private sectors, knowledge institutions, and civil society.To date, the Blue Dragon Community has successfully organized three major events:2022: Blue Deal Congress in Amsterdam, Netherlands, with representatives from the provinces of Kien Giang, Hau Giang, and Can Tho.2023: Blue Dragon Day at Can Tho University, where the outcomes of Phase 1 were finalized.2024: Blue Dragon Day at the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Kien Giang, where consultations were held to develop concept designs for the Ecological Embankment Pilot in An Bien District, Rach Gia Province.

This work package focuses on testing and foremost scaling-up of new ideas and innovative solutions. To implement, Blue Dragon Challenge, a competition, will be organized every 02 years to bring out new ideas and innovative solutions for a specific water management issue. The following criteria form the basis for every challenge:The Challenge targets a specific issue addressed by a Blue Dragon Pool.Every entry requires a partnership between at least 1 Vietnamese and 1 Dutch partner. Combinations of one or more companies and/or knowledge institutes and/or civil society organizations or NGOs is a pre.The ideas and solutions to be developed are transferable to other areas in Mekong Delta. Identifying opportunities, conditions, and requirements for upscaling are part of the entry.A Challenge commission will identify selection criteria and later on will select the winning entrie(s).Depending on the specific Challenge, the most promising entries will receive a budget to further develop the idea with a business case for an actual, experiment, test, or pilot and a plan to monitor implementation.The winning entry will be announced during Blue Dragon Day and receive a price. Part of the price is the actual implementation of the experiment, test, or pilot.