Summary : Twelve technical officers and two executives from the focal Climate Change offices of seven Southeast Asian countries completed the workshop on Vulnerability, Impact and Adaptation Assessment (VIAA) for Climate Change: Approaches, Methods and Tools on 10-12 July 2013 at Meliá Hanoi Hotel, Hanoi, Vietnam. The officials and technical staff come from Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam and belong to the Southeast Asian Network of Climate Change Offices (SEAN-CC) of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).

Co-organized for SEAN-CC by the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA) and the Asia Pacific Adaptation Network (APAN), the workshop provided an overview of the approaches, methods, and tools in vulnerability, impact and adaptation assessment as inputs to planning of adaptations to climate change.

The workshop is premised on assumption that reducing the dire effects of climate change begins with undertaking a thorough evaluation of specific vulnerabilities that would reveal high priority sectors where countries should focus in developing appropriate climate change adaption (CCA) initiatives. The workshop provided the overall context of the necessity of adaptation plans being grounded on sound and reliable data/evidences derived through application of vulnerability, impact and adaptation assessment tools and procedures. It discussed processes of integrating climate change adaptation in development plans at different levels, from international, to national and local and provided examples of VIAA methods, tools and data in the agriculture, forestry and biodiversity, coastal and marine resources, economic and water sectors.