ABSTRACT
The economic reforms under Doi Moi (decreed in 1986 at the Sixth National Congress) have brought new demands for energy to drive Vietnam's economic development. The Government of Vietnam has identified construction of hydropower dams as a key strategy to meeting these energy demands. During the last 15 years, the country has experienced a surge in hydropower construction led by Electricity of Vietnam (EVN), the largest power company, followed by other state and national companies. The social impacts of large dam construction have become increasingly well-known in the global debate on sustainable development (Cook, 1993; Cernea and McDowell, 2000). In recent years, with the establishment of the Vietnam Rivers Network (VRN), a number of studies on resettlement in Vietnamese hydropower projects have been carried out by VRN's members (Eco-Eco, 2004; Doan and Nguyen, 2006; Hoang, 2006; Vo, 2006; Dao, 2006; Tran and Le, 2008). Since most dams are located in mountainous areas, these studies focus on resettlement in different mountainous regions: in the northwest (VUSTA, 2006; Hoang and Vo, 2006; Tran and Le, 2008), in the central region (Doan and Nguyen, 2006; Hoang, 2006; Vo, 2006) and in the central highlands (Dao, 2006). Other studies focus on the effects of resettlement and sustainable development in mountainous villages (Pham, 1995).
