City Development Options for Haiphong Charting a Path to the Year 2020 DRAFT FULL REPORT

This report is based on intensive efforts of ten experienced Bank staff and consultants who visited Haiphong during June, 1998. Haiphong has been selected by the Government of Vietnam as a pilot case study on urban and environment development for the nation, based on the city’s leadership among Vietnamese cities now engaged in modernization. This report therefore serves several purposes. It is a way to frame the city’s needs for assistance and to indicate promising options for development. At the same time, it forms a cornerstone for analytical work needed to deepen the Bank’s understanding of urban development in Vietnam. Urban development and environmental change in both Haiphong and the country are seen in the context of the Bank’s mission of public sector reform and poverty alleviation. (The reader should note that in addition to the inputs for this study noted in footnote one, two separate studies-on city finances and strategies of the city’s poor, including social issues such as drugs-are to be conducted over the next several months and will be integrated into this report at a later stage.)