Education, coupled with sustainable management and planning, has been identified as the only effective long-term solution to prepare for, and alleviate, natural disasters and emergencies and UNESCO has named education for natural disaster preparedness as a core issue to be addressed under the UN's Decade of Education for Sustainable Development 2005 - 2014.

In partnership with the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) and other UN and international agencies, UNESCO is implementing a three-pronged program which seeks to strengthen the capacities of the education sector to prepare and to manage response to natural disasters and sustainable development challenges.

• In the first component, UNESCO and its partners are producing a set of national norms for education in emergencies that have been based on the Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE)’s  Minimum Standards for Education: Preparedness, Response, Recovery, the only global tool that articulates the minimum level of educational quality and access in emergencies through to recovery, providing good practices for coordinated action by governments, humanitarian workers and education practitioners.

• In the second component, a self-assessment disaster preparedness tool for schools was developed. This instrument is designed to enable schools to assess hazards and risks and develop a disaster risk reduction and disaster preparedness plan and is based on a tool designed by UNESCO in Peru that was later adapted to the Central American Region.

• In the third component, UNESCO is working together with the National Institute for Education Management (NIEM) to develop and to pilot a training module for school principals to address and to integrate natural disaster preparedness into school activities. The programme aims to provide principals with essential skills to enhance their role as focal points for disaster preparedness.

Through this programme, UNESCO is strengthening MOET’s preparedness and response to emergencies, natural disasters and sustainable development challenges, and supporting the ministry to reach the objectives detailed in the Government's "National Strategy for Natural Disaster Prevention, Response and Mitigation to 2020".

MOET and UNESCO’s cooperation in the area of Education in Emergencies is in accordance with Viet Nam’s regional commitments to the APEC Strategy, “Disaster Risk Reduction and Emergency Preparedness and Response in the Asia Pacific Region: 2009 to 2015”, which lists among strategic activities the “use of knowledge, innovation and education to build a culture of safety and resilience at all levels” and the Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency response (AADMER), to which Member States committed their efforts to undertake measures to reduce losses from disasters, including “promoting public awareness and education”.