EVALUATING GREEN GROWTH PERFORMANCE AT THE LOCAL LEVEL: EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FROM PHU THO PROVINCE, VIETNAM

Tóm tắt

Abstract. This study investigates how Viet Nam’s National Green Growth Strategy is translated into practice at the provincial level, using Phu Tho Province as an in-depth case study. Employing an implementation-focused mixed-methods design, the research integrates secondary quantitative data with systematic policy and institutional analysis to assess green growth outcomes across agriculture, industry, energy, and tourism during the period 2018–2024. The analytical framework is grounded in the Triple Bottom Line approach, enabling an evaluation of economic performance, environmental sustainability, and social inclusiveness through harmonized indicators aligned with national strategies and international benchmarks. The results reveal that Phu Tho has achieved measurable progress in rural income enhancement, expansion of ecotourism linked to OCOP value chains, improvements in energy efficiency, and increased deployment of renewable energy. These outcomes suggest an emerging pattern of relative decoupling between economic growth and resource use at the subnational level. However, the analysis also identifies persistent constraints related to green finance readiness, institutional fragmentation, and uneven technical capacity, which limit the scalability and durability of green growth initiatives. The study contributes to the green growth literature by proposing a practical framework for operationalizing green growth at the provincial level and by empirically linking policy design, institutional coordination, and development outcomes. It further demonstrates that theory-informed descriptive analysis, based on secondary data and policy triangulation, can yield robust insights into subnational green growth pathways in developing-country contexts.