About the Program

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 The Aspen Institute’s Agent Orange in Vietnam Program (AOVP) was a multi-year project to help Americans and Vietnamese address the continuing health and environmental impact of herbicides sprayed in Vietnam during the war. Between the United States and Vietnam and within the U.S. policy community, the program promotes dialogue on solutions to the continuing impact of the wartime use of herbicides in Vietnam. The program provided the U.S. secretariat for the bi-national Dialogue Group and managed the Agent Orange in Vietnam Fund supporting model projects benefiting people with disabilities in Vietnam.

The Agent Orange in Vietnam Program took a two-pronged approach. First, through meetings and policy briefs, it promoted discussion within the U.S. policy community about dioxin in Vietnam and solutions to stem its continuing impact. Second, the program strengthened US-Vietnamese cooperation on this issue by assisting the U.S.-Vietnam Dialogue Group on Agent Orange/Dioxin. The Dialogue Group identified ways to deal with the most pressing of the human and environmental consequences of the U.S. military’s defoliation campaign. This bipartisan, non-governmental initiative was comprised of distinguished policy makers, scientists, and nonprofit and business leaders. With Susan Berresford serving as convener of the group, the Vietnamese side was lead by Ambassador Ha Huy Thong, vice chair of the Vietnamese National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs Committee, and leading the U.S. side was Walter Isaacson, president and CEO of the Aspen Institute.

The Aspen Institute welcomed Charles Bailey as the new Director of the Agent Orange in Vietnam Program in May 2011, at which time a roundtable was convened on the state of the issue, covering recent progress made on this urgent issue both in the United States and Vietnam.

Director Charles Bailey

Charles Bailey joined the Aspen Institute in May 2011 to direct its Agent Orange in Vietnam Program. From 1997 to 2007 he was based in Hanoi, Vietnam, where he headed the Ford Foundation’s grant making in, economic development, international relations, arts and culture, sexuality and reproductive health and higher education. Learn more and read Dr. Bailey’s writings.