The Center for Environment and Community Assets Development (CECAD), a non-profit organization, was established in 2004 by an interdisciplinary group of researchers and practitioners of social and natural background.

In recent years, the number of local and international NGOs has been increased. Their activities are all focused on the one goal of poverty alleviation. Large sectoral components which concentrate on training and technical expertise in agriculture, forestry, the environment, community development and integrated rural development in general also have a poverty alleviation and human resources development focus. In short, both local and international NGOs in Viet Nam operate at the grassroots level with a greater involvement of the intended beneficiaries. Because of their outreach to provinces and districts they have also been able to play a role in strengthening the capacity at district level for the supply of public services and in monitoring and management of development projects, interventions which are possible because of their greater flexibility and limited bureaucracy. However, none of NGOs in Vietnam aims to change policy towards research. Meanwhile, many universities are only engaged in academic research, which results in some change in their professional competence only, but not in local people's livelihoods at all.

CECAD's strategy is to fill in the gap. CECAD aims to perform both academic research and development projects. On top of that CECAD wants to change policy at the national, provincial and district levels. CECAD is committed to applying research results to rural livelihoods improvement based on local communities' assets, without depleting their natural resource base. CECAD aims to reach the poorest people, especially women and ethnic minorities, and to contribute to the socio-economic development of Vietnam. This strategy distinguishes the center from other international and local NGOs, and universities, which are either engaged in academic research or development projects.

The approach CECAD employs is asset-based community development (ABCD), which is presented as an alternative to needs-based approaches to development. Community asset building (CAB) emphasizes that community assets, such as natural, physical, social, financial and human need to be identified simultaneous with the participatory definition of needs and problems as the first major step in community development. This emphasis leads to more creative, self-reliant and feasible actions that significantly "build on and improve" rather than "remove and replace" existing place.

CECAD's objective is to become the country's local NGO of excellence for environmental studies and community asset development, thus improving local people's livelihoods and reducing injustice, while protecting the environment.