The Northern Mountainous Region (NMR) of Vietnam is characterised by great physical, social and cultural diversity. It covers a large geographical area, is home to many ethnic minority populations, has an under-developed infrastructure with low levels of urbanisa-tion, and agricultural production plays a highly important role. Since the 1950s, Vi-etnam’s agricultural sector has had several ups and downs due to being significantly in-fluenced by shifting national policies.

The general aims of this chapter are to provide an overview of the historical development of rural advisory and knowledge provision in Vietnam, and how legal frameworks have changed over time, demonstrate how more client-centered extension approaches can be translated and utilized at the field level, and focus on examples of novel approaches to knowledge generation and diffusion, those currently evolving due to initiatives driven by state, private and NGO actors, or developed within the framework of the Uplands Program.