The European Union will grant a package of non-refundable aid worth 14.75 million EUR (21.7 million USD) to help Vietnam carry out a “Health Sector Capacity Support Project”.

An agreement confirming the assistance was signed in Hanoi on September 18 by Willy Vandenberghe, Charge d’Affaires and Acting Head of the European Commissions Delegation to Vietnam and Nguyen Quoc Trieu, Minister of Health.

The project will has a budget of 16.65 million EUR, of which 2 million EUR is non-refundable aid provided by Luxembourg. The Vietnamese Government will contribute 1.4 million EUR and the German Government will allocate 500,000 EUR, both in kind, to the project.

It is expected to start later this year and will run until December 2013, with the aim of increasing the capacity of the Ministry of Health and provincial Department’s of Health in the northern provinces of Ha Nam, Bac Ninh and Bac Giang in the fields of policy making, planning and budgeting. It will also focus on delivering quality health services, especially primary health care and preventive medicines.

Speaking at the signing ceremony, Vandenberghe said that the project is fully inline with the Vietnamese Government’s objective of establishing a modern, equitable, efficient and pro-poor health system.

“It will help to improve the health of many people, in particular those who are poor or on the poverty line, which will help to reduce poverty and achieve the country’s health-related Millennium Development Goals”, he added.

Minister of Health Nguyen Quoc Trieu praised the financial support given to Vietnam’s health sector by the European Union over the past few years.

The Minister cited the two EU-funded projects including the “Health System Development Project” and the “Health Care Support for the Poor of the Northern Uplands and Central Highlands” as examples of the EU’s effective support to Vietnam’s health system, which enables poor and ethnic minority people to access to health care services much easier./.