The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has pledged continued support to the Ministry of Health (MoH) to implement the national strategy on population and reproductive health care for the 2011-2020 period.

The MoH and the UNFPA held a ceremony to launch the supporting project in Hanoi on October 31.

According to Deputy Health Minister Nguyen Viet Tien, the UNFPA’s assistance will be a firm foundation for Vietnam’s efforts to address such issues as gender imbalance at birth, care for old people, domestic violence, safe motherhood and family planning, towards fulfilling the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The project will focus on collecting data, improving the compilation, implementation and supervision of laws, policies and programmes in the fields of population, reproductive health, sexual health and gender violence.

Acting Chief Representative of UNFPA Vietnam Mandeep K. O’Brien said investment in reproductive health care and sexual health is part of the poverty reduction and hunger alleviation of many countries in the world, including Vietnam .

She affirmed the UNFPA’s strong commitment to help the Vietnamese government in its efforts to reach the target of universal access to integrated services for qualified reproductive and sexual health care at commune and district levels.-VNA