President of the Vietnam Fatherland Front (VFF) Central Committee Nguyen Thien Nhan asked the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to support Vietnam on sustainable population development and management.

While receiving the Representative of UNFPA, Ritsu Nacken, in Hanoi on May 28, the VFF leader said the research conducted by the UNFPA Office on population and labour in Vietnam is particularly useful for long-term population planning.

He proposed the fund share its experience in the field to help Vietnam outline a strategy for managing the population and investigating the implementation of population policies.

Currently, the two sides work together to analyse international experience and evaluate population development in Vietnam, while also compiling a report on the development of human resources, which will be submitted to the Government in August.

In 2016, UNFPA and the Government of Vietnam will discuss the implementation of healthcare policies for the elderly.

If the declining birth rate in China and Japan is anything to go by, Ritsu Nacken said, Vietnam could lose out a number of development opportunities in the future.

She added that UNFPA was not only concerned over population issues that are related to health but also to the development of human resources in the long run.

UNFPA has been active in Vietnam since 1977. The fund has been working on improving public access to sexual and reproductive health services, supporting the collection and use of high-quality population data, facilitating policy dialogue, and helping the Vietnamese Government in developing, implementing and monitoring evidence-based policies related to sexual and reproductive health, population and development, and gender.-VNA