Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc (R) welcomes UN Coordinator of the Scaling Up Nutrition Movement Gerda Verburg (Source: VNA) Hanoi (VNA) – Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc appreciated theUnited Nations’ assistance for Vietnam in implementing Millennium DevelopmentGoals, particularly those related to nutrition and health while receiving UN Coordinatorof the Scaling Up Nutrition Movement Gerda Verburg on January 31.
PM Phuc affirmed that the Vietnamese Party and State alwayspay special attention to nutrition-related issues to improve stature, fitness andintelligence of Vietnamese people, thus helping increase the quality of humanresources.
Gerda Verburg, who is also Assistant to the UNSecretary-General, spoke highly of the fact that the Communist Party of Vietnamhad issued a resolution and the Prime Minister promulgated a decree onnutrition, which show the attention and the vision of the country’s leaders tothis issue.
She said that nutrition should be a cross-cutting issue inthe Government’s working agenda.
Based on experience of countries in the Scaling Up NutritionMovement, she suggested Vietnam set up a high-level mechanism to help theHealth Ministry fulfil its tasks involved in nutrition. The country should alsotake measures to call for public involvement and mobilise resources from theentire society to help the Government achieve nutrition targets in remoteareas.
The government also needs to hold more dialogue with theprivate sector to receive their support and intensify internationalcooperation, she added.
Agreeing with Verburg’s proposals, PM Phuc stated that theGovernment has carried out a lot of programmes to improve nutrition andphysical strength for ethnic minority people, and encourage the participationof the private economic sector in socio-economic development, including innutrition improvement.
He expressed his hope that the UN will continue providingfinancial and technical assistance for Vietnam in this field.-VNA
VNA
