Cooperation between Vietnam and UNICEF over the past few years has been a unique model and should be extended throughout the region, said UNICEF’s regional Director for Asia-Pacific, Anupama Rao Singh.

The United Nations Children’s Fund official made the evaluation at the fund Executive Board’s second regular session of the year in New York from Sept. 14-16.

In a mid-term review of country programmes, Anupama Rao Singh highlighted Vietnam ’s achievements in reducing poverty and implementing its millennium development goals.

She pointed out Vietnam ’s results in implementing cooperation programmes with UNICEF, especially in devising laws, policies and national standards as well as in healthcare, education and environment and hygiene. The programmes were all aimed at improving the public’s knowledge of these issues and enhancing the protection of the rights of children.

Ms Singh pledged to continue to assist Vietnam in building policies and a database regarding children, as well as improving the country’s capacity to protect the health and the rights of children.

At the session, Ambassador Bui The Giang, Vietnam’s Deputy Permanent Representative at UNICEF Executive Board’s Review of Country Programmes praised UNICEF for its cooperation and assistance to Vietnam’s socio-economic development in general and promoting the rights of children in Vietnam in particular.

“ I highly value UNICEF for its switch of focus to assisting Viet Nam in strategic policy planning, which will be helpful for the formation of a legal framework and system in support of child rights implementation in general,” he said.

Ambassador Giang also proposed some recommendations for the Vietnam-UNICEF cooperation programme over the 2011-2015 period./.