LookAtVietnam Bridge – The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has urged Vietnam to focus on family planning by raising public awareness of pregnancy prevention and providing contraceptive measures, to increase the quality of its population.

At present, 85 percent of Vietnam’s total funding for family planning is foreign aid.

UNFPA Deputy Representative Urmila Singh told a press briefing in Hanoi on July 4 that Vietnam will need an estimated 132 million USD for its family planning activities in the 2006-2015 period.

She recommended Vietnam further call for international aids for birth control as foreign donation for the activity will be cut in the coming years.

At present, 85 percent of Vietnam’s total funding for family planning is foreign aid.

During the briefing, Deputy Health Minister Nguyen Ba Thuy affirmed Vietnam’s determination to implement family planning, citing this as the country’s focal task in its population development strategy to improve health and equality for women and thus, contributing to poverty reduction.

The deputy minister, however, pointed out Vietnam’s difficulties and challenges ahead, including a fast increase in population due to a low rate of contraceptives. In the first quarter of this year, the number of newborns increased by 18,000 or 7.2 percent over the same period last year.

In addition, low population quality and gender imbalance among newborns (around 110 boys/100 girls) are also challenges to Vietnam, the deputy minister said.

A Health Ministry report says Vietnam now ranks 13th in the world in terms of population scale and 108th among the 117 countries in terms of population quality.

Thuy said in the future, the Health Ministry will take a number of measures to overcome the situation, including accelerating public awareness campaigns, perfecting family planning-related policies and strengthening human resources for population activities.

(Source: VNA)