Vietnam's national population strategy for the 2001-2010 period

Vietnam's national population strategy for the 2001-2010 period

1. Goal and objectives of the Strategy

a. Goal

To build families with fewer and healthier children, aiming to stabilize the population’s size at a reasonable level for a prosperous and happy life. To improve the population’s quality and develop a human resource of high quality in order to meet the requirements of industrialization and modernization, making a contribution into the rapid and sustainable development of the country.

b. Objectives

· Objective 1: To maintain the trend of constantly reducing fertility in order to achieve the national replacement level by 2005 at the latest and by 2010 in the remote and poor areas in particular so that the size, composition and distribution of the population will be in line with the country's socio-economic development.

· Objective 2: To improve the population’s quality in physical, intellectual and spiritual terms. To strive to attain the world’s medium advanced level of Human Development Index (HDI) by 2010.

2. Main solutions

a. Leadership, organization and management

· To strengthen, consolidate and stabilize the organization of population work at all levels, particularly at local level in a bid to ensure the efficient implementation of population and development programs.

· The Party and authorities of all levels shall continue to give direction and guidance on the population work.

· To conduct efficient state management of population work and promote cooperation to the fullest extent between state agencies and organizations engaged in the population work

b. Communication and education on the change of behaviors

· To make a sustainable change of behaviors in terms of population, reproductive health and family planning by disseminating sufficient and accurate information with appropriate forms and contents to specific areas, regions and target groups.

· To focus on the forms of counseling, dialogue, and direct persuasion of couples of childbearing age, men, youths and minors.

· To concentrate advocacy and education activities on the disadvantaged regions and target groups with limited consciousness.

· To extend educational forms and raise the quality of population education inside and outside schools.

c. Reproductive health care and family planning

· To raise the quality of reproductive health care and family planning services with appropriate forms and contents in the framework of primary health care, meeting the people’s needs of reproductive health care and family planning.

· To minimize unwanted pregnancies and strongly reduce the abortion rate, especially teenage abortion, helping improve the population’s quality.

d. Improving the quality of population information and data

· To raise the capacity for collecting, processing and disseminating population information and data.

· To continuously fortify the system for managing and registering data on population of concerning ministries and branches so that the national population database will soon link with other relevant databases, meeting the requirement of evaluating the implementation of the Strategy and population programs.

· To effectively incorporate population factors into the making of development policies and plans in order to regulate socio-economic development and population distribution in conformity with changes in population.

e. Raising the people's intellectual standard and strengthening the role of family and gender equality

To raise the people's intellectual standard, strengthen the role of family, and ensure gender equality with a view to helping improve the quality of the population in physical, intellectual and spiritual terms.

f. Promoting socialization, developing and improving population and development policies

· To mobilize the combined strength of the entire society to take part in the population work, creating favorable conditions for each individual, each family and the entire community to voluntarily and actively take part in the population work.

· To build and improve a system of population policies linked with development, establishing a legal basis and giving an impetus to the arrangement of implementation of the Strategy.

· To soon promulgate Population Ordinance for the purpose of enhancing the effectiveness of State management of population work by law.

G. Funding

· To efficiently allocate and utilize various funding sources.

· In the short term, the State shall assure budget spending on population activities, and meanwhile encourage the raising of other domestic and overseas resources for these activities.

· In the long term, to strive to achieve per capita investment US$ 0.6 a year in the population work, of which state budget spending is expected to account for 60%-80% and the rest shall be raised from other domestic and overseas sources.

h. Training and research

· To improve the quality of training for staffs doing population work in order to meet the demands of the Strategy.

· To inherit and continue scientific researches of quality and practicability to ensure the scientific and practical basis for the implementation of the Strategy.

3. Action programs of the Strategy

a.  Program for Raising the Management Capacity of Population Staffs in the 2001-2010 period

Executive agency: The National Population and Family Planning Committee

Main coordinating agency: The Ministry of Education and Training

b. Program for Advocacy and Education in Changing Habits in the 2001-2005 period.

Executive agency: The National Population and Family Planning Committee.

Main coordinating agencies: The Ministry of Education and Training, the Ministry of Culture and Information, mass media agencies, the Vietnam Fatherland Front and its member organizations.

c. Program for Reproductive Health Care and Family Planning in the 2001-2010 period

Executive agency: The Ministry of Health.

Main coordinating agencies: The National Population and Family Planning Committee & the Vietnam Family Planning Society.

d. Program for Raising the Quality of Population Information and Data in the 2001-2010 period

Executive agency: The National Population and Family Planning Committee.

Main coordinating agencies: The Ministry of Science & Technology, the Ministry of Environment, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Ministry of Planning and Investment, the Ministry of Finance and the General Statistics Office.

e. Program for Studies on Questions Related to the Population’s Quality in the 2001-2010 period

Executive agencies: The National Population and Family Planning Committee and the Ministry of Healthcare.

Main coordinating agencies: The Ministry of Science & Technology, the Ministry of Environment, and the Ministry of Defense.

f.  Program for Population Integration with Sustainable Family Development through Credit and Savings Activities and Development of the Household Economy in the 2001-2010 period 

Executive agency: The National Population and Family Planning Committee.

Main coordinating agencies: The State Bank of Vietnam and the Vietnam Women's Union.

g. Program for Developing Reproductive Health Care and Family Planning Services for Poor, Disadvantaged and Remote Areas in the 2001-2005 period

Executive agencies: The National Population and Family Planning Committee and the Ministry of Health.

Main coordinating agencies: The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs, the Committee for Ethnic Minorities and Mountainous Regions, the Vietnam Fatherland Front and its member organizations.

4. Implementation of the Strategy

The Strategy is due to be implemented in two stages

a.Stage I (2001-2005)

· To concentrate every effort on attaining the target of steadily reducing fertility, especially targeting at the areas with a high fertility rate in order to achieve the national replacement level by 2005 at the latest.

· To carry out models and solutions to improve the population’s quality on a pilot scale.

· To focus on advocacy activities in order to change the reproductive behaviors and to provide reproductive health care and family planning services in remote, poor, and mountainous regions where the fertility rate remains high, by launching population integration campaigns.

·To build a national population database by expanding successful pilot models.

b.Stage II (2006-2010)

· To carry out all the contents of reproductive health care and family planning, aiming to maintain the average national replacement fertility level.

· To continuously improve and develop intervention models and measures with a view to raising the population’s quality.

· To further improve the national population database across the country.

Wednesday, July 13, 2005

Vietnam’s Ministry of Health