The US$5.97 million project will receive US$4.5 million from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and US$800,000 from the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UNHABITAT).

Its objective is to improve the quality of collecting, analyzing, forecasting and disseminating data on population, and reproductive and sexual health, to help make socio-economic development plans and monitor socio-economic development strategies and the implementation of the millennium development goals.

It also aims to help strengthen the capacity of the statistics sector and contribute to realizing the Vietnam Statistical Development Strategy (VSDS) in the 2011 – 2020 period.

 UNFPA chief representative in Vietnam Bruce Campbell affirmed that the VSDS is based on international criteria and illustrates the Vietnamese Government’s determination to reform the national statistics system to improve decision-making, as well as monitoring and evaluating policies.

Campbell said that Vietnam should make special efforts to ensure all participants in the prorgamme are fully aware of the importance of statistics, and also invest appropriately to produce high quality statistics.

Vietnam does not have proper data to evaluate its urbanization so it needs to create an urban index database to monitor its urban development goals, Campbell said.

General Director of the General Statistics Office of Vietnam, Do Thuc, signed a cooperative agreement with Bruce Campbell and UNHABITAT Director Nguyen Quang at the project launch ceremony.

Source: VOV