Vietnam’s $2.4 mln project to improve population data quality

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) will provide more than $1.9 million to implement the project and the Vietnamese government will provide the rest in counterpart funding.

The project, jointly implemented by the General Statistics Office, the Ministry of Planning and Investment, the Ministry of Justice and the Parliamentary Committee for Social Affairs with technical assistance from UNFPA in Vietnam, will help Vietnam generate and utilise quality population and development data for the five year 2022-2026 period.

It aims to support Vietnam in applying new technologies and communication platforms for data collection, analysis, and dissemination towards ensuring evidence-based policies, strategies and programs for the achievement of SDGs by 2030.

The new project will focus on: improving capacity of data producers to collect, analyse and disseminate disaggregated data on population and sexual and reproductive health issues; equipping policy makers with knowledge and skills on application of new data; exploring new data set and data communication and management to support population policy development, which can also be used for disaster management and climate action; and preparing investment cases for sexual and reproductive health and rights.

Naomi Kitahara, UNFPA Representative in Vietnam, said that like other countries in the world, the Covid-19 pandemic has exacted a heavy toll on Vietnam’s socio-economic development, as well as on population shifts with regard to mortality, fertility, and migration. In this context, reliable and quality statistics is fundamental to formulate, implement, monitor and assess the country’s progress in achieving socio-economic and SDGs targets.

She said: “Countries with quality data are the ones which achieve impressive socio-economic growth. Better data, better lives.”