Our mission
UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, is an international development agency that promotes the right of every woman, man and child to enjoy a life of health and equal opportunity. UNFPA supports countries in using population data for policies and programmes to reduce poverty and to ensure that every pregnancy is wanted, every birth is safe, every young person is free of HIV/AIDS, and every girl and woman is treated with dignity and respect.
UNFPA - because everyone counts
Meeting Development Goals
UNFPA partners with governments, other agencies and civil society to advance UNFPA's mission. Two frameworks guide its efforts: the Programme of Action adopted at the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development and the Millennium Development Goals, eight targets to reduce extreme poverty by 2015. Since the date for achieving these goals and targets is fast approaching, work is being accelerated to analyze successes, to galvanize support and to redouble efforts.
UNFPA Goals
The goals of UNFPA - achieving universal access to sexual and reproductive health (including family planning), promoting reproductive rights, reducing maternal mortality and accelerating progress on the ICPD agenda and MDG 5 - are inextricably linked. UNFPA also focuses on improving the lives of youths and women by advocating for human rights and gender equality and by promoting the understanding of population dynamics. Population dynamics, including growth rates, age structure, fertility and mortality and migration have an effect on every aspect of human, social and economic progress. And sexual and reproductive health and women's empowerment all powerfully affect and are influenced by population trends.
Priorities 2012-2015
The well-being of the Vietnamese people is our priority. Our activities aim to improve the quality of life of the most vulnerable, including ethnic minorities, victims of domestic violence, migrants and people living with and affected by HIV. Our current programme targets provinces where the number of women dying while giving birth is particularly high and where there are limited sexual and reproductive health services.
Consequently, we work with government ministries to review population and gender-related reproductive health policies intended to enable Viet Nam to reach the international goals to which it has committed. The close link between reproductive health, women’s empowerment, gender equality and development underlies our work to reduce maternal deaths, achieve universal access to reproductive health services, close the gender gap in education, increase life expectancy and reduce HIV infection rates.
How we work
UNFPA partners with governments, other United Nations agencies, communities, NGOs, foundations and the private sector to raise awareness and mobilize the support and resources to achieve its mission. The Fund is fully committed to a more effective, coherent and better coordinated UN system that 'delivers as one,' the essence of the UN reform process.
