HA NOI, 17 July 2020 – A new partnership has been signed today between UNFPA in Viet Nam and Vital Strategies as part of the Bloomberg Philanthropies Data for Health Initiative to improve Viet Nam’s civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS). The programme will be implemented from July 2020 to March 2021 by the Viet Nam’s Ministry of Justice in collaboration with relevant line ministries.

This programme aims at supporting the Government’ efforts to improve the quality of birth and death registration including causes of death in Viet Nam, through strengthening CRVS governance, assessing CRVS system functioning, conducting CRVS legal and regulatory reviews, developing plans to improve the assignment of causes of death using internationally recognized standards, improving the Monitoring & Evaluation framework, and producing vital statistics reports.

“With a strong commitment to national leadership, capacity development and sustainability, Vital Strategies is excited for this opportunity to support the Government of Viet Nam toward realizing the 2017-2024 National Action Plan on CRVS,” said Philip Setel, Vice President, Civil Registration and Vital Statistics Improvement Program at Vital Strategies. “Permanent and compulsory CRVS systems are critical to ensuring basic rights to the population of Viet Nam. As an implementing partner in the Bloomberg Philanthropies Data for Health Initiative, our team at Vital Strategies has collaborated with more than 20 local and national governments to support country-driven priorities for civil registration, and to strengthen CRVS systems through technical assistance and catalytic funding. We look forward to activating this work in Viet Nam.”

Building and sustaining core population data requires strengthening population censuses and related surveys as well as administrative data including civil registration and vital statistics. Information on births and deaths enables countries to confer and guarantee citizenship, and to plan public infrastructure development and the delivery of social services. Civil registration is also essential from human rights perspective, as the right to be counted is fundamental for social inclusion.

Viet Nam has been implementing the National Action Programme (NAP) on CRVS for the period 2017-2024. Viet Nam is committed to the enhanced CRVS system which allows to plan and budget for effective national and sub-national policies for health, social protection, education, population and human rights, and to measure the impact of public various projects and programmes.

Mr. Nguyen Cong Khanh, Director of Civil Registration, Nationality and Attestation said: “Strengthening a coordination mechanism among related sectors from the central to local levels in realization of the NAP on CRVS is crucial to improve a quality and efficient CRVS, and consistent and accurate civil statistics. Close collaboration and exchange of CRVS data among different relevant agencies will improve data quality and consistency, increase completeness of registration, and reduce costs.”

“By improving the CRVS system, we aim at helping Viet Nam to implement its commitments tothe Declaration of the Ministerial Conference and the Framework for Action in Asia Pacific on CRVS for the period 2015-2024. It is to ensure that human rights are recognized by laws (esp. through registration of births and deaths and other vital events) and to increase people accessibility to social services,” said Ms. Naomi Kitahara, UNFPA Representative in Viet Nam. “With this new partnership, we will support the Government of Viet Nam to speed up the process of change, towards a modern and progressive CRVS system in which data including vital statistics will be shared and used for formulation and implementation of evidence based policies. This is critical for the achievement of SDGs by 2030.”

The new partnership will ensure that everyone is counted, and that high-quality data are available for policy makers. The Vital Strategies and UNFPA in Viet Nam reaffirm strong commitments to join hands with the Government in implementing the NAP on CRVS to assure leaving no one behind.

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For further information, please contact:

Ms Nguyen Thi Hong Thanh | UNFPA Communications

Email:  tnguyen@unfpa.org | Tel: 0913093363