Mr. Kenji Yabuta, President and Representative Director, MRI;
Ms. Yufuko Takashima, General Director, Global Business Division, MRI and MRI staff;
My UNFPA colleagues;
I would like to warmly welcome you, Yabuta-san, Takashima-san and MRI staff to the Green One UN House. Today is a special day for all of us as it marks the start of the new partnership between the United Nations Population Fund – UNFPA and the Mitsubishi Research Institute – MRI by the signing of our Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to address population aging and other population matters in Viet Nam.
UNFPA Viet Nam has seen a lot of possibilities in this partnership for innovation to protect the rights and dignity of older people and improve their health and social care services. This new partnership will create an enabling environment for enhancing Vietnam’s legal and policy agenda in light of population aging, and we have taken it with a lot of excitement and assurance that this is the right thing to do.
UNFPA has supported the Government of Vietnam in formulating, adopting and implementing policies and programmes responding to various population matters over the decades, including population ageing to achieve sustainable development. Evidence-based policy-making on population ageing as well as communication to the public on ageing and the importance of a life-cycle and gender transformative approach are among what we are supporting in Viet Nam in our current 10th Country Programme.
Meanwhile, Mitsubishi Research Institute, one of Japan’s leading think tanks, is providing public and private sector clients with research and consulting services over a wide range of fields including population aging and care and support for the elderly population. The MRI is known to have deep knowledge and experience in advising policy options and innovative models, and it is this knowledge capacity which UNFPA thought would be beneficial for Viet Nam to address emerging population issues.
It is in this context that the signing of this MOU takes place today, providing a framework of cooperation and facilitating collaboration between various stakeholders for issues such as sexual & reproductive health, health care for young people, population ageing, and gender equality. It is a win-win partnership which can substantially contribute to the brain work for Viet Nam to achieve SDGs by 2030. We look forward to close collaboration between MRI and UNFPA for Viet Nam.
Thank you for your attention.
