• Mme. Nguyễn Thị Hương, Director General of the General Statistics Office
• Mme. Nông Thị Hà, Vice Minister, Vice Chairperson of the Central Committee for Ethnic Minority Affairs (CEMA)
• Mr. Nguyễn Tự Công Hoàng, Vice Chairman of Binh Dinh Provincial People's Committee.
• Leaders of the GSO; leaders of departments of the General Statistics Office, leaders of the CEMA, and Statistics Offices and Departments of Ethnic Minority Affairs of provinces and centrally administered cities; representatives of the Ministry of Public Security.

Ladies and gentlemen!

It is my honour to be here at this training workshop and I am pleased that so many of you are on this journey to produce high quality data on the socio-economic situation of Viet Nam’s 53 ethnic minority communities. I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the strong collaboration between the General Statistics Office and the Committee of Ethnic Minority Affairs to undertake this survey which is an important statistical milestone contributing to accelerating social equity and sustainable development in Viet Nam. 

Statistics are more than numbers – they are human stories. They speak about people’s health and well-being, their problems, ambitions, and socio-economic circumstances. When analysed, statistics show where policies have worked well, or where adjustments need to be made. Data on the situation of different ethnic minority communities or data disaggregated by ethnicity are even more important as this helps policy makers to ensure that policies work for minoritised or marginalised people who are at high risk of being left behind. 

Let’s take an example. Viet Nam has made significant progress in improving sexual and reproductive health of the general population over the past 20 years. Available evidence shows that while the maternal mortality ratio has declined from 233 per 100,000 live births in the 1990s to 46 per 100,000 live births in 2019, it remains much higher among ethnic minorities. Data also tells us that whilst 96% of babies are delivered in hospitals in Viet Nam enabling access to medical care and equipment, this figure is only 30% for ethnic minority mothers showing a big disparity in access to healthcare. 

We’re talking about 14.1 million people across 53 ethnic minority groups. That’s roughly twice the population of neighbouring Laos PDR. The findings from this Survey will help to close data gaps especially with regards to demographic changes, access to basic services, employment and living standards, all of which play a crucial role in monitoring the progress of the government’s policies targeting ethnic minorities for 2021-2025, improving national indicators on Ethnic Minorities and, importantly, informing policy decisions and actions for 2026-2030 to reduce disparities between the Kinh and ethnic minorities in Viet Nam. 

In early April, I joined the launch of the 2024 Intercensal Population and Housing Survey and have seen GSO’s enhanced technical and organisational capacity. This training now further equips enumerators with the necessary skills to lead interviews with ethnic minority people in a way that is sensitive and culturally-appropriate. Given the potential for language barriers, it is also important that adequate translation support is provided throughout the whole survey process. 

I know that, like the Intercensal Population and Housing Survey, you will use smartphones, tablets or similar equipment to fill out the questionnaires. This innovation helps to accelerate data analysis while limiting human errors. Given that the survey will mostly be conducted in areas where access to internet or IT literacy might be challenging, I hope that lessons learnt from the recent Intercensal Population and Housing Survey will be shared during the next two-days.

Data generation and sharing, and utilisation among government ministries, agencies and other stakeholders is critical to offer insights into the development challenges faced by ethnic minority people. UNFPA has an institutional comparative advantage in this area, and we are committed to continuing our technical support to GSO and CEMA to analyse data and connect it to multiple data users to ensure that no one is left behind in Viet Nam. 

I look forward to the successful results of the 2024 Ethnic Minority Survey.