UNFPA urges focus on family planning

Hanoi (VNA) - The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has urged Viet Nam to focus on family planning by raising public awareness of pregnancy prevention and providing contraceptive measures, to increase the quality of its population.

UNFPA Deputy Representative Urmila Singh told a press briefing in Hanoi on
July 4 that Vietnam will need an estimated 132 million USD for its
family planning activities in the 2006-2015 period.

She recommended Vietnam further call for international aids for birth
control as foreign donation for the activity will be cut in the coming
years.

At present, 85 percent of Vietnam 's total funding for family planning is
foreign aid.

During the briefing, Deputy Health Minister Nguyen Ba Thuy affirmed Vietnam's
determination to implement family planning, citing this as the country's
focal task in its population development strategy to improve health and
equality for women and thus, contributing to poverty reduction.

The deputy minister, however, pointed out Vietnam 's difficulties and
challenges ahead, including a fast increase in population due to a low rate
of contraceptives. In the first quarter of this year, the number of newborns
increased by 18,000 or 7.2 percent over the same period last year.

In addition, low population quality and gender imbalance among newborns
(around 110 boys/100 girls) are also challenges to Vietnam , the deputy
minister said.

A Health Ministry report says Vietnam now ranks 13 th in the world in
terms of population scale and 108 th among the 117 countries in terms of
population quality.

Thuy said in the future, the Health Ministry will take a number of measures
to overcome the situation, including accelerating public awareness
campaigns, perfecting family planning-related policies and strengthening
human resources for population activities.-Enditem