Vice Minister Dr Nguyen Thi Xuyen;
Ladies and Gentlemen
It is my pleasure to address the launching meeting of the 2014-2015 cooperation of WHO and Viet Nam.
Let me begin by thanking you all for yet another successful collaboration in the last biennium. Today, we are here once again to highlight our achievements and to look back at our challenges. More so however, we are here to renew our commitment to take health to the frontline of Viet Nam’s development agenda.
However, Viet Nam continues to face new and old challenges, such as an ageing population, the rise of non-communicable diseases, persistent inequities in health, and changing expectations of the population with regards to the type and quality of services delivered. In addition, the older problems such as tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and malaria remain as yet unfinished business. The public health demands will only grow as cities become more crowded and the climate changes.
The governance of the health sector is also changing. In the last few years, we have seen major structural and political shifts, such as the increasing autonomy of local governments, realignment of funding sources for health, and the changing environment of development cooperation in the health sector. All of these have influenced the way health services were planned and delivered.
This is the environment upon which our cooperation for this biennium has been defined. WHO and the Ministry of Health have worked together to reflect these evolving needs and challenges in the following key strategic priorities:
- Re-designing and building a resilient health system that equitably delivers quality health services for all, promotes healthy settings, and strengthens the capacity of institutions to respond to the changing needs of Viet Nam.
- Strengthening actions for the prevention and control of communicable diseases and in particular defining concrete roadmaps to substantially reduce if not eradiate TB, Malaria and HIV/AIDS while at the same time strengthening the country’s capacity to emergency preparedness and response to emerging infectious diseases;
- Institutionalizing approaches for the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases, adoption of healthy life-styles, prevention of injuries and promotion of safe and healthy environments;
- Continuing with the unfinished business of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s) and address the persistent inequities and disparities in health.
We have taken careful steps to ensure that these priorities and focused actions are covered in our current biennium plan. It is important to emphasize at this point that our planning for this biennium is an initial step for the implementation of the bottoms-up planning and the strategic prioritization approach under the WHO reform process. We will continue to fine-tune this planning process to ensure that WHO’s support will remain responsive and relevant to the country’s needs.
I would like to encourage you however to look at our collaboration beyond our programme budget. WHO’s core mandate to its Member States is to lead, convene, steer policy directions and provide technical expertise in health. We remain committed to fulfil this mandate - and we hope that WHO’s technical leadership in health will continue to play an important role in the development of this country.
In closing, I would like to underscore that the success of our cooperation will depend on our joint effort and commitment, and thus we look forward to your continuing support. As for us in WHO, we will continue to find ways to work with you better than ever.
Thank you once again and I wish you a successful meeting.
Thank you
Mr Jeffery Kobza