Vietnam, UNICEF Discuss Ways to Improve People’s Living Environment

Vietnamese Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Minh Hoan and Representative of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Vietnam Rana Flowers had a face-to-face meeting on January 18 to exchange viewpoints to improve and support people’s living environment, state media reported. Highly speaking of the UNICEF’s cooperation during the past time in rural development, child health and nutrition care, and community capacity improvement for rural children, Minister Hoan proposed the UNICEF continue supporting communications activities, notably that in remote and difficult areas. He also expected to receive more UNICEF technical advice to help all Vietnamese people, especially those in disadvantaged regions, access clean water. In reply, Ms. Rana Flowers underlined that the UNICEF would continue to make efforts to end indiscriminate defecation, build sanitation works adaptive to climate change and personal hygiene for rural people, reduce the impacts of natural disasters, and raise children’s capacity in Vietnam. She added that the agency would focus on creating a clean living environment for children and reducing climate change’s impact on environmental pollution in the next five years. These efforts will be performed within a project sponsored by the Japanese government and run in Vietnam’s central and Mekong Delta regions, she noted. (Nong Nghiep, www.mard.gov.vn)