Hanoi (VNA) – Vietnam’sfamily planning has contributed greatly to the country’s hunger elimination andpoverty reduction, fostering its socio-economic development, improving livingconditions of local people and helping to fulfill the millennium andsustainable development goals, said a local official.

Deputy Minister of Health Pham LeTuan delivered the remarks at a meeting co-organised in Hanoi on July 11 by theMinistry of Health and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in Vietnam tocelebrate World Population Day 2018.

Vietnam’s family planning hashelped the country cut costs of social services and increase per capita grossdomestic product (GDP) by 2 percent annually, Tuan said.

He affirmed that the country’spopulation and family planning programme has gained a range of achievements asits annual population growth rate dropped from 2 percent in 1993 to around 1percent in 2016.

According to the deputy minister,the average number of children of a coupe in the child-bearing age fell from5.6 in the early 1960s to 2.09 in 2006, reaching the replacement fertility ratethat has been maintained over the past decade. The rate of couples using birthcontrol methods soared from 53.7 percent in 1993 to 77.6 percent in 2016.

Astrid Bant, UNFPA Representativein Vietnam, said this year’s World Population Day has the theme of “FamilyPlanning is a Human Right”, aiming to mark the 50th anniversary of the UnitedNations International Conference on Human Rights which took place in Tehran in1968.

At the conference, the world declaredthat “parents have a basic human right to determine freely and responsibly thenumber and the spacing of their children,” she said, stressing that this wasthe first time that family planning had expressly been described in thisway. 

Investments in family planning today areinvestments in the health and well-being of millions of girls, women and youngpersons for generations to come, the UNFPA official noted.

Bant said UNFPA has embarked on a newStrategic Plan which supports the 2030 Agenda and strengthens its commitment tothe International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) Programme ofAction. 

The Strategic Plan covers a lot of issues, butthey can be broadly summarized under three Transformational Results for theregion and the world: Zero maternal deaths; Zero unmet need for familyplanning; and Zero gender-based violence and harmful practices against womenand girls.

At the meeting, speakers, including officials of the General Office forPopulation Family Planning, UNFPA in Asia and the Pacific, UNFPA in Vietnam andthe International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), talked about familyplanning in Vietnam.

They also exchanged views on thecommunications work to provide information about reproductive and sexual healthin Vietnam and Asia-Pacific. They pointed out a number of challenges facingVietnam’s family planning, such as high demand for modern birth control methodsamong unmarried youths and the lack of a comprehensive and effective sexualeducation programme.-VNA