Hanoi (VNA) – Vietnam is verywell placed within Asia in terms of the general progress in implementing theSustainable Development Goals (SDGs), said United Nations Development Programme(UNDP) Resident Representative a.i. in Vietnam Terence D. Jones on October 21.

“Vietnam is doing very well”, he told the VietnamNews Agency, factoring in that Vietnam had, before the COVID-19 impacts, movedinto the middle-income status.

“Given its developing country status,that’s very encouraging,” he said on the sidelines of the Launching Workshop ofNational Report 2020: “Five-year Progress of Sustainable Development GoalsImplementation” held in Hanoi.

The report shows Vietnam has made progressacross all 17 SDGs, he noted, adding that by 2030, the country would be likelyto achieve five out of 17 SDGs, which include SDG 1 – No Poverty, SDG 2 – ZeroHunger, SDG 4 – Quality Education, SDG 13 – Climate Actions, and SDG 17 onglobal partnerships.

There has been good progress towardsreaching some goals, but in a few others, there are difficulties, he said, adding“but what we notice is that in some of those goals, the same difficulties arisein many countries.”

He highly spoke of the way the Governmentof Vietnam is internalising its efforts and monitoring progress to decide howto invest more in making improvements, especially where there are still thegaps.

The UNDP Representative held that it wouldbe challenging for Vietnam to accelerate the realisation of the SDGs over thenext ten years, also known as the Decade of Action.

But the fact that the government hasincorporated the SDGs in its own Socio-economic Development Plans for the nextfive and ten years is the most important signal for that Vietnam is likely tomake progress, he stated.

Also, “the government has plans to makesure it is also implemented at the provincial level, so it filters down in avery real way to local decision makers as well, to use this as part of theirplanning process,” Jones said.

Outlining several recommendations forVietnam, the UNDP Resident Representative emphasised that data is the mostimportant, because that’s “how we measure progress, and to make sure that wehave real time feedback on where we need to make further improvements.”

He suggested Vietnam make the best use ofthe available resources. The UNDP is working with the Ministry of Planning andInvestment on “a financing framework” that looks into how to make better use ofthe resources Vietnam has both in terms of the budget, as well as in theprivate sector and in society, he unveiled.

Vietnam needs to mobilise more and moresupport from the international community to invest in what it is trying toachieve, he continued. He also called on the government to improve governancesystems through digitalisation and to engage social organisations and theprivate sector to play their part in achieving the goals.

According to the National Report 2020,Vietnam’s ranking has been on the rise over the last five years. Last year, thecountry ranked 49th out of 166 countries on performance in SDGimplementation, five places higher than the 2019 ranking.

Seventeen global SDGs have beennationalised into 115 Vietnam SDGs (VSDGs) in its “National Action Plan forImplementation of Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development” based on thecountry’s development context and priorities./.