Interview with UN Resident Coordinator John Hendra published in the Vietnam Investment Review on 25 January, 2010

What do you feel were the most important outcomes of the climate change conference held in Copenhagen, Denmark, last December?

Expectations at one point were indeed high for agreement on a just, legally binding outcome between all the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Copenhagen. Many governments, non-governmental organizations, businesses and citizens from around the world hoped that “Copenhagen” would spark major action on climate change. However, agreeing on specific cuts in greenhouse gas emissions on a country-by-country basis proved extremely difficult, while matters of new funding and financing mechanisms proved too complex for a detailed consensus.

Ha Noi 11 January 2010 - The General Statistics Office (GSO), with technical support from United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), recently disseminated 15% of the 2009 census sample results. GSO reported that Viet Nam’s fertility rate has continued to decrease over the last 10 years and the total fertility rate (TFR) has remained below the replacement level and has now reached 2.03 children per woman. However, there are still differences between geographic regions: the fertility rate is 1.80 in cities and 2.15 in rural areas; 1.69 in the South East Region; 1.84 in the Mekong River Delta Region; and highest in the Central Highlands at 2.65 children per woman. This suggests there may still be pockets of “unmet need” for high-quality reproductive health services, including family planning services, which deserve priority attention.

Ha Noi 17 December 2009 – Strong sanctions against the delay or refusal to provide information are necessary to ensure the media can fulfil its responsibility to facilitate access to information for citizens. This was the consensus among more than 40 editors-in-chief and representatives of relevant Vietnamese government agencies who attended a roundtable meeting on Media and Access to Information in Ha Noi on 17 December.

With the support of the United Nations in Viet Nam, the Viet Nam Journalists’ Association and the Ministry of Information and Communications jointly organized the roundtable meeting to get comments and recommendations from the media on the draft Law on Access to Information, which is scheduled to be submitted to the National Assembly in May 2010. Also present were representatives from the British and Swedish Embassies as well as the World Bank.