Hoa Binh, Viet Nam, May 2010 - Nguyen Thi Gai is a farmer living in Hoa Binh, a mountainous province in the north of Viet Nam. Her 15-year-old son died after he was seriously injured at a construction site, where he had been working to support his family. At the hospital, doctors found out Gai’s son had been suffering from malnutrition for a while. Gai’s family had never qualified to receive support from Government schemes as they live above the official poverty line. Yet Gai’s income was not enough to provide for her children’s education and nutritional needs. Her four children, three daughters and one son, only attended primary school and all of them started working during their teen years. Many children, like Gai’s son, are overlooked by poverty alleviation schemes in Viet Nam as the country still uses monetary criteria to measure child poverty. In order to receive support from the Government, a child has to live in a household which is defined as poor according to the national monetary poverty standard. In rural areas, that means a household with a total income of less than VND 200,000 (USD 10) per person per month.
April 2009, Hanoi - More than 40 United Nations staff from five agencies in Viet Nam (UNFPA, UNDP, UNICEF, UNIFEM and UNAIDS) joined staff from Viet Nam’s General Statistics Office and other partners to help monitor the 2009 Population and Housing Census in 21 provinces during 1-15 April of 2009. This was the first time that UN agencies in Viet Nam jointly monitored a national census, and their work underscored the importance of quality data for both the Government and the UN.
Pham Xuan Tung talks eagerly and takes notes for his group during a biology lesson on HIV transmission and the virus’ replication in blood cells. This new type of highly interactive class is something Tung, a student at Hoang Quoc Viet upper secondary school in Dong Trieu District, Quang Ninh Province, clearly enjoys. 
March 2010, Hanoi - Nguyen Thi Thanh Hang, who is 33 years old and from Ha Noi, is one of the first women to have benefitted from a new UNDP project to empower talented women working in the public sector. Hang, who has been working at the State Bank of Viet Nam for nine years, is now pursuing an MPhil in development studies at the University of Cambridge, under a scholarship provided by UNDP and the Cambridge Overseas Trust. She expects to complete her degree by June and will then return to the State Bank – ready to take on a senior position.