At the meeting (Photo: hcmcpv.org.vn)
At the meeting, Vice Chairman of Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee Duong Anh Duc acknowledged and highly appreciated UNICEF's support in Vietnam through programs to protect and care for women and children in the city.
Specifically, the UNICEF-funded project ‘Child-Friendly Cities Initiative’ has contributed to promoting children's rights more and more comprehensively by addressing priorities, and creating conditions for children to get access to health services, education, nutrition, and social care.
Ms. Rana Flowers assessed that the southern largest city has done very well in the field of maternal and child health care. According to Ms. Rana Flowers, climate change, natural disasters, environmental pollution, and epidemics have also had negative impacts on children.
In particular, the Covid-19 pandemic has put more pressure on families and children, especially poor and near-poor households. Accordingly, children must be placed at the center of socio-economic development and need comprehensive interventions including the provision of clean water, sanitation, vaccination, nutrition, and early childhood education to ensure that they are living in a good environment.
She emphasized that during the process of implementation of the project, it still has many challenges related to administrative procedures and the disbursement process, affecting the project implementation progress of the parties. Therefore, the two sides agreed to discuss in detail, learning from experience and quickly overcoming obstacles to find more effective cooperation options to help children most effectively.
Ms. Rana Flowers said that the UNICEF in Vietnam is ready to support HCMC in the best way. In order to make the exchanges between the two sides more strategic, she proposed to promote the framework of cooperation and exchange between the municipal People's Committee and UNICEF to continue promoting exchange activities, assessing cooperation results, sharing experiences, taking strategic interventions to address the challenges of a brighter future for city children.
