Campaign makes important progress in Vietnam

Plan made some critical advances in Vietnam, following the success of its universal birth registration campaign across the country.

Plan cooperated with the provincial departments of justice (DOJs) to develop action plans for birth registration projects in areas where birth registration was lowest. The projects aimed to: increase awareness among parents, communities, children and local government and build capacity for civil registrars and local authorities by offering training on effective birth registration systems and procedures.

In Ha Nam province alone, five training courses were conducted for 135 registrars and community volunteers. In addition, the Phu Tho program unit supported the DOJs to conduct in-depth surveys to identify unregistered and incorrectly registered children.
At national level, the government announced its appreciation of the progress made as a result of the campaign activities. The research and feedback contributed to the design and implementation of a new birth registration decree, which is set to delegate more authority to the justice system at provincial, district and commune levels and help simplify the birth registration process.
As a result of the success of the campaign, the Vietnamese Ministry of Justice decided to work with Plan to develop a long term strategy to increase birth registration rates with particular emphasis on ethnic minority communities living in remote mountainous areas.