Speeches Shim
Dong Nai province in Vietnam has approximately 154,000 persons with disabilities, including nearly 30,000 persons with severe disabilities, who need a continuum of care, rehabilitation, and social support to perform their daily life functions. Addressing these needs requires strong policies, effective programs, and partnership between government, NGOs, and other concerned stakeholders. To support this effort, USAID’s Disabilities Rights Enforcement, Coordination and Therapies project helped the Dong Nai Department of Health to develop its first provincial action plan for rehabilitation services.
The Administrative Procedure Compliance Cost Index (APCI) is a tool to quantify the cost, including money and time spent, that individuals and firms must bear to comply with existing administrative procedures. This week, USAID Linkages for Small and Medium Enterprises (LinkSME) project submitted 43 administrative procedures to be included in this year’s APCI to the Advisory Council of Administrative Procedure Reform (ACAPR) and the Office of the Government. USAID LinkSME experts are now reviewing the legal documents that regulate these administrative procedures in order to develop questionnaires to evaluate the costs of compliance for Vietnamese enterprises.
The USAID Sustainable HIV and Tuberculosis Response from Technical Assistance (SHIFT) project strengthens and delivers innovative enhancements in HIV and Tuberculosis services and helps transition the HIV/AIDS response to host country ownership in six provinces in Vietnam in order to accomplish the country’s ambitious target of eliminating HIV by 2030. At the end of September 2019, only three USAID SHIFT-supported sites were able to use SHI to cover viral load testing, representing 10 percent of the project’s total patient cohort. To address this, USAID worked with the sites and provinces to implement viral load testing and be reimbursed by the SHI fund. Today, 11 USAID SHIFT-supported HIV treatment facilities, corresponding to 49 percent of the total patient cohort, are actively using SHI for viral load testing. An additional 14 sites have contracts with eligible labs and should launch soon.
PrEP is a game-changing preventive medication that can reduce the risk of HIV infection by more than 92 percent, if taken daily, as part of a combination HIV prevention strategy. Last month, Vietnam had largely controlled the COVID-19 epidemic and hence the Government of Vietnam lifted social distancing restrictions. In order to help public and private PrEP clinics in Ho Chi Minh City and Dong Nai province return to normal service delivery, the USAID/PATH Healthy Markets project carried out quality improvement (CQI) training and coaching. The project also promoted PrEP services online and through in-person events to reach high-risk clients and refer them to services. As a result, new PrEP enrollment increased from 43 people in the first week of May to 127 people by the third week of May. PrEP continuation at public clinics, which had declined during March and April also returned to normal.
Over the past few decades, the number of rhinos and elephants have steadily declined due to illegal hunting for rhino horns and ivory. In Vietnam, rhinos became extinct after the last rhino was found dead in Cat Tien National Park in 2010, and there are only about 100 wild elephants left in the country, mainly distributed in the central, central highlands, and southern regions. Hence, implementation of the National Ivory and Rhinoceros Horn Action Plan (NIRAP), which aims to tackle the illegal trade of ivory and rhino horn to and from Vietnam, is very important in fulfilling Vietnam’s commitment to fighting wildlife crime under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). rom May 25-29, USAID Saving Species project supported the Vietnam CITES Management Agency (Vietnam CITES MA) to organize workshops in hotspot provinces for ivory and rhino trafficking to get feedback on the implementation of the NIRAP during 2018-19 so that Vietnam can fulfill its reporting obligation to CITES and adjust its action plan for more effective implementation in the next phases.
Comment
Make a general inquiry or suggest an improvement.