Speeches Shim
Wildlife trafficking is a lucrative form of transnational crime that is decimating populations of elephants, rhinos, and pangolins. On November 9-11, the UK Embassy, a key diplomatic partner in the effort to combat wildlife crime, hosted the “Inspire Me Festival” in Hanoi. As part of the broader event, USAID’s Saving Species project created a Wildlife Village at Hoan Kiem Lake, a popular destination in the historical center of Hanoi. This jungle-themed village was created to educate and inspire adults and children not to buy, consume, or trade illegal wildlife.
The Law on Competition in Vietnam aims to reduce monopolistic business practices, such as economic collusion that results in unfair competition for other businesses and ultimately higher prices for consumers. The Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT), the National Assembly, and the USAID Governance for Inclusive Growth (GIG) program have worked together since 2016 to gather feedback from various stakeholders on monopolistic practices and to provide recommendations for the revised Law on Competition, which was adopted by Vietnam’s National Assembly in June 2018.
Last week, the USAID GIG program organized a workshop for businesses, experts, and researchers in Ho Chi Minh City to discuss the follow-on draft decree, which will focus on the investigation and detection of monopolistic practices and increasing punitive damages for such practices. This workshop followed a similar one held in September in Ninh Binh that included officials from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. The follow-on draft decree will be submitted to the Vietnamese government in January 2019 and is expected to take effect in July 2019.
Starting in 2018, USAID (through PEPFAR) focused its support in Vietnam to two geographic regions: Northern Economic Zone and the Ho Chi Minh City Metro area. Dong Nai,Tay Ninh, and Tien Giang provinces were added to the list of target provinces in the Ho Chi Minh City Metro area. On October 9, USAID’s Healthy Markets project worked with Dong Nai health officials to launch USAID-supported HIV services for the first time in the province. These services include community-based HIV testing and partner testing, which works with newly diagnosed HIV-positive individuals to contact their at-risk partners and family members, and could also lead to them being tested for HIV. Community-based testing and partner testing are part of an essential strategy that aims to reach 11,000 people and eventually attain HIV epidemic control.
With financial and technical support from the USAID Governance for Inclusive Growth (GIG) Program, three auditors from the Indonesian Audit Board (Southeast Asia’s premiere Supreme Auditing Institution) reviewed the environmental audit manual drafted by the State Audit of Vietnam (SAV). Following a desk review, these experts visited Vietnam from October 16-18 to work with SAV’s environmental audit team to review each chapter of the draft manual. SAV will finalize and submit the final Environmental Audit Manual, which has undergone extensive peer review, for approval in November 2018.
In response to declining donor funds towards ARVs, Vietnam has committed to sustaining ARV procurement using its SHI Fund. In early October, with support from USAID’s Global Health Supply Chain - Procurement and Supply Management (GHSC-PSM) project, Vietnam’s Ministry of Health successfully bid for the first procurement of ARVs through SHI. The bid package, which is valued at approximately $5.9 million, will cover medication for 48,000 HIV/AIDS patients for an entire year - the number of HIV/AIDS patients estimated to be covered by SHI in 2019. The ARVs are expected to be available in January 2019. The bidding process also resulted in a 19 percent savings due to secured purchase prices now being both competitive and comparable to the price of drugs purchased by international donors.
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