Speeches Shim
Plastics pollution has reached crisis levels, threatening both Vietnam’s and the world’s marine ecosystems. Vietnam is among the top five source countries for the 8 million tons of plastic dumped into oceans each year.
Until recently, employers and employees in Vietnam have had to consult a variety of sources and websites to find out information on the country’s labor-related laws and regulations. To address this issues, USAID’s Governance for Inclusive Growth (GIG) Program provided a grant to the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) to develop a digital portal for VCCI to communicate with businesses on labor policies and to gather their feedback on the revision of labor laws.
Health information and case reporting systems are vital to measure and monitor epidemic control. USAID’s Sustainable HIV Response From Technical Assistance (SHIFT) Project has worked with local health authorities to compare records from Vietnam’s case reporting system (HIVInfo) to local HIV treatment registers to identify untreated people living with HIV (PLHIV). In April, the project began supporting local health authorities in Tay Ninh and Tien Giang provinces to analyze, clean and compare HIV case reports against treatment records for local clinics. Within a two month period, the project and its local partners analyzed records for more than 8,000 patients in HIVInfo and identified more than 2,900 PLHIV not currently on treatment.
On June 19, USAID joined Thua Thien-Hue province’s Forest Owners’ Sustainable Development Association (FOSDA) and Scansia Pacific (a Vietnamese furniture manufacturing firm and an IKEA supplier) to sign a Memorandum of Understanding, which outlines how the three parties will work together to tackle the challenge of forest degradation and improve the lives of people living in and around forests in Vietnam’s Annamites Range. USAID’s new partnership with Scansia Pacific and FOSDA will significantly improve forestry practices, lengthen the growing cycle of Acacia plantations, and improve environmental, social, and economic performance by expanding adoption of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification program, which ensures that products come from responsibly managed forests that provide environmental, social and economic benefits.
On June 19, over 100 Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) students from BUILD-IT’s partner universities in Vietnam showcased their innovative projects in Ho Chi Minh City. Twenty-one student teams prototyped solutions in areas of healthcare, environment, agriculture, food safety, and support for persons with disabilities. The top three prototypes include a smart mattress that assists senior citizens to get into and out of the bed; a smart garden using the Internet Of Things (IoT) technology (a system of interrelated computing devices, mechanical and digital machines, objects, animals or people) to water itself; and a food safety device that helps protect food from harmful pollutants.
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