In August 2005, the Vietnam Reproductive Health (RH) project Phase II in Nghe An Province that has been implemented with the partnership of JICA and JOICFP will end. A final assessment with the situation analysis method by the Population Council is to be conducted in March 2005. Data and information will be analyzed and compared with those of the baseline survey in 2001 to assess changes in quality of RH services and draw lessons for future improvement.

At the Reproductive health Knowledge Dissemination

Among the other planned activities for fiscal year 2005 is a seminar to share and disseminate experiences from grassroots IEC activities on RH conducted by the Nghe An Women's Union with the knowledge and skills accumulated through working with the project. The Central Vietnam Women's Union has been expressing their interest in the seminar and the representatives of the Women's Union and the collaborating agencies from about ten provinces selected will be gathered in Nghe An.

This is the third dissemination seminar under the project. In August 2003, representatives of the Maternal and Child Health (MCH/FP) Center of the 30 provinces in the north of Vietnam, which is almost half of the provinces in Vietnam, came to Nghe An and shared the approaches applied in Nghe An in improving RH services at the commune health center, e.g. the CHC staff re-training and the method of follow-up of monitoring activities.

A male participant with the simulatior of pregnancy

In March 2004, in the field of the health management information system, an experience sharing seminar on the utilization of the computerized reporting format at the district level was organized, attended by representatives of Provincial Health Services from 14 provinces selected by the Ministry of Health.

It is very encouraging for those involved in the project, both from Vietnam and Japan, to know that Nghe An Province has been acknowledged as a model in improving RH services.