Social News 1/2 Water supply, wastewater treatment plants to be built in Mekong Delta region A dozen water supply and wastewater treatment plants are scheduled to be built in the Mekong Delta region before 2020 to improve water supply and wastewater-treatment capacity across the region. The plans were discussed at a meeting with representatives from the Ministry of Construction on building the regional plant system, held in the Mekong Delta city of Can Tho on January 28. Vo Thi Hong Anh, Vice Chairman of the Can Tho People’s Committee, said the Government plans to build three water supply plants with a combined daily capacity of 4.2 million cubic metres between 2015 and 2020. The Song Hau 1 plant, to be built in Can Tho, is intended to have a full daily capacity of 1,000,000 cubic metres, supplying water to Can Tho city, neighbouring province Soc Trang, and communities along the western banks of the Hau River. Ben Tre and Tra Vinh provinces would also within the reach of the plant. The Song Hau 2 plant, planned in Chau Thanh district in An Giang province and with a full daily capacity of 2,000,000 cubic metres, will pump water to Can Tho and An Giang, Kien Giang, Ca Mau and Hau Giang provinces. The Song Hau 3 plant in Chau Doc town, An Giang, will be able to supply 500,000 cubic metres daily for residents in An Giang and Kien Giang. Wastewater treatment plants are also scheduled to be constructed during the same period; Can Tho looks to build four plants with a combined capacity of 86,000 cubic metres per day. Long Xuyen city in An Giang, Rach Gia city in Kien Giang and Ca Mau city in Ca Mau will each build three wastewater treatment plants capable of treating a combined 34,500 cubic metres per day in Long Xuyen, 33,000 cubic metres per day in Rach Gia, and 34,500 cubic metres per day in Ca Mau. Simultaneously, the provinces in the region will upgrade existing wastewater treatment plants, contributing to minimising environmental pollution and limiting rain flooding to ensure stable and sustainable socio-economic development in the region. Academic urges overhaul of higher education Vietnamese prize education, and are willing to spend billions of USD sending their children overseas to school, but the country lacks even a basic university system of its own to nurture its own teachers, a leading academic has said. Professor Ngo Bao Chau, who won the Fields medal in 2010, said tertiary education in Vietnam was the worst among eduction levels in the country, adding it was unacceptable that people had to send their children abroad to get an education. He said that while there had been progress in education for children, such the shift away from the traditional marks-based system so teachers could more directly address the needs of first graders, and there had been positive changes in compiling curriculums and textbooks, the country needed to put higher education at the centre of any academic reform process. Chau said tertiary education was substandard, mainly because of incompetent teachers and managers, and a lack of funding. “While Vietnamese closely care for their children’s study at the basic education level, it seems to be out of their reach when their children enter higher education," Chau said. Parents ended up having to finance the education of their children at upper levels, rather than it being a state responsibility. He said education reform was hard to achieve in the short-term, but the public needed to be aware of the need for reform and engage in active debate so there could be agreement about what the country wants and needs. It should not be left to the government to decide, but should be supported by the whole of society, and to that end weaknesses and strengths should be examined, along with how the system could be improved. "In-service and distance training has become a growing issue of tertiary education that seriously affects training quality," Chau said, "The Ministry of Education and Training (MoET) should only faciliate the development of standard training insitutions and strictly deal with those with bad quality. “I do think that it’s a good idea to allow universities to be financially self-governing. However, they still continue to need support from state budget to ensure their survival. It's irrational to lower state budget funding, but ban univerisities from raising tuition fees, forcing them to struggle to survive.” Chau said higher education needs more support from communities recognising the key role higher education plays in Vietnam's development. He said the MoET’s plan to train 20,000 doctorates as part of the effort to intensify tertiary education quality was to be commended. “This is a good policy as world-class universities only employ lecturers with doctorates, instead of relying on university graduates as in Vietnam. More attention should be paid to the quality of docterate training in this country,” Chau said. Female trafficking a growing problem in Nghe An Province Women are allegedly being targeted by traffickers in Nghe An Province, with local police saying at least 38 have been taken to China. The targets are married and single women, and children, from Luu Tien Highlands Village in Chieu Luu Comune of Ky Son District, home to Kho-mu ethnic minority people. Some 148 hourseholds occupy the village, representing nearly 650 people. Police said at least 38 local women have been allegedly trafficked to neighbouring China. “Victims were invited by some acquaintances to work away from home with the offer of high salaries and better living conditions," said Moong Van Que, a policeman in the village. "Mediators even gave victims’ families some money in advance as security. They did not return home or contact with their families after their leave,” Notably, many local children have recently gone missing after leaving home for boarding schools. The number of such children has reached 16. Some are primary students while others are secondary students. The situation has triggered worries among parents that they might have been kidnapped and smuggled to China. Cut Thanh Son, head of Luu Thang Highlands Hamlet of the same commune, said the village has reported nearly 50 missing people. “Many people have yet to make any contact with their homes while some others have called home informing that they have got married with Chinese men.” A 21-year-old woman from the village was trafficked to China in 2012. She was married to a Chinese man and they have had a daughter. In early 2014, she fled from China to visit her family in Vietnam, but she returned to China, worried about the fate of her daughter. In another family, a 30-year-old woman was trafficked to China and had a child there. A short time later her husband’s 21-year-old younger sister was offered work in the South, but was trafficked to China and made a concubine. Their family did not have any contact with them until the sister-in-law called home. “Women trafficking mainly happens in remote and mountainous areas where victims are gullible and too trusting about believing offers of work with high incomes," said Nguyen Truong Thi, head of drug crime prevention and control office under the provincial border guard. "Many traffickers were ever victims of such swindling and return home to seduce others.” Investigation and prevention efforts are hindered by a lack of funding, Thi said. HCM City to upgrade workforce's skills Ho Chi Minh City will implement measures to improve the quality of vocational training and raise the number of trained workers to 72 percent of the city's total employees this year from the rate of 68 percent in 2014, according to the municipal Department of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs. Vocational training schools will recruit about 401,000 students this year, Nguoi Lao Dong (Labourer) newspaper quoted the source as saying. Last year, vocational training schools recruited more than 443,500 students and provided training for 2,000 poor labourers, 1,090 people with disabilities and 611 ethnic minority youth. Tay Ninh plans 11 social housing projects To meet the housing demand of low-income earners, the southern province of Tay Ninh will build seven social housing projects with 2,385 units to supply accommodation for nearly 10,000 people, and four others with over 2,000 rooms for nearly 20,000 workers at industrial parks. The 11 projects will cost nearly 2.13 trillion VND (99.9 million USD), of which 16 billion VND is from the provincial budget and the rest from investors, reported Thoi Bao Kinh Te Viet Nam (Vietnam Economic Times). The province will speed up detailed zoning plans for these projects, pay all costs for site clearance, and invest in infrastructure. HCM City asked to set up food control, ensure safety Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam has instructed Ho Chi Minh City authorities to tighten management of food products at wholesale markets and supermarkets to ensure food safety and hygiene. Food-testing points were set up at the three biggest wholesale markets in the city to make sure food products meet hygiene standards before entering the market, he said at a working session with municipal authorities on January 27. The city should also build a roadmap to protect consumers, and assure that food products from other localities meet hygiene standards before being transported into the city, he said. These regulations will not cause difficulties for farmers, they will help them become familiar with new production standards that will improve their products' values, Dam said. He also pointed to the need for relevant ministries and agencies to build a more effective information dissemination plan to raise farmers' and businesses' awareness about food hygiene and safety. "If we didn't put in place strict measures now to ensure food safety and hygiene, it would cost more later to provide health check-ups and treatment for people who got sick from dangerous food products," he said. Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Cao Duc Phat said city authorities should increase inspections all year round, not just during Tet when people's demand for food products increased. Le Thanh Liem, Vice Chairman of the HCM City People's Committee, said the city has more than 20,000 street food establishments. In 2014, a city inspection found food safety violations at nearly 2,700 of them. Inspectors took more than 27,000 samples for testing and found that about 24,000 of them met hygiene standards. City authorities organised free training courses on food safety and hygiene for more than 10,400 members of the food industry. Also, the city signed agreements with 22 localities on providing local consumers safe, hygienic food products, he said. Hanoi expands methadone treatment for drug addicts Two rehab centres using the methadone treatment method were opened at the HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control Centre and Hospital 09 in Hanoi on January 27. The expansion was part of the city’s plan to launch 11 treatment facilities accommodating 8,500 people by February this year, said Nguyen Khac Hien, Director of the municipal Department of Health. Infrastructure facilities, equipment procurement and staff training are also among the programme priorities, Hien added. In 2014, as many as 2,300 people who had drug addictions were treated with methadone in six local centres, helping reintegrate them into the community. Currently, Hospital 09 cares for nearly 400 patients with HIV/AIDS receiving antiretroviral (ARV) therapy. Roughly 70-80 percent of the patients were previously drug addicts and are struggling to follow the strict treatment schedule. The facilities will help ensure the effectiveness of the treatment while easing the financial burden on HIV patients and their families. First EkoCenter launched to promote community well-being The HCMC People’s Committee, the HCMC Federation of Women Associations and Coca-Cola Company have launched an EkoCenter in HCMC’s Thu Duc District, the first such facility in Asia. EkoCenter brings solar power, safe drinking water and connectivity to communities, as well as a variety of goods, products and services, depending on local needs. It serves as the center of the community activities and is designed to help both the community and business flourish. Irial Finan, executive vice president of Coca-Cola Company and president of the company’s Bottling Investments Group, said in a statement: “Our vision is for EkoCenters to spur economic and social development by providing a place where basic necessities are readily available and a place where the community can access services important to them, like online services. Coca-Cola is investing in these EkoCenters as part of our commitment to Vietnam’s social and economic development.” Typically run by local female entrepreneurs, an EkoCenter serves as a center for community-based activities, while also serving as a public engagement center to promote active healthy living and raise environmental awareness through energy efficiency. The EkoCenter in Thu Duc District is powered by Solarkiosk, a German company which is a key partner of the initiative globally. Nguyen Thi Bich Ngoc, deputy director of the People Mobilization Committee, HCMC, said in a statement: “We appreciate Coca-Cola’s EkoCenter initiative. We hope that as it provides people with one of the very essential utilities such as safe drinking water, the EkoCenter launched in Thu Duc on January 28 and the next centers to be launched will be important public facilities serving to improve the living environment and everyday life conditions for the underserved community. “To make the plan for future EkoCenters a reality, there should be a strong collaboration amongst the partners, and special attention and favorable conditions to be provided by the local authorities.” Urban train project creates traffic chaos in Ha Noi Building sites for Ha Noi's new overhead urban train project, including eight overhead stations, are hindering traffic on some of the capital's busiest routes. The sites, in the centre of wide existing roads, accommodate large machines and workshops. The site for the station No 8 in the centre of 23-metre wide Xuan Thuy Street in Cau Giay at present fill most of the road and run for 141m. When work is completed in two years, the supports for the rail tracks and stations will take up about two metres of the existing road space, improving traffic flow considerably. Work on the stations began in November last year, quickly bringing traffic to a crawl on the busy street. It is common to see thousands of vehicles moving inch by inch during rush hours. Frustrated drivers often take to the footpaths in an effort to escape the traffic jam. Despite effort by the police to direct traffic, the situation cannot improve because there is nowhere for the vehicles to go. Hieu, a university student, who uses the street to go to school, said it takes him almost half an hour just to travel a few kilometres on his motorbike. "Traffic is bad on this street. I have to leave the house almost an hour earlier to avoid being late for school," he said "I also stay at school after classes in the afternoon to avoid traffic hours. This means I end up going home late." Luu, a senior resident in nearby Yen Hoa Commune, said heavy fumes belching from hundreds of vehicles was her biggest concern. She has to pick up her grandchildren from a kindergarten at the opposite end of the street five days a week. The noise, smoke and smell of petrol make her concerned for the health of families in the area. Other routes with traffic bottlenecks created by similar construction sites include Route 32 Cau Dien, Tran Phu Street in Ha Dong District. Chairman of the city People's Committee Nguyen The Thao has ordered the city's Transport Department and traffic police to step up efforts to maintain traffic order. The city also agreed to not to authorise additional construction projects in the area before the lunar holiday, or Tet. Director of the Transport Department, Vu Van Vien, said the department would set up inspection teams to supervise the projects. Overloaded boats remain a problem Barges and boats travelling on waterway routes from HCM City to the Mekong Delta are ignoring regulations on overloaded cargo, while officials do not have sufficient means to control the worsening situation. Demand for waterway transport has increased because of sand exports to Singapore, stone exports and imported raw materials for animal food from Cambodia, and demand for sand in HCM City and neighbouring provinces. "If control is not tightened, the number of overloaded barges and boats will certainly increase," Tran Do Liem, vice chairman of Viet Nam Inland Waterway Transport Association, was quoted in Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper. About 1,400 vessels every day travel through the Cho Gao Canal in the Mekong Delta province of Tien Giang. Most of them transport sand and stone for construction in HCM City and neighbouring provinces. Ninety per cent of the boats and barges are overloaded. "If we transport only the allowed load, we will suffer loss," a steersman said. Last year, traffic police in Tien Giang Province fined 13,140 waterway transport vessels for overloaded cargo shipped from My Thuan to Cho Gao. In the Mekong Delta, along key waterway routes, construction activity is common at local households, storage sites, rice factories, shops and ports. Many construction sites violate waterway routes, some reaching 12 -15m from the bank. Overloaded vessels on narrow waterway routes are at high risk of accidents. "It's not easy to deal with overloaded waterway transport, despite the fact that it is easy to see," said Vu Kim Lan, head of the second inspection team, of HCM City's Transport Department. Vessel owners often have to pay other kinds of fines given by authorities in various localities. In addition, low fines of VND2.5 million (US$120) for the first violation and VND3 million ($140) for the next violation have little impact on violators. "We can only fine and then let them continue to move because we cannot unpack the overloaded commodities," Lan said. Waterway transport vessels often carry thousands of tonnes of commodities and overloaded goods can reach several hundred tonnes. Authorities do not have enough storage and cranes to unpack overloaded commodities. In addition, HCM City has only one place with limited space in District 8 to keep barges that were in violation. "The Ministry of Transport's Viet Nam Inland Waterways Administration has instructed all transport departments to significantly increase their fines on overloaded barges and boats," Phan Van Duy, deputy head of the Administration, said. Control will be tightened at ports and relevant authorities will refuse to grant permission if vessels are overload, he added. New plan sharpens ethnic minority focus A three to four per cent reduction in the number of ethnic minority poor households each year is one of the main targets of a new five-year (2016-2020) plan targeting the minorities. At a policy forum held in the capital city yesterday, officials explained that the new target was set in the context of ethnic minorities making up 56 per cent total number of poor households in the country. This was the case despite a lot of policies on ethnic minority development issued by the Government over the last few decades, said Danh Ut, vice chairman of National Assembly's Ethnic Minority Council. According to the Ministry of Labour, Invalid and Social Affairs, the country has about 1.8 million poor households at present. Another goal of the new plan was to decrease the number of illiterate ethnic minority citizens by 1.5-2 per cent every year, said Nguyen Cao Thinh, an official with the Government's Committee for Ethnic Minority Affairs. Thinh said that an estimated 17.2 per cent of ethnic minority citizens above 10 years old are illiterate. Viet Nam has over 8 million ethnic minority citizens spread over mountainous areas stretching from the north to the south. Ut said the situation can be blamed on "asynchronous policies" and other shortcomings in policymaking, including the failure to consult and gather opinions of ethnic minorities before issuing a policy. Overlaps in managing and implementing the policies worsened the situation, he said. The Government should gather ideas from ethnic minorities before coming with policies and programmes specifically targeting their socio-economic development, he added. Nguyen The Hoang, another official with the Government's Committee for Ethnic Minority Affairs, suggested that a separate Law on Ethnicity be drafted and submitted to the National Assembly. He also "strongly" recommended serious consideration be given to submitting to the parliament a proposal for establishing a Ministry for Ethnic Minority Affairs. He hoped that such steps would prove effective in meeting the new five-year ethnic minority development targets. United Nations Resident Co-ordinator Pratibha Mehta said Viet Nam's internationally recognised success, which has transformed the lives of millions of Vietnamese over the last 30 years, has not yet been shared by everyone. In spite of commendable efforts and allocation of considerable resources, achievements related to ethnic minority communities in poverty reduction and meeting other millennium development goals lagged far behind the rest of the nation, she said. "This is most clear in relation to poverty, where more than half the remaining poor come from minorities groups," she said. Viable strategies for poverty eradication and rapid catching up of development in minority areas must become a central theme of the 2016-20 national socio-economic development plan, she said. The annual forum, which was established in 2008, was co-hosted by the Committee for Ethnic Minority Affairs and the United Nations Development Programme. It seeks to provide opportunities for Government agencies and international and local non-governmental organisations to discuss all aspects of ethnic minority affairs. The main themes of this year's forum was mainstreaming ethnic minority development in the new five-year national socio-economic development plan's policy framework. Strikes drop as negotiation skills improve The number of labour strikes has fallen at garment companies as a result of training offered by provincial Labour Federations to local companies' trade unions, Dang Tan Dat, deputy head of the provincial Federation of Labour's laws and policies division, said. Since 2009, the training project has taken place in the southern provinces of Binh Duong, Dong Nai and HCM City. It is conducted by the Viet Nam General Confederation of Labour with sponsorship from the International Labour Organisation and International NGO Union Aid Abroad APHEDA. The number of strikes in the garment industry fell from 38 in 2011 to 10 in 2014 in the province, said Dat. The project is called Strengthening Trade Union Capacity and Better Work Viet Nam. It aims to improve the lives and working conditions of garment workers in Viet Nam through the development of a strong, representative and responsive labour movement, Hoang Thi Le Hang, country manager of Viet Nam–based Union Aid Abroad APHEDA, speaking at a recent conference about the programme. The project also targets improved adherence to national labour laws and international labour standards. Trade unions at companies receive training in understanding their rights and responsibilities under the law, and help in negotiation skills and labour agreements to ensure workers' rights, said Hang. Dat, of the provincial Labour Federation, said that trade unions now work with managers to find ways to deal with workers' complaints in a timely fashion. Many firms have adjusted provisions in labour agreements, including more benefits for workers. Since the project began in 2009, many garment companies have been offering health exams for employees twice a year instead of once a year. Mai Duc Chinh, vice chairman of the Viet Nam General Confederation of Labour, said the project would continue to be implemented in the provinces of Hai Duong, Tay Ninh and Long An and in Ha Noi through 2016. The garment export industry is worth US$17.9 billion annually, accounting for 15 per cent of total exports in Viet Nam. NZ shares its dam expertise The first phase of a joint dam project between Viet Nam and New Zealand is nearing its end and entering into its final year. The project, improving dam safety with new technologies for warning-systems and risk-management, was the main topic of the Dam and Downstream Community Safety Initiative (DDCSI) workshop held in Ha Noi yesterday. Kathryn Beckett, the first secretary for development at New Zealand's Embassy of Ha Noi and also head of NZAID, spoke to Viet Nam News about the reason for the partnership and the urgency of the project. "The first reason New Zealand got involved is that we are aware of the critical situation of many of Viet Nam's dams some of which were build 40 years or so ago. The situation is only getting worse with the increase in extreme weather," she said, adding that "the second reason is that New Zealand has great expertise in this kind of work, we have a lot of large hydropower dams and we have strong international practices in dam management." The DDSCI project, which started in May 2012, is sponsored by New Zealand's NZAID and implemented by the New Zealand Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences, a New Zealand consultancy firm Damwatch and Viet Nam's Water Resources University. The project is expected to end this year after the guidelines to improve dam safety in Viet Nam have been completed. Worker safety and reducing economic damage from extreme dam discharges are a few of the guideline targets, Prof. Dr. Nguyen Quang Kim, rector of Water Resources University, told the workshop. "The project develops a model for managing flood risks caused by extreme dam discharges, including dam spillway release floods and dam failure floods that may affect downstream communities. It uses a comprehensive method for assessing potential consequences and also proposes prioritized methods to improve dam safety, as well as how to respond when there is an incident." "So far, the project has almost completed its first phase with a case study of Ban Mong reservoir in Nghe An Province," said Kim, highlighting that the results of the study would be transferred to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, and Nghe An Province as a model for other dam safety practices. "The project applies a unique approach to Viet Nam. Nobody in the whole Mekong region can offer to do what we are doing. We are looking at the whole dam system and whole river basin system; from hazards down to the impact on communities," Beckett said. "In this first phase, the project just produces tools to help assess risks, the likelihood of economic damage and guides on how to improve dam management practices. In the next phase we plan to jump into action," she said. Beckett stressed that, "the situation is critical. In Binh Dinh province, I arrived a day after a dam flood. People were killed and washed away. I visited households and businesses that suffered from the dam break; people lost buffaloes and their livelihoods. The experience showed me the widespread nature of the problem, which therefore must be dealt with across the country." PM approves IT application in social security project The PM has ratified the estimates for information technology (IT) application in the social security sector in 2012-2015. The project, worth VND1,263.33 billion, will be mobilized from sources based on regulations at  Decision No.4/2011/QĐ-TTg dated January 20, 2011, on financial management of Viet Nam Social Security. Accordingly, the software and database group and the IT technical infrastructure group will be allocated VND495.83 billion and VND700 billion, respectively. The General Director of Viet Nam Social Security will be responsible for monitoring and launching the project. Overcrowding still plagues major Vietnam hospitals Overcrowding, bed-sharing and overworked staff continue to raise concerns about the quality of care at major hospitals in Vietnam. National Pediatric Hospital said it had managed to find individual beds for each patient for the past four months by changing administrative procedures and limiting the number of in-patients to 1,500. Patients with minor health problems are not being hospitalised, though some are being held for up to five hours for observation in case their health requires hospitalisation. But on January 28, patients reported there was still bed-sharing going on, with nine patients sharing five beds. One parent said her child's room has two beds shared between three patients, because they all have serious illnesses and require close monitoring. Nguyen Mien Thuy, another parent, said, "I'm worried for my child's health if the hospital discharges him too soon. I'd rather let him share beds and stay at hospital." Hanoi National Cancer Hospital plans to increase the number of outpatients to limit bed-sharing, causing concern among patients about quality of care. Two patients share a bed at National Pediatric Hospital Overcrowding has been a serious problem in big cities. Sometimes, patients in HCM City Oncology Hospital, where patient numbers are at 247 percent capacity, some patients are sleeping under beds. HCM City Hospital of Traumatic and Orthopaedics is also overcrowded, at 140 percent of bed capacity, and Pediatric Hospital No.1 is at 127 percent capacity. In 2012, the Ministry of Health announced plans to build more satellite hospitals and improve the capacity of local hospitals to reduce the number of transfers to major central hospitals. On January 20 this year, 13 major hospitals committed to end bed-sharing by February 27. Hanoi's Bach Mai Hospital, one of the most overcrowded hospital in Vietnam, did not make any commitment, blaming lack of infrastructure and equipment for chronic overcrowding. Among 13 committed hospitals, only Viet-Duc Hospital is likely meet its goal. Nguyen Tien Quyet, director of the hospital, said, "The total number of our beds and stretchers is 1,100, but the number of patient hasn't gone past 1,040. We'll put another 350 beds into use so we won't have to use stretchers. Patients can also stay in hospital longer instead of being transferred to satellite hospitals after primary treatment."   Source: VNN/VNA/VNS/VOV/SGT/SGGP/Dantri/ND