People with disabilities work at the Vụn Art Cooperative in Ha Dong District, Hanoi. — Photo qdnd.vn

The event, entitled Strengthening coordination efficiency and international cooperation in activities to support people with disabilities, was jointly organised by the Vietnam National Committee on People with Disabilities and the Vietnam Union of Science and Technology Associations (VUSTA).

Speaking at the workshop, Nguyen Van Hoi, Chief of Office of Vietnam National Committee on Disability, Director of Social Protection Department, Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs said the Government has paid great attention to people with disabilities and promulgated many policies and programmes to support them.

The National Assembly also has enacted a law on people with disabilities and many support policies on education, health care, vocational training, employment, social protection, social security, and livelihood support.

However, Hoi said, due to limited budget and human resources, inadequacies in awareness of staffs working in support of people with disabilities, there is still a limited number of people with disabilities with accesses to these resources.

“Many people with disabilities still have had no access to programmes to support the disabled in the country due to overlaps in programmes or poor coordination between relevant organisations and management units,” said Hoi.

Hoi suggested local and international organisations work closer together with an aim to strengthen administrative reforms and helping people with disabilities access support resources from many organisations.

Priorities should be given to create favourable conditions to promote the coordination between organisations of people with disabilities and domestic and foreign organisations to exchange experiences and help improve their operational efficiency.

Le Duy Tien, Deputy General Secretary and Head of Science, Technology and Environment Department under VUSTA said: “In order to further support people with disabilities, we need to strengthen the effectiveness of the State management in the implementation of legal policies on people with disabilities and promote the socialisation of domestic and international resources to support people with disabilities.

“We need to share information, raise awareness and responsibility of agencies to implement the Party and State's policies and policies on people with disabilities,”” added Tien.

Participants agreed that better coordination and promotion of activities between ministries, sectors and local and international organisations would improve effectiveness in supporting people with disabilities in the country.

They also focused discussions on sharing Government’s policies and regulations relating to people with disabilities, measures to improve State management activities and promote the domestic and international resources.

The country currently has more than 6.2 million people with disabilities, making up more than 6 per cent of population.

At present, the State Budget has covered groups of people with severe disabilities, providing monthly social allowances for about 1.1 million people with disabilities with a budget of about VND15,000 billion yearly.

Around 20,000 people with disabilities were provided access to vocational training and jobs. About 1.2 million disabled students were given access to schools and up to 95 per cent of people with disabilities have been covered by the health insurance fund, according to the Vietnam National Committee on Disability.  VNS

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