Australian project promotes gender equality in agriculture

Participants at the workshop (Photo: phunuvietnam.vn)

The Australian Government-funded “Integrating gender in agricultural value-chain research” project looks to settle gender social constrains, encourage ethnic men and women’s involvement in agricultural value chains, as well as promote the adoption of high-tech application towards a sustainable agriculture.

Addressing a workshop held in Hanoi from November 15-16 to wrap up the 18-month project, Deputy Head of Mission at the Australian Embassy Rebecca Bryant said that the project is part of the Australian Government’s efforts to carry out its Vietnam Gender Equality Strategy during 2016-2020 period.

The Australian Government commits to improving the quality of life for women and girls in Vietnam via comprehensive approaching measures, she added. 

Funded by the Australian Government through the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), the project, which will end in December, works with 10 ACIAR projects with a total investment of 17 million AUD (13 million USD), focusing on the value chain development in Vietnam and some Southeast Asian countries. 

In the project’s framework, six field studies were carried out on how gender norms and relations affect agricultural practices, identify gender-based opportunities and challenges for ethnic male and female farmers. Also, it built a database for gender equality research and development, as well as establish a network for agricultural and gender scientists in the region.

The workshop brought together government officials and researchers from Vietnam, Myanmar, the Philippines, Laos and Cambodia, and ethnic farmers from the northern provinces of Son La and Dien Bien.

Vietnam’s northwest is home to many ethnic minority groups and has some of the highest levels of poverty and inequality in the country. The region has been a strong focus of the ACIAR program and Australian Aid.

ACIAR is part of the Australian Government’s Development Assistance Programme and contributes to that programme’s objectives of helping developing countries reduce poverty and achieve sustainable development. To date, ACIAR has commissioned and managed more than 1,500 research projects in around 36 countries. More than 150 institutions in partner countries have involved in collaborative projects with over 50 Australian research organisations.

VNA, Quang Tri province ink communication cooperation deal

The Vietnam News Agency (VNA) and the central province of Quang Tri signed an agreement on communication cooperation in Dong Ha city on November 15. 

Under the agreement, the two sides have identified cooperation for mutual development as a strategic task in order to meet the country’s requirements of reform and international integration in the new situation. 

They will exchange information to popularise policies and guidelines, and promote Quang Tri’s culture, land, people, potential, advantages, and projects calling for investment to domestic and foreign friends through the VNA’s news outlets. 

The VNA will cover information about Quang Tri in all spheres, focusing on the building of the Party and political system, and the implementation of the provincial Party Committee’s resolution and the Politburo’s Directive No.05-CT/TW on studying and following President Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, morality, and lifestyle. 

The agency will expand its coverage of the opportunities and investment advantages in the Southeast economic zone; renewable energy and tourism projects; and clean, organic, and high-tech agriculture in Quang Tri; as well as trade and tourism activities along the East-West Economic Corridor. 

Quang Tri’s efforts in administrative reform, business environment improvement, implementation of social welfare policy, the preservation of tangible and intangible heritage, the promotion of the image of local people, poverty reduction, national security protection, the building of Vietnam-Laos border line, and the settlement of consequences of unexploded ordnances left by the wars will be highlighted by the VNA. 

The VNA will support the portals of the provincial Party Committee and People’s Committee, and allow local press agencies to use its published products free of charge with clear source quotations, while helping the province train its reporters. 

In response, Quang Tri pledged to create favourable conditions for VNA journalists to operate in the province in line with the law, and instruct its localities and agencies to provide information for the agency. 

Addressing the signing ceremony, VNA General Director Nguyen Duc Loi, who is also a member of the Party Central Committee, highlighted advantages of the agency which has representative offices in the 63 cities and provinces of the country and 30 overseas representative offices worldwide. 

The VNA boasts the most products and information forms in the country, and is the biggest in Southeast Asia, he said, adding that the agency has set up bilateral and multilateral relations with nearly 40 major news agencies and press organisations across the world. 

Loi expressed his wish that Quang Tri will continue to create conditions for the VNA and its representative office in the province to complete its assigned political tasks and implement targets set in the agreement. 

For his part, Party Central Committee member Nguyen Van Hung, Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairman of the People’s Council of Quang Tri, said that the VNA’s coverage of Quang Tri in recent times has encouraged the provincial Party Committee, authorities and people to strive towards achieving further. 

The official expressed his hope that the agency will step up information promoting Quang Tri’s image through its products. 

Front leader sends greetings to Caodaists on founding anniversary

President of the Vietnam Fatherland Front (VFF) Central Committee Tran Thanh Man 

President of the Vietnam Fatherland Front (VFF) Central Committee Tran Thanh Man has expressed his belief that dignitaries and followers of the Cao Dai sect will make more contributions to the country’s reforms.  

In a letter sent to dignitaries and followers on the occasion of the 93rd anniversary of Caodaism, the official called on them to continue to lead good secular and religious lives, as well as to participate in patriotic movements. 

The Caodaism community has upheld traditional cultural and moral values, contributed to the national construction and defence, and responded to patriotic campaigns launched by the VFF, he said. 

Man praised the examples in the sect such as the Cao Dai Tay Ninh Church and the Ante Creation (Cao Dai Tien Thien) Church in the southern provinces of Tay Ninh and Ben Tre, for their charity and social welfare work and engagement in new-style rural area and civilised urban area building.

The VFF leader wished the sect a happy and successful festival. 

Cao Dai is one of the major religions in Vietnam, with 10,000 dignitaries and 2.5 million followers in Vietnam and 30,000 abroad. The religion has 1,300 places of worship in 37 cities and provinces nationwide.

Experts call for closer collaboration to combat cancer in Southeast Asia

Doctors perform surgery on a patient with stomach cancer.

Closer collaboration among stakeholders is needed to improve access to innovative medicines to combat cancer in ASEAN member countries, experts have said.

At the current dialogue session “Taking Action Together: Improving Care for Cancer Patients in ASEAN countries” at the 2018 World Cancer Congress held in Malaysia by the Union of International Cancer Control  and Bayer, experts said the public and private healthcare sectors and NGOs had to collaborate closely to combat access barriers to innovative cancer medicines in Southeast Asia.

The session heard that many people in the region lacked adequate access to cancer care, and the challenges faced by countries over access to medicines were multi-faceted and required contributions from all stakeholders.

There was a clear need for governments to extend financial protection through social health insurance and publicly-supported cancer care to relieve patients from the cost burden of cancer treatment.

Patient-assistance programmes (PAP) supported by companies together with partners from local healthcare systems and NGOs would also help close such healthcare gaps.

For instance in Viet Nam, Bayer sponsored a PAP managed by the Bright Future Fund (BFF), a member of the Union of International Cancer Control, to provide patients suffering from hepatocellular carcinoma or advanced renal cell carcinoma with better access to first-line oral targeted therapy.

Approved by the Ministry of Health, the PAP was launched in 2016, and it has since provided partial funding to patients who are diagnosed with HCC or RCC, and are prescribed with the targeted oral cancer drug.

In its first year, the PAP supported 852 HCC patients and 52 RCC patients in 19 hospitals and medical centres.

At the dialogue session, experts also said though more people were diagnosed with cancer, the good news was that innovative cancer medicines along with better care were helping cancer patients live longer and better.

Over the past few decades the death rates of many cancers had fallen, reducing it from a death sentence to a chronic condition, and many were even cured.

Better treatment and improved survival mean people were able to return to their usual daily routines, resume work and play an active role in society and the economy.

In the 1970s fewer than half the people with cancer survived five years. Today two out of three people survive at least five years.

New therapies had contributed to significant declines in cancer death rates around the world since its peak in 1991. Approximately 73 percent of survival gains in cancer were attributable to new medicines.

Cancer treatment had evolved from pain palliation to chronic management, with targeted therapies which halted or slowed down disease progression, minimised complications, improved the quality of life, prevented hospitalisation and surgeries, reduced side effects, and even cured.

New, innovative cancer treatment offered hope to patients who had limited or no other options. Incremental advances in cancer treatment made a huge difference to patients who did not respond to currently available treatments.

Adding multiple lines of treatments could help cancer patients extend their lives and improve the quality of their lives.

For example, in hepatocellular carcinoma, where survival rates were low, the approval of the first oral targeted therapy for first-line systemic treatment of HCC in 2007 represented new hope for many patients.

As many patients still experienced disease progression, there remained an unmet need for the development of additional treatments for HCC.

This supported the recent approval of a second-line oral targeted therapy around the world.

Both first- and second-line therapies formed a proven systemic treatment sequence to significantly improve overall survival of patients with HCC.

An unprecedented median survival time of 26 months from the start of prior the first-line treatment had been achieved in clinical studies, demonstrating how sequential treatment of two innovative cancer medicines could lead to incremental improvements in survival.

The session also heard that cancer policies and awareness in ASEAN nations differed from country to country since local healthcare systems were unique.

In particular, there was little uniformity when it came to frameworks for access to innovative cancer medicines, leading to delays and access disparities for patients across ASEAN countries.

There were also gaps in knowledge and awareness of cancer among the general public, lack of alignment in care priorities and delivery infrastructure and a lack of early diagnosis and in enhancing treatment outcomes.

In some countries, there was still room for improvement in reimbursement frameworks and decision processes to support the effective use of medicines to treat clinically-eligible patients, ultimately avoiding treatment delays and substantial loss of life years.

Furthermore, there were disparities in health plans that did not cover – or only partially covered –the provision of cancer drugs, while some price control mechanisms and policies could also result in restricted patient access.

Consequently, some patients found themselves having to pay for all expenses out of their pocket, despite the majority not having sufficient funds to cover their treatment.

In Việt Nam, non-communicable diseases accounted for 72 per cent of mortality in 2010, including 29 per cent due to cancer.

Việt Nam has undertaken initiatives to tackle the growing cancer incidence, addressing problems such as a lack of early screening and putting an emphasis on public knowledge of the disease. 

In order to support Vietnamese cancer patients, especially patients with liver cancer, the Liver Cancer Patient Support Programme, managed and implemented by the BFF and sponsored by Bayer, was launched.

In the programme, patients diagnosed with HCC or RCC and prescribed the targeted oral cancer drug approved by the MOH have half the cost of the oral cancer treatment subsidised. This programme has been implemented nation-wide since early 2017 with 19 hospitals taking part.

To sign up for the programme, HCC patients can contact doctors at hospitals taking part in it. Consultants at these hospitals will provide details. Patients can also contact Ms. Nguyen Ha My at 84 91 393 6658 or call the BFF office at +84 24 6680 6969 or email quyngaymaituoisang@gmail.com for further support.

This is one of the long-term programmes to help HCC patients with the treatment cost and enables them to follow the treatment process so that they can optimise treatment response and prolong their lives.

Kiên Giang rice output exceeds full-year target

Farmers harvest the 2018 summer- autumn rice in Kiên Giang Province’s Giang Thành District. 

Kiên Giang Province, the country’s largest rice producer, has grown more than 4.34 million tonnes of paddy so far this year, 900,000 tonnes more than the full-year target.

The Mekong Delta province grew the grain on a combined 728,400ha this year, with high-quality rice varieties accounting for 80 per cent, according to its Department of Agriculture and Rural Development. Thus, if a hectare of land yielded two crops, the department counted it as two hectares of production.

The 2017-18 winter-spring rice crop had the highest yield of seven tonnes per hectare compared to 5.3 tonnes for the summer-autumn crop, five tonnes for the autumn-winter crop, and 4.5ha for the mùa crop.

The mùa crop is planted in the rainy season and the varieties grown have a maturity period of up to six months compared to three months for others.

Đỗ Minh Nhựt, deputy director of the department, said rice production faced difficulties this year due to unfavourable weather and saltwater intrusion.  

Saltwater affected the 2017-18 winter-spring rice in Kiên Lương and Giang Thành districts when the crop was flowering.

The summer-autumn and autumn-winter crops in Tân Hiệp and Hòn Đất districts were flattened by prolonged rains when they were ready for harvest.

The delta’s annual flooding season was intense this year, damaging hundreds of hectares of rice in Giang Thành, Kiên Lương, Hòn Đất and Tân Hiệp districts.

Pests like brown plant hoppers and rice stem gall midge also affected the quantity and quality of rice this year.

Yet the province easily managed to achieve the rice production target as the department encouraged farmers to adopt certain models like planting rice and breeding shrimp together in coastal areas and invest in agricultural machinery and irrigation, Nhựt said.

It also recommended the “3 reductions and 3 increases” and “1 must and 5 reductions” models.

The former refers to reducing seeding, fertilisers and plant protection chemicals to achieve increases in productivity, quality and efficiency.

The latter requires farmers to use certified seeds and reduce seeding, plant protection chemicals, nitrogen fertilisers, irrigation and post-harvest losses.

In the 2018-19 winter-spring rice crop, the province plans to crop 285,000ha and harvest more than two million tonnes of the grain.

Nhựt said sowing would be completed by early next January.  

The department is instructing farmers to use short-term, high-quality varieties and use the “3 reductions and 3 increases” and “1 must and 5 reductions” models, he said.    

It would focus on further developing large-scale fields to produce high-quality rice for exports, he said. 

Hà Nội honours heritage

A gong performance in the Central Highlands province of Đăk Lăk. 

Hà Nội will host a three-day (November 23-25) event to celebrate the nation’s heritage.

The Vietnamese Cultural Heritage exhibition, organised by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, will showcase a range of tangible and intangible heritages.

It will feature photo shows, traditional art performances and games, a display and sale of agricultural produce and souvenirs from various localities.

It will also have sections where artisans and their works are displayed and honoured.

Nineteen localities have registered to participate in the exhibition that will be held at the Vietnamese Culture and Arts Exhibition Centre, 2 Hoa Lư Street, Hai Bà Trưng District. 

Đà Nẵng prepares for cruise tourism conference

A tour boat on the Hàn River in Đà Nẵng. 

The central city of Đà Nẵng hosted an international conference on cruise tourism yesterday.

The event aimed at promoting the city to international cruise lines and cruise travel agents as an attractive destination, and to provide information about local tourism products on offer and policies and development plans for the cruise tourism industry.

Nearly 100 delegates, including representatives of cruise and travel agents such as Saigontourist, Destination Asia Việt Nam, Tân Hồng OTC, APL, Evergreen, and OOCL and foreign cruise lines operating in Việt Nam including Genting Dream Hongkong, Henna, Costa Classia, and Super Star Aquarius will attend the conference.