In the morning of 20th June 2014, Vietnam Union of Science and Technology Associations (VUSTA) held a conference on “Strengthening the cooperation between VUSTA’s organizations and international non-governmental organizations (INGOs)”. The conference had the attendance of Professor Dang Vu Minh, VUSTA Chairman, Mr. Phan Anh Son, Head of the People’s Aid Co-ordinating Committee (PACCOM) and over 200 participants from Vietnamese and international NGOs. Dr. Nguyen Trong An, RTCCD Deputy Director, attended the conference on behalf of RTCCD.
The conference provided an overview on fund raising and project implementation of INGOs in 3 main areas: Community Development, Policy Advocacy and Environment; and analysed the situation and needs of VUSTA’s organizations in raising aids from INGOs. In the discussion session on VNGOs-INGOs cooperation strengthening, Dr An shared learnt lessons in health policy advocacy from EBHPD/RTCCD and he also updated our successes in advocating the recently-adopted Health Insurance Law. In the closing, attendants agreed on the importance of information sharing enhancement, capacity building and cooperation using the coalition model. Meanwhile, the support of PACCOM and VUSTA in administrative/technical issues is crucial, including providing the information in regards of law-making procedures, organization of forums for linkages, fund raising and cooperative events/conferences, and simplifying approval procedures.