From 1 June 2009, VDF has moved to the new office. Our new address is: 10th floor, Southern bank office building, 27 Hang Bai street, Hanoi.
The phone number and the fax number remain unchanged.

Workshop on Identifying Poverty lines for Vietnam
On 13 May 2009, VDF invited Mr. Phung Duc Tung, a researcher at Indochina Research and Consulting (IRC), to share his views on and estimates for poverty line in Vietnam. This was the fourth seminar in the 2009 VDF Seminar Series on Social Issues in Vietnam. His presentation showed that various poverty line definitions in Vietnam made it difficult for researchers and policy makers to have real status of poverty. As such, he suggested to update the poverty line every five years using a unified price for expenditure and cost of good basket, using regional and area price index to adjust regional and area poverty line via PPP, and using CPI to adjust poverty line accordingly to price changes. The participants provided a number of examples to share their views on poverty line measurements. Social protection policies for the poor were also lively discussed, as they were deeply related to the poverty definitions. Paper Paper

Workshop on Outline for the Development of Security Market Strategy toward 2020

On 12 May 2009, VDF held the workshop on “Outline for security market development strategy, 2010 – 2020”. Mr Nguyen Son, Director of Market Development Department from State Securities Commission, presented the outline of the market development strategy toward 2020. This outline draws 9 strategy orientations and 10 groups of solutions to develop and reorganize the Vietnam’s stock market in two periods: 2010-2015 and 2015-2020. People from Ministry of Finance, State Bank of Vietnam, National Financial Supervisory Committee and Vietnam Development Forum discussed about the roles and participation of related organizations in the strategy; priority of each work of the strategy; specifying and building quantitative targets of the strategy. Recommendations of the discussion will be added to the outline for Vietnam’s security market development, that will be submitted to Prime Minister for approval in 2010. SlideE SlideV

Workshop on Sustainable Livelihoods Interventions in Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in Vietnam

On 15 April 2009, Mrs. Nguyen Giang Thu, Deputy Head, Department of Science, Technology and Environment, MARD made a presentation on Sustainable Livelihoods Interventions in Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in Vietnam at VDF workshop. MPAs are considered to be one of the most effective management tools to mitigate marine biodiversity degradation and maintain a sustainable fishery and tourism development for coastal inhabitants. Currently, a “Master Plan of Vietnam MPA network to 2015 and vision to 2020” has been drafted and submitted by MARD to the government for approval. Up to now, 04 MPAs officially established. They included Nha Trang Bay MPA (2001), Cu Lao Cham MPA ( 2004), Phu Quoc MPA (2007) and Con Co MPA (2008).  Mrs. Thu presented some livelihood interventions for local people living in and around MPAs, such as environmental quality improvement, tourism development, fish sauce production, dried fish production, handicraft production, and agriculture development. These livelihood interventions could help to reduce the dependence of coastal inhabitants on marine resources. Participants at the WS shared the view that the conservation of natural resources in general and marine resources in particular should be more successful and sustainable if it could be a part of socio-economic development plan of each locality. Presentation

  Workshop on Gender Division of Labor in Households in Vietnam

On 3 April 2009, our third 2009 Seminar Series on Social Issues in Vietnam was jointly held with the Institute of Population and Social Studies (IPSS) at NEU. Prof. John Knodel (University of Michigan) (photo, right) and Dr. Bussarawan Teerawichitchainan (Singapore Management University) (photo, left) presented their co-authored paper with two Vietnamese scholars about gender division of labor in Vietnamese households. They used different econometric approaches with data from the Vietnam Study of Family Change in 2003-2004 to pursue the research objective. The estimates indicated various differences in housework in terms of gender along with other cohort and regional factors. Participants discussed a number of questions on the survey, modeling and interpretation of the results. Presentation Paper