At the United Nations Millennium Summit in 2000, 189 Member States adopted the Millennium Declaration and pledged to reach the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015.

Viet Nam has made very impressive progress towards achieving the MDGs and has been successful in meeting some of them – such as MDG 1 on eradication of extreme hunger and poverty – way ahead of the 2015 deadline.

if Viet Nam is to achieve all the MDGs with equity, it is important that progress is sustained, that rising disparities are better targeted, that risks are anticipated and that remaining gaps are addressed

Especially for girls and young women,  access to family planning, to contraception, to education and to the formal labour market is crucial not only for improving their own living conditions, but also in terms of demographic dynamics.

improving women’s access to the formal labour market as well as to health care and education is particularly important, as investments in these areas are likely to lead to later marriages, less teenage pregnancies and more stable family structures.

it was only in 2006 that the National Assembly passed the country’s first ever Law on Gender Equality.

The Marriage and Family Law sets the minimum marriage age to 18 for women and 20 for men

achieving two of them – universal education (MDG 2), and gender equality and empowering women (MDG 3) – is vital to meeting all the others.

getting girls into school and ensuring that they stay there has what UNICEF calls a "multiplier effect."

Educating a girl dramatically reduces the chance that her child will die before age five