(Hanoi) On 21 August 2012, Ms. Pratibha Mehta - United Nations Resident Coordinator, and UN-Habitat had the meetings with the Director of Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics and Public Administration (HCMA) and Minister of Construction to strengthen partnership and find out opportunities for co-operation in the future.

Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics and Public Administration is a training centre for key leaders and high lever officials of Vietnamese Party, the Government and many socio-politics departments. Since 2010, UN-Habitat have worked with the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics and Public Administration and Center of Leadership and Policy Studies (CLAPS) to organize Leadership training course for Quang Nam Province and Leadership training courses for housing policy makers and urban planners (ToT course).

Because of its important role in training system in Vietnam Ms. Pratibha Mehta said that there were many co-operation opportunities between United Nations and the Academy. United Nations could support to open the networking and bring global knowledge and global initiatives to improve methodology and teaching content to academy's courses.

Ms. Pratibha Mehta strongly appreciated the openness of Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics and Public Administration and CLAPS in working with UN-Habitat and development partners on urban issues and capacity building and training, and looked forward to a continued close dialogue and partnership in future.

Ministry of Construction is a key role player in urban developing as well as addressing urban problems. In the past few years, UN-Habitat Viet Nam has cooperated with MOC's department such as Bureau for Housing & Real Estate Market, Academy for Managers of Construction and Cities, Center Steering Committee on Housing and Real Estate Market Policy to develop Vietnam Housing Profile, National Housing Development Strategy toward 2020, vision of 2030; Training courses, Study tour & Capacity Building Programme for housing policy makers and urban planners and many workshop and round table with Vietnam Urban Forum.

In the meeting with the Minister of Construction, Ms. Pratibha Mehta expressed sincere thank to what MOC has supported for UN-Habitat to deliver their mandate. For future urban development, Ms. Pratibha Mehta said that the United Nations will focus on green development and construction to adapt to climate change thus the Ministry could contribute in develop regulations and norms to promote green materials, energy saving in construction. And the United Nations committed to support evident based policies.

These two courtesy visits of Ms. Pratibha Mehta have shown the care of United Nations in urban development and commitment to work closely with UN-Habitat to continuously support Vietnam in coming time.