The childcare project, financed by a US$1.9 million grant under the Japanese Fund for Poverty Reduction, aims to pilot cost-effective community-based early childhood care and development approaches to improve the health, nutrition status and development of children under 3 years of age in ethnic minority groups and among migrant workers in central Quang Binh and Quang Tri and southern Binh Duong provinces.

The second project, worth US$1.25 million, with US$1 million coming from the Japanese Special Fund, is focused on improving the quality of water-related public services and the management of water resources used for irrigation in Vietnam.

The technical assistance specifically focuses on the upgrading of professional training facilities for water resource specialists, while developing a proposal to modernise the management of Bac Hung Hai, one of the oldest and largest irrigation and drainage systems in the country.

The project is scheduled to be launched in Hanoi and the northern provinces of Hung Yen, Hai Duong and Bac Ninh in November and is scheduled for completion by mid-2009.