Vietnam has made substantial progress in recent years against both the Vietnam Development Goals (VDGs) and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It has shown consistent improvement in social indicators, such as education enrolment and infant mortality, as well as in economic terms with GDP growing by 8.5% in 2007, the highest growth rate in 10 years.

International development cooperation with Vietnam has also grown significantly since 1993 and it has been a pilot country for the EC in terms of donor aid harmonisation, aid effectiveness and alignment with government policies and systems. This has been in line with a government drive to improve the effectiveness of overseas development assistance (ODA) since the 1990s.

Mokoro associate, Ann Bartholomew, joined a team undertaking an evaluation of the EC country Strategy from 1996-2008. The objective of the evaluation was to identify key lessons learned for future strategies and cooperation with Vietnam. This included a review of EC support to the education sector through targeted budget support for the Education For All (EFA) Action Plan.