Viet Nam has been making solid progress towards both the World Food Summit (WFS) targets and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that call for hunger to be reduced by half by 2015, attaining the first goal of the MDGs in 2010. However, 11.5 million people, some 14 percent of the population, still remain undernourished. In Viet Nam, agriculture, forestry and fisheries, are important sectors of the economy, accounting for 21 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2009. About 70 percent of the population live in rural areas and 48 percent depend on agriculture for their livelihoods.

Despite lingering food security issues, Viet Nam has emerged as one of the most striking economic success stories of recent years. Rapid economic growth combined with direct government action to assist the poorest households and communities have significantly reduced the incidence of poverty in Viet Nam.

From the devastation of the post-war period, Viet Nam has undergone a transformation in food security to become the world’s second largest exporter of rice, and through the decades the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has played an important role in this major achievement.

FAO was established in 1945 to develop rural areas that are home to 70 percent of the world's poor and hungry people. In 1978, FAO began working in Viet Nam and since then, FAO has provided technical assistance and advice to the government and has been involved in the implementation of some 400 programmes and projects in the areas of sustainable agricultural development, pesticide management, marketing, trade initiatives, forestry, fisheries, animal health and livestock production are also reinforced. Other focal areas of FAO’s operation in Viet Nam include food safety and security, nutrition and gender initiatives.

In recent years, there has been considerable development of the FAO programme in Viet Nam, and its integration under the One-UN initiative. The total value of FAO projects and programmes for Viet Nam, including those with regional scopes for the period of 2006-2010 was over US$36 million.

FAO supports the intensification of agriculture, forestry and fisheries production. It has assisted in facilitating Viet Nam to join in international conventions on plant protection, genetic resources, climate change and the Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC). Technical assistance and support has been provided to generations of sector specialists and leaders to build the necessary capacity to achieve food sufficiency and security.

In the recent past, the cooperation between FAO and Viet Nam has increasingly shifted to the provision of policy support and advice, helping Viet Nam assume greater leadership regionally and globally in various aspects of sustainable development.