 The international community rarely calls for revolution. In this case, it has a data revolution. Since the Doi Moe, the new beginning in 1986, Vietnam has reduced poverty at a record-breaking scale. Vietnam has implemented an economic reform program that has included a whole range of measures. The national economic output has doubled every 10 years. Vietnam has moved from using the bike to using extensively the motorbike in a very short period of time. To take the next steps, Vietnam needs better data to continue pressing forward and design effective policies to keep improving the lives of its people as the structure of the economy changes. The global need for better data is why the UN has called for a data revolution throughout the world. Vietnam is ahead of many other countries and a data revolution is already underway. In the early 2000s, Vietnam already had data sets, but it lacked data in key areas. Before that time, information and data in Vietnam were very bad and people faced very difficult to access to the economic data. One area was in the lives of those in rural households. There wasn't data that followed people and small and medium-sized businesses over time to see the challenges they face. UNU-Wider and the University of Copenhagen with financial support from Duneda have worked together with other international partners, including Carol Newman from Trinity College Dublin and with key areas of the Vietnamese government to design, implement and analyze surveys to fill the gaps. One of these is VAAS, the Vietnam Access to Resources Household Survey that follows over 3,000 households every two years in 12 provinces in Vietnam, checking on everything from the size of land to how they use it. This is the first time the panentators for the rural households is focusing on the economic resources, economic approaches. This data sets divide not only until each family, but it also see for different plots of land. And that is no any data set have that value. So we know that, okay, what from changing in their mindset, they're changing in their strategy of using resource. Based on these data sets, there have been dozens of research papers and reports to ministers providing policy insights that were previously unavailable. One key change to policy has been to land use in order to raise the productivity of agricultural land to support a growing economy and account for the falling numbers of people working the land. The data showed if restrictions could be lifted, this plot of land, like so many others in Vietnam, could be put to more productive use. This farmer grows jackfruit, grapefruit, bananas, and raises over 1,000 pigs. Instead of being limited to cultivating rice, he has been able to choose to grow a number of crops on this land, which carries the possibility of higher productivity. An important aim, given the country's ongoing structural transformation. We still have the policy that specifies the purpose of land use, especially for paddy land. Paddy land just can generate a low value. So it generates little incentive for farmers to buy or to hire more land. For paddy land, now the government makes it more flexible that the farmer can change the purpose of land use from paddy cultivation to other annual crop. It's the first step. And in the next step, we are still proposing to government that we may allow the farmer to use paddy land for life fruit, for aquaculture, for livestock. Le Ngu Bin, of the Institute for Labor Science and Social Affairs, has been involved in the data right the way from the grassroots level through local government, all the way to partners and policy makers. Even though we haven't reached a goal yet, I think it will continue to have better changes. We see that changes in the perspective of the government create a way for people to live and work on their land. The VAR study has been critical in helping forge policies that manage Vietnam's structural change. As in other parts of the world, Vietnam has seen millions of people move from agriculture to manufacturing and services and from living in rural areas to living in the cities. A new rural development program already been set as a national targeted program. I think our study had very strong influence in that decision. Vietnam's data revolution also covers areas of small and medium-sized businesses, which make up 97% of businesses in Vietnam and are a key factor in the economy's structural change. Here, the data has revealed the constraints faced by small and medium-sized businesses due to, for example, a lack of access to credit. Recent policies by government have sought to address this. Other work on data includes setting up a social accounting matrix which has allowed the Vietnamese government to better model the economy and the effects of policy as Vietnam takes steps in its development and global integration process. I think that's one of the very best examples for cooperation between the international body and the national body in research for policy. But a data revolution does not happen overnight, nor in weeks, months, or years. It takes decades of commitment across all areas of government and it requires resources. For 20 years of showing research and so many surveys, we open access to anyone. Therefore, so many other people can benefit and I think that is unique so far in Vietnam. I think it's the collaboration and good planning doing research. We come up with a good idea and a good result. Development is like traveling a very difficult road through mountains and deep valleys. Having a map that can help guide you through the most difficult paths is going to facilitate that process. Data in some ways is a very fundamental part of that map.