A/72/165 I. Viet Nam 71. Viet Nam provided information with regard to the population census of 2014, indicating that more than 12 million people are persons belonging to mi norities (14.3 per cent of the total population). It also noted that the Constitution of 2013 recognizes that minorities have equal rights and enshrines the principles of equality and non-discrimination, as well as the right of Vietnamese citizens from eth nic minorities to political participation. Viet Nam indicated that, of the 151 laws adopted by the National Assembly over the past decade, 38 are related to ethnic minorities. 72. The Special Rapporteur welcomes the programmes aimed at ethnic minorities in the area of poverty alleviation and development that have been implemented over the past years, which have proved successful. She further welcomes the national target programme on sustainable poverty reduction for the period 2016 -2020. 73. The Special Rapporteur expressed satisfaction at the reduction of the poverty rate among ethnic minority households, which is reported to have dropped from 35 per cent in 2011 to 16.8 per cent in 2015, and the reduction of the malnourishment rate among children under the age of 5 years from ethnic minorities, which has fallen to below 25 per cent. The Special Rapporteur congratulates Viet Nam for the improvements in the field of education and training for ethnic minorities, with a school enrolment rate of 95 per cent among ethnic minorities compared with the national average of 98 per cent. With respect to the preservation of minority languages, the Special Rapporteur welcomes a recent pilot project launched in cooperation with the United Nations Children’s Fund on bilin gual education in three provinces (Lao Cai, Tra Vinh and Gia Lai). IV. Analysis of the communications sent out by the mandate holders 74. From 1 August 2005, when the mandate was established, to 30 June 2017, a period that encompasses almost the entire tenure of two mandate holders, 269 communications to Governments were sent. In 2005, only one communication was sent. Since then, there has been a fairly steady increase in the number of communications sent annually, with the highest number of communications sent in 2011. 75. The largest number of communications (132) were sent to States in the Asia Pacific region. The Europe and Central Asia region came second, with 79 communications, followed by the Middle East and North Africa region, with 25. Countries in the Americas region received 18 communications, while the Africa region received 15. 76. Of the 269 communications sent, 262 were addressed to Governments jointly with other mandate holders. Of these joint communications, 134 were joint allegation letters and 125 were joint urgent appeals. A total of three were sent as joint so-called other letters, relating to issues of legislation or policy concern. 77. A total of seven communications were sent without other mandate holders: one allegation letter, five urgent appeals and one other letter. 78. In terms of the reasons for the communications, the largest number of communications (108) related to issues concerning religious minorities. There were also 14 cases where the issues in question related to groups that qualified both as religious and ethnic minorities. The second largest group of victims was ethnic 17-12138 17/22