Vietnam Women's Union

Conferring Merit Medal "For the Development of Vietnamese Women " on UNDP consultant Jean Munro

31/08/2016

On the afternoon of July 21, 2016 in Hanoi, on behalf of the Vietnam Women's Union (VWU), Vice President Tran Thi Huong conferred the Merit Medal "For the Development of Vietnamese women" - the VWU’s highest award on Ms. Jean Munro, Senior Technical Advisor of Women's Leadership Project of UNDP in Vietnam and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) in recognition of her active contribution to gender equality and women's development in Vietnam.

Over the past years, UNDP has provided great support to Vietnam with a special priority given to gender equality and women’s empowerment. The UNDP-MOFA project supported and collaborated with the VWU to carry out a number of activities to promote gender equality in politics.

Over the past 5 years working in Vietnam, Ms. Jean Munro, in her position, has actively supported the VWU in implementing the project’s activities such as organizing workshops on measures to promote women's participation in politics, training potential women candidates in 2016 election, and piloting the mentoring program for VWU staff…

Especially, she has made great contributions to designing the training manual "Ready for Success" for potential women deputies to the XIV National Assembly (NA) and the 2016 - 2021 People's Councils (PC) at all levels. These activities contributed to achieving the goals set out in Vietnam National Strategy on gender equality in the period of 2011- 2020. She has also helped the VWU carry out research on the role and responsibilities of the Vietnam Fatherland Front and the VWU in the election of NA deputies and PC members at all levels. Based on the research findings, the VWU has designed and signed a collaboration program with the Vietnam Fatherland Front in order to ensure the targeted rate of female candidates in 2016 election. As a result, the percentage of women deputies to the XIV NA increased by over 2% to 26.8%, and the percentage of women members of PCs at all levels has increased as compared with the previous term. Women are increasingly holding important positions in the leadership of the Party and State agencies.

Speaking at the Medal conferring ceremony, Vice President Tran Thi Huong, on behalf of the VWU, conveyed sincere thanks to Ms. Jean Munro for her contribution to gender equality promotion and Vietnamese women’s development. The Vice President also wished her success in the new job position and expressed expectation to get her further support for the VWU’s activities as well as Vietnamese women.

Ms. Jean Munro expressed her sentiments towards the noble reward given by the VWU. Recalling the beautiful memories and deep impressions on the VWU and its staff, with whom she had opportunities to directly work, Ms. Jean Munro affirmed that despite her job accomplishment in Vietnam, she would always be interested in and looking forward to hearing more about initiatives to promote gender equality and its progress in Vietnam in the coming time.