Gender equality and women and girl empowerment – key to successful SDG achievement

The Consultative Workshop was jointly organized by the Vietnam Women’s Union (VWU), the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) and the Center for Environment and Community Research (CECR) o­n the morning of August 12 with the participation of representatives from concerned ministries, agencies, organizations, experts, women’s unions of several northern provinces and cities, and international organizations.

The workshop aims to get inputs from concerned agencies, organizations and experts o­n solutions, mechanisms and specific activities to implement the SDG 5 to contribute to developing Vietnam National Action Plan for the 2015-2030 period to implement the SDGs in general and the SDG o­n gender equality in particular.

In her opening remarks at the workshop, VWU President Nguyen Thi Thu Ha reiterated ideas affirmed at the XII National Party Congress o­n the implementation of UN 2030 Agenda; effective integration of the SDGs into the National Socio-economic Development Plan, plans of sectors and localities. She stressed that the SDG 5 “Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls” is a key, a target as well as a part of solutions to achieve other SDGs so as to promote women’s roles, affirm the necessity and benefit of caring for women and gender equality in the development process of each country.

The workshop panorama

Ms. Pratibha Mehta, UN Resident Coordinator in Vietnam stated that gender equality has been placed at the core of the new Agenda o­n sustainable development in a cross cutting manner. To successfully implement the SDGs, especially the SDG 5, it is necessary to identify barriers and obstacles for gender equality and all government bodies need to ensure that their planning, decision-making, policy action, budgeting and monitoring reflect the needs of women and men and benefit all women and girls. Strong commitment is needed from the government, however, sustainable development is a ‘business of everbody’, not the Government o­nly, We need to build broad coalitions with citizens, communities, business sector and various stakeholders in the society. The UN Resident Coordinator also expressed her deep expectation that the Vietnam Government will achieve successfully the 2030 Agenda’s Goals.

The workshop participants listened to presentations o­n the SDG 5, focused o­n discussing and proposing recommendations to the Government and the VWU to ensure gender mainstreaming in the National Action Plan and gender equality monitoring in implementing this plan.

All ideas and inputs at the workshop will be taken into account by the VWU to design VWU measures and action plans to implement the SDG 5 in the coming time.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development was adopted at the United Nations Summit in 2015 with 17 goals and 169 targets, of which Goal 5 is a separate goal o­n gender equality in order to build a world in which every woman and girl enjoys full gender equality and all legal, social and economic barriers to their empowerment are removed. At the Summit, Former State President Truong Tan Sang affirmed Vietnam’s commitment to support and mobilize all resources, ministries, sectors, localities, organizations, communities, and citizens to implement the Agenda successfully.