New VWU President receives international guests

19/05/2016
After Ms. Nguyen Thi Thu Ha was formally elected to be the new VWU President, in April 2016, some international partners and overseas Vietnamese came to congratulate her and discuss prospects of cooperation in the coming time.

  

In the working session between VWU President with Ms. Pratibha Mehta – United Nations Resident Coordinator (UNRC) in Vietnam and Ms. Shoko Ishikawa – UN WOMEN Country Representative o­n 29 April, the UNRC affirmed that gender equality is o­ne of the top issues of the UN in Vietnam and committed to further support Vietnam in the coming time. The UN adopted 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) recently, and Vietnam has become a middle-income country and signed many trade agreements. That context has opened up many opportunities but posed a number of challenges to Vietnam, and there are still many things in terms of gender equality to be done in the future. Ms. Mehta emphasized the importance of strengthening gender equality machineries and mechanisms; gender mainstreaming in the national plans and programs - general and sectoral such as in poverty reduction, climate change adaptation and response, food security…; strengthening the voice and the participation of social organizations in social oversight and consultation...

VWU President Nguyen Thi Thu Ha highly appreciated the UN’s attention and support for Vietnamese women and informed that the VWU will continue focusing o­n participating in law and policy formulation, supporting and ensuring social protection for women, promoting their advancement and supporting them in active and effective international integration. VWU President expressed her expectations that the VWU would get long-term and more strategic cooperation with the UN in Vietnam so as to make contribution to successfully localizing the SDGs. At the invitation of Ms. Pratibha Mehta, she will attend the next meeting of the Informal Ambassadors and Heads of Agencies Gender Policy Coordination Group to share about the VWU’s priorities for the coming years.

At the meeting with Mr. Layton Pike, Deputy-Head of Mission of theAustralian Embassy to Vietnam, Ms. Thu Ha expressed her sincere thanks to Australia for supporting the VWU to implement projects o­n “effective service delivery to combat gender based violence and trafficking“ and “towards more profitable and sustainable vegetable farming systems in north-western Vietnam“ and a number of training programs o­n capacity building for VWU staff. In the years to come, the VWU expects to receive further support from Australia in the areas of women’s economic empowerment, women in leadership, development of female human resources, especially at central level, law and policy fomulation, social oversight and counter-argument, women’s response to climate change and development of VWU’s communication strategy to name a few.

Mr. Layton Pike congratulated VWU President o­n her new position and highly appreciated the efficiency of joint projects. He also informed the 5 year-plan of the Australian government, including supporting private sector, enhancing the professional qualifications of the workforce, promoting women‘s economic empowerment, especiallywomen of ethnic minorities in remote areas. He expected that the VWU would make active contributions to the agenda of theAsia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Forum to be held in Vietnam in 2017.

In the meeting with new VWU President, the Country Director of Care Internationalshared Care‘s current main activities such as women’s economic empowerment,role of women in response to climate change, promoting equality in family and society in which target groups are women in difficulties, of ethnic minorities and vulnerable women as well as the poor urban o­nes. Also at the meeting, Director of the Center for Environmental Research and Community Development (CECR) - VUSTA introduced the center’s activities and expressed interests of cooperation with VWU in the field of environmental protection. VWU President highly appreciated Care’s supportfor VWU at all levels in recent years, updated information about the difficult living conditions of women and children in the areas affected by drought and saltwater intrusion, and expressed her expectations to work closely with Care and CECR in order to mainstream the climate change issue into VWU’s o­n-going and future programs and projects.

At VWU’s headquarters, the President of Vietnamese Women Association in Poland briefed information about the lives of overseas Vietnamese women in Poland and expressed the desire that the VWU would develop different forms of gathering overseas Vietnamese women, of helping them in information exchange and sharingwith prompt actions towards the homeland. VWU President acknowledged their recommendations and aspirations, also informed that these wouldbe o­ne of VWU’s priorities and concerns in the coming time.

On this occasion, the new President Nguyen Thi Thu Ha also received letters of congratulation from a number of international organizations and embassies in Hanoi for her new position and showing their expectations to further cooperate with the VWU for women‘s development and gender equality in Vietnam.

 

 

Translated by Int’l Relations Dept.

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