Vietnam Women’s Union and UN Women strengthen cooperation on women empowerment
On 2 October, 2017, Ms. Nguyen Thi Thu Ha, member of Vietnam Communist Party Central Committee, VWU President, had a meeting with Ms. Miwa Kato – Regional Director of UN Women for Asia Pacific and Ms. Elisa Fernandez - Head of the UN Women Office in Viet Nam.
Ms. Nguyen Thi Thu Ha welcomed Ms. Miwa Kato to Vietnam, and extended her congratulations to Ms. Elisa Fernandez on assuming the position of the Head of the UN Women Office in Viet Nam.
At the meeting, Ms. Thu Ha briefly introduced about VWU activities, especially its function of participating in developing laws and policies related to women and gender equality, supervising their implementation and giving social feedback to draft laws and policies.
Ms. Miwa Kato appreciated the role of the VWU and recognized it as an important partner of UN Women in promoting gender equality in Viet Nam. Ms. Miwa Kato said that, Ms. Elisa Fernandez, with her strong capacity and rich experiences, will bring a new breeze into the activities of UN Women in Vietnam. Thereby, the UN Women and the VWU will have more opportunities to strengthen our cooperation.
Discussing about issues of mutual concern, the VWU requested the UN Women to provide assistance in policy advocacy, in strengthening VWU capacity to engage in implementing the National Action Plan to implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, especially the SDGs 5 on gender equality. The VWU is particularly concerned about problems facing female workers, specifically 80% of women aged over 35 years working in industrial zones are forced to leave their jobs or quit their jobs themselves. Therefore, there should be solutions and interventions to protect the interests of workers, especially female workers.
In addition, women's economic empowerment, supporting access to capital, vocational training, women entrepreneurship promotion, supporting women in business start-up are also the issues of VWU-UNWOMEN common interest.
Since 2010, UN Women has supported the VWU in communication activities to raise the awareness for its members and women in five provinces on natural disaster prevention and control and in policy advocacy to enable the VWU to participate in the National Steering Committee for Natural Disaster Prevention and Control, and local Committees for Natural Disaster Prevention and Control, Search and Rescue. In response to the drought and saltwater intrusion in Vietnam in 2016, UN Women mobilized resources to provide relief for women. UN Women has been very active to join hands with the VWU in supporting a number of grassroots initiatives to develop natural disaster resilient livelihoods. VWU President invited UNWOMEN representatives to participate in the Women Innovation Day 2017 to be held on 17 October by the VWU with a series of activities, including the Symposium with the theme "Women’s participation in disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation" – an event co-financed by UNWOMEN.
Over the years, UN Women has also helped connect the VWU with international partners, especially the Informal Ambassadors/ Heads of Agency Gender Policy Coordination Group.
In the near future, the VWU and UN Women will jointly implement the Project on Forecast based financing for drought, a new model applied in Vietnam to help communities effectively prepare and respond to drought as well as manage disaster risks. Hopefully, this will be a good experience to timely and effectively use resources for natural disaster prevention and control as well as for climate resilient livelihoods development.
