The event is jointly held by the Vietnam’s Ministry of Labor, War-Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA), the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) and the Australian Embassy.
Vietnam is one of countries which have strong commitment in implementing the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), Bejing Platform for Action and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Ten years ago, it was the first time the nation prepared and developed its first remarkable National Strategy on Gender Equality (NSGE) that defined the direction and priorities to promote gender equality for 2011-2020. During the years, Vietnam has been one of the countries in the Asia-Pacific that has made a lot of changes and progress on gender equality in many socio-economic fields.
Over view of the event (Photo: Binh Chau)
At the same time, it faces new challenges for gender equality due to the impact of the global economy, the strong development of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, natural disasters and climate change, and the demographic changes.
These challenges require the country to develop specific policies and actions to maintain achievements and simultaneously address existing gender issues as well as arising gender issues in the upcoming period. This effort continues to demonstrate Vietnam’s strong commitment to achieving the SDG 5 on gender equality and women empowerment.
Mr Pham Ngoc Tien, Director of Gender Equality Department under MOLISA said: “In order to remain the sustaibility of the achievements on gender equality as well as to better response to gender-based challenges and issues in the coming period, it is necessary to develop and submit the new NSGE for 2021-2030 to the Prime Minister. We believe that with the commitment of cooperation and technical assistance from development organizations, United Nations agencies, the participation of relevant organizations and individuals at the central and local level will be advantageous conditions to establish a 2021-2030 strategy to achieve high quality and feasibility”.
While Ms. Elisa Fernandez, Head of Office UN Women Vietnam highlighted that gender equality and women empowerment is one of the 17 SDGs and indispensable for all aspects of socio-economic life. Gender equality is not only a basic human-rights, but also a necessary foundation for a peaceful, prosperous, inclusive and sustainable Vietnam.
She also emphasized the importance of advocacy to develop mechanism to ensure the financing for gender equality commitments; and the principle of Leaving no one behind is included and applied in the National Strategy on gender equality for 2021-2030./.