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| Vice President Vo Thi Anh Xuan delivered a speech at the CSW68 meeting, emphasizing Vietnam's commitments to promoting gender equality and women's empowerment, on March 11. (Source: VNA) |
The 68th Session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) this year has the theme: "Promoting the achievement of gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls through tackling poverty, strengthening institutions and gender-sensitive finance". Could you please tell us the significance of the Session?
Gender equality and women’s empowerment have become one of the high priority issues of the United Nations (UN) in recent decades. This stems from the common perception that sustainable development, peace and security cannot be achieved without the full and equal participation of women in all areas of social life. Therefore, gender equality and ensuring women’s rights are reflected and integrated in most of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and at the same time, are also cross-cutting issues in many processes shaping the future of the UN today.
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| Ambassador Dang Hoang Giang, Head of the Vietnamese Delegation to the United Nations. (Photo: QT) |
As an important UN body in promoting women's rights and shaping global standards for gender equality and women's empowerment, the annual CSW session is one of the most important multilateral events of the year at the UN with the participation of many countries at high level with tens of thousands of delegates from all over the world. On the sidelines of the session, there are also more than 700 seminars and side events organized by countries and international organizations.
This year's CSW 68 session has special significance as it prepares to mark 30 years of implementing the Beijing Agenda for Action, promoting the implementation of the SDGs, especially SDG 5 on achieving gender equality by 2030. The theme of CSW68 is "Accelerating the achievement of gender equality and empowering all women and girls by tackling poverty and strengthening institutions and finance with a gender perspective".
It can be seen that this is a very practical and meaningful topic in the current international context with many issues and challenges that need to be addressed to ensure women's rights and gender equality. Women face high rates of poverty, lack of access to education, health services, and decent work. About 388 million women and girls lived in extreme poverty in 2022. Addressing the structural barriers and discrimination that perpetuate poverty for women is urgent. The Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated gender inequality and pushed many women into poverty due to economic impacts. Meanwhile, financial resources have not been fully mobilized to achieve global gender equality goals.
Therefore, by addressing poverty through a gender lens and strengthening gender-responsive institutions while increasing financing, this year’s CSW 68 sets out concrete, practical measures to accelerate progress on this important global agenda. The outcomes and recommendations of CSW sessions contribute to shaping policies and programmes at the global, regional and national levels.
With the participation of Vice President Vo Thi Anh Xuan, what are the messages and initiatives that Vietnam emphasized at this Session, Ambassador?
Attending the 68th CSW, Vice President Vo Thi Anh Xuan delivered an important speech at the General Discussion to convey the message of a peaceful Vietnam, proactively integrating, valuing and promoting multilateral cooperation; demonstrating Vietnam's strong commitment at the high level to ensuring gender equality and women's rights, highlighting our participation and multifaceted contributions to this priority area.
On this occasion, the Vice President also shared with the international community four proposals to accelerate and effectively implement goals in the field of gender equality and women's rights.
The first is to promote women's participation in political, economic, cultural and social decision-making mechanisms, especially policies to support women in hunger eradication, poverty reduction, livelihood security, entrepreneurship and innovation. Prioritize resources to support women and girls in places where humanitarian crises occur.
The second is to enhance empowerment and create access opportunities for women and girls in science, technology, digital transformation, linked to preventing and combating discrimination and violence in cyberspace.
Third is to enhance the role of women in building a peaceful, stable, inclusive and sustainable international environment, dealing with non-traditional security challenges, especially responding to climate change.
Fourthly , promote partnerships for sustainable development; increase financial support and advice on institutional and policy building for developing countries; share, spread, and effectively promote good models to enhance the role of women in the economic, social, and sustainable development fields.
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| Vietnam has a 30.3% female National Assembly representative ratio; the ratio of ministries and ministerial-level agencies with key female leaders is 59%. (Source: quochoi.vn) |
Could you please evaluate Vietnam's efforts at the United Nations in promoting global gender equality?
Gender equality and ensuring women's rights have always been issues that Vietnam attaches importance to and actively participates in, contributing not only at the national, regional and global levels. Vietnam was one of the first countries in the world to sign the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) on July 29, 1980 and ratify it on November 27, 1981; at the same time, it fully implements its obligation to regularly report to the Convention Committee.
At UN forums, Vietnam has actively participated in discussions, shared experiences, and contributed with other countries to building cooperation frameworks and global standards on promoting gender equality. Vietnam is also a member of the Group of Friends on Gender Balance to promote women's participation in UN positions, especially leadership positions.
Throughout that process, Vietnam has made practical and meaningful contributions to promoting gender equality at the global level. As for the UN Women, Peace and Security Agenda, during its term as a member of the UN Security Council in 2008-2009, Vietnam chaired the Open Debate on the Women, Peace and Security agenda, introduced and advocated for the adoption of Resolution 1889 (October 2009) - the first resolution of the UN Security Council focusing on meeting the needs of women and girls in the post-conflict period. Connecting with the achieved results, during the second term as a member of the UN Security Council (2020-2021), Vietnam and the United Nations successfully organized the Global Conference to promote action on global commitments on women, peace and security (December 2020), thereby adopting the Hanoi Declaration with the participation of many UN member countries.
In addition, Vietnam has proactively increased its participation in peacekeeping activities, deploying many female soldiers and police officers to work in UN peacekeeping missions. Currently, Vietnam is one of the leading countries in the rate of women participating in peacekeeping activities at 16% (the average rate of other countries is about 10%); at the same time, it strives to increase this rate to 20% by 2025.
At the national level, Vietnam has also just approved the National Action Program on Women, Peace and Security for the 2024-2030 period with many specific goals such as enhancing the full, equal and meaningful participation of Vietnamese women in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, defense, security and handling and responding to non-traditional security challenges of the country, as well as in maintaining international peace and security.
Increasing women’s participation and policy-making in social life and eliminating violence against women and girls is not just a commitment but has become a vivid reality in Vietnam. In the current context, with the achievements in gender equality, what experiences can Vietnam share with the international community?
The consistent policy of the Party and State of Vietnam is to always promote the role and great potential of women in the cause of national construction and defense, improve the status of women and promote gender equality in all political, economic, cultural and social fields. These major orientations have been institutionalized in the Constitution, the Law on Gender Equality and many documents in the Vietnamese legal system. There are strategies and plans for socio-economic development from now until 2030, contributing to increasing women's contributions in realizing the goal of making Vietnam a modern industrialized country by 2045.
Vietnam's efforts have also been recognized by the international community and assessed as one of the 10 countries that best implement goal number 5 on promoting gender equality and empowering all women and girls in the UN's sustainable development goals.
Vietnam is among the top 1/3 countries in the world in terms of the proportion of female National Assembly deputies and the proportion of women participating in the workforce. Specifically, the proportion of female National Assembly deputies is 30.3%; the proportion of ministries and ministerial-level agencies with key female leaders is 59%; the proportion of female business owners is 28.2%; the proportion of female PhDs is 28%. Notably, Vietnam has a Human Development Index for men and women that is almost equal; women have an income equal to 81.4% of men's estimated income.
These are extremely meaningful results demonstrating the commitment and efforts that Vietnam can make to inform and share lessons and experiences with international friends to promote gender equality and empower women and girls, thereby contributing to building a world of peace, cooperation and sustainable development.
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