Get-together on “Partnership for women’s development”

21/05/2013
On April 10th 2013, the Vietnam Womens’ Union (VWU) in collaboration with the World Bank in Vietnam organized the Get-together with the theme on “Partnership for women’s development” which is aimed to strengthen the existing partnership and open up new cooperation between the VWU and international partners for the goal of women’s development, particularly within the upcoming VWU’s activities, including the Vietnam Women’s Innovation Day (VWID) 2013.

Attending the Get-together were Ms. Nguyen Thi Thanh Hoa, Member of the Central Party Committee, VWU President, Ms. Victoria Kwakwa, Country Director of the World Bank in Vietnam, representatives from embassies in Hanoi, international organizations, UN agencies in Vietnam, from ministries, agencies, enterprises, and 2 representatives of women entrepreneurs & innovators.

 

At the Get-together, Ms. Thanh Hoa showed high appreciation to international donors and partners for their valuable support extended to Vietnamese women and the VWU over the past years. She introduced the VWU’s representative function to contribute to realizing the goal of gender equality and women’s advancement in the country and results of VWU’s activities to implement the representative function, including participating in the formulation of laws and policies, monitoring and supervising their enforcement; mobilizing and supporting women to promote their potentials and mastership, care for women’s material and spiritual life. The speech also mentioned the challenges currently facing women and the VWU, specifically the target groups represented and cared for by the VWU are women and girls of different strata nationwide with the greatness in number but uneven and, to a large extent, limited capacity; the feminization of poverty; social awareness o­n gender equality is limited; the capacity of VWU’s staff has not met their job requirements.

 

The VWU President expressed the expectation of receiving further support from domestic and international agencies, organizations in addressing/dealing with the above-mentioned challenges through such measures as: developing programs and projects to strengthen the capacity of VWU staff and women cadres; improving the quality of comments and inputs to the law and policy development; focusing o­n developing mechanisms that prescribe the VWU’s responsibility in implementing its representative function; paying greater attention to proposing policies and implementing activities that support women with priority given to rural and ethnic minority women; developing a group of experts and networking with individuals, organizations showing interest in and working for women’s development; continuing research to propose to the Party and the State the national management machinery for women, family and children.

 

At the Get-together, Ms. Victoria Kwakwa, Country Director of the World Bank in Vietnam introduced the Vietnam Women’s Innovation Day (VWID) 2013 which is co-organized by the VWU, WB and UN Women in Vietnam. This is a significant event with the aim to promote women’s economic empowerment in Vietnam through 2 main activities: highlighting and promoting women’s innovative products and innovation grants.

 

Two invited women speakers: Ass. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Thi Chinh – Director of Linzhi Mushroom Co. Ltd. who has been granted many awards and merit certificates by the State and relevant ministries and Ms. Giang Thi May, representative of the brocade embroidery group in Ta La Cao village, Sinh Phinh commune, Tua Chua district, Dien Bien province who is successful in economic development thanks to her creativity, dynamism and effective support from local women’s union. The two speakers shared about women’s innovation capacity and success as well as difficulties and challenges facing them, and expressed the needs for support to further tap their potentials.

 

Representatives from several international partners at the Get-together gave remarks showing their high appreciation of the VWU’s role and capacity in implementing programs, activities for the development of Vietnamese women during the past time and their commitment to further cooperate with the VWU in activities for the sake of women’s development and gender equality in Vietnam in the coming time.

 

Translated by International Relations Department

NEWS

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