ORIENTATION AND TASKS FOR THE 2017-2022 TERM

In the next 5-year-term, the women’s movement and VWU’s activities will be undertaken in the context of the country’s 30-year-renewal process and accelerated national industrialization, modernization and international integration. The 12^th National Party’s Congress opened up a new prospect for the country and an opportunity for the Vietnamese women’s comprehensive development. Women’s work and gender equality continue to be institutionalized into laws and policies, which are implemented by different levels, sectors and the society at large. The society’s awareness of the roles and positions played by women and the VWU sees positive changes. Gender equality and women’s empowerment continue to be a global concern.

Together with big opportunities and advantages, women’s movement and VWU’s activities are faced with challenges as well. The sovereignty disputes on the East Sea, climate change, disasters, epidemic diseases, etc. continue to see complicated developments. The economic restructuring in combination with growth model renovation brings along many opportunities and challenges; the science and technology revolution advances strongly but the quality of human resources – a decisive factor of development – is still feeble; the mobility of workers across industries and sectors leads to changes in social structure and diversity of needs and interests within different people strata. Gender prejudice persists; a portion of women still live in hardship, especially women in rural areas, women migrants, ethnic minority women, and women with disabilities; crimes against women and children and domestic violence become more complicated; the degradation in political thought, morals and lifestyle in a portion of women has not been repelled.

I. Orientation

To uphold fine traditions of the Vietnamese women; build on the great achievements of the women’s movement and VWU’s activities; follow closely potitical tasks of the country, continue to develop a strong VWU organization, perform successfully the key role in women’s work and the representation function of the VWU. To carry out strong, comprehensive and synchronous renovation of the contents and mode of VWU’s operation with a view towards practicality and professionalism. Make concentrated efforts in advising and proposing policies, conducting supervision and giving social counter arguments; intensify social mobilization, actively participate in international integration; take better care of women’s legitimate  benefits, motivate women masses to uphold democracy, diligence, dynamism, creativity and responsibility in the process of rapid and sustainable development of the country, build happy families, promote the role and position of the women and the VWU, realize the goals of women’s advancement and gender equality.

To realize the orientation of the 2017-2022 term, in response to emulation movements and campaigns of the country, the Congress futher launched the emulation movement “Women study actively, work creatively and build happy families” and two campaigns “Women refine the qualities of self-confidence, self-respect, kind-heartednesss and resourcefulness” and “Building the family of 5 Without-s and 3 Clean-s” in integration of the national movement of studying and following President Ho Chi Minh’s thought, moral example and lifestyle.

Focus resources on two breakthroughs:

1. Improving the efficiency of supervising law implementation, giving social feeback to draft laws and policies, and proposing policies to help address essential issues of women. 

2. Improving the quality of the VWU’s performance at grassroots level, diversifying methods of outreaching women, and promoting the ownership of members and women at large towards VWU activities.

II. GOALS AND TARGETS

1. Goals

Upholding unity, promoting women’s progressive traditions, potential and creativity, improving women’s material and spiritual life and enhancing their status; renovating the content and form of VWU’s operations, building a strong and professional VWU organization; striving for gender equality and women’s advancement, building happy families, and contributing to national construction and defense.

2. Main targets

1. By the end of the term, the Central VWU will propose at least 5 policies/projects; each WU at provincial and district levels will propose at least 2 policies/programs/projects relating to women. Every year, each WU at any level will supervise at least one policy and give comments, input and criticism on at least one relevant draft document.

2. Every year, each WU unit will organize at least two information, education and communication (IEC) activities for women on such topics as political issues, ideology, traditions, general knowledge and skill improvement.

3. Every year, each WU unit will identify, develop, honor and popularize at least 2 women, individually and in collectives, who are good examples or whose working methods are effective,  adding up at least 20,000 good examples per year in the entire country.

4. Every year, each WU unit will register with the local Party and authorities to carry out at least one appropriate and practical activity to contribute to developing new rural and cultured urban areas; support at least 2 households to meet the criteria of the campaign “Family of 5 Without-s and 3 Clean-s”, striving to support at least 20,000 households in the entire country to meet 8 criteria of the campaign, resulting in at least 10,000 households escaping from poverty, as determined by the multi-dimensional poverty indicators.

5. Every year, the WUs at all levels and their vocational training institutions, on their own or in cooperation with others, will provide vocational training and job placement for 75,000 female workers; support 2,500 women in starting their businesses and start-up efforts. By the end of the term, the VWU will collaboratively provide support to establish 300 women owned and managed cooperatives.

6. By the end of the term, VWU will increase  its nationwide membership by 1 million members and will ensure that every WU unit will recruit at least 50% of women aged 18 and older.

7. By the end of the term, 100% of WU staff at central, provincial and district levels and 90% or more of WU’s Presidents at grassroots level will have the qualifications required for their respective positions; 100% of full-time staff at all levels will have attended WU professional and social work training at least 3 times during this term; 100% heads of women groups will have attended professional qualification training at least once during this term.

III. Main tasks

1. Task 1: Providing information, mobilizing, and supporting women in their comprehensive development and building happy families

1.1. Conduct communication, mobilization, and support for women to attain wide-ranging development

- Research and further refine the model of a comprehensively developed Vietnamese woman in the period of industrialization, modernization and international integration. Mobilise, support, and create conditions for women to develop themselves in terms of personality, morality, intellect, creativity, body and soul, social responsibility, citizenship duties, and law observance. Mobilize women to refine the qualities of “self-confidence, self-respect, faithfulness, resourcefulness” in integration of studying and following President Ho Chi Minh’s thought, moral example and lifestyle.

- Encourage and guide women to preserve and promote fine traditional values, take part in fostering a healthy cultural environment and an advanced and refined lifestyle, contributing to preventing and repelling the degeneration of political thought, morality and lifestyle and the signs of “self-evolution” and “self-transformation” among VWU staff, members and women.

- Mobilise other stakeholders and jointly organize activities to improve the quality of female human resources; support VWU members’ and women’s study in various forms to improve their knowledge, professional capacity, job performance, life skills, and other skills to meet the requirement of international integration; pay attention to the women groups with lower education background, women in remote areas and ethnic minority women. Encourage women’s scientific and technological research and application; improve their work productivity, quality and efficiency; develop highly applicable innovation ideas ; periodically organize the Women’s Innovation Day. Create conditions for women, especially those of rural areas and industrial and export processing zones, to get access to information on political, economic, cultural and social issues, on gender equality and citizen’s rights and duties, which contributes to the building of a learning society.

- Increase knowledge on healthcare and nutrion for women and girls along their life periods; mobilize women to participate in heath insurance; every woman is encouraged to choose a form of cultural performance or practice suitable physical exercises and sport to keep fit.

1.2 Conduct communication, mobilization, and support for women to build prosperous, progressive, happy and cultured families

- Increase women’s awareness of the positions and roles of the family, traditional values and good family relationships. Carry out successfully strategies, programs and projects on the family, focusing on Projects “Conducting communication, mobilization, and support for women to participate in addressing some social matters relating to women in the new situation” and “Supporting and developing independent private children daycare groups in industrial and export processing zones up to 2020”.

- Implement extensively and comprehensively the campaign “Building the family of 5 Without-s and 3 Clean-s” and create qualitative changes in realizing the campaign’s criteria in the National target program on building new rural areas in the period 2016-2020. Specify contents of criteria in the campaign “5 Without-s and 3 Clean-s” to be appropriate for each women group and the situation of each locality and unit. Provide guidance and support to difficult families to achieve criteria of the campaign “5 Without-s and 3 Clean-s”.

- Implement the Government’s Program of family life education until 2020; increase the support for members and general women to improve such skills as family life management, parenting, rearing of teenage children; develop close and responsible bonds among family members; contribute to refining personality, morals and life style of the people; uphold the fine traditional cultural values of the Vietnamese family.

Provide knowledge and skills for women and their family members on how to prevent and respond to domestic violence, human trafficking, and abuse of women and children. Improve and scale up victim counseling and supporting models which are integrated with vocational training; consolidate shelters and community-based trusted addresses. Organize family services to meet the demands of women and society.

- Collaboratively implement activities of communication, education, mobilization, and support for women’s reproductive health; provide pre-marriage education for young women and teenage girls. Mobilise couples to produce offspring at a replacement level and reduce the imbalance of sex ratio at birth.

- Mobilise women to participate in protection of sovereignty and security of border and seas; well implement the work regarding military families; uphold the spirit of “mutual affection and assistance” and “gratitude to our root”, take care of families under preferential treatment policy and families with great service to the revolution, actively take part in humanitarian charity activities, and support women and households in extreme difficulty. Continue to raise fund to build affection houses and grant scholarships “Support students to go to school”.

2. Task 2: Mobilizing and supporting women in business start-ups, economic development and environmental protection

2.1 Mobilize and support women in business start-up, building of cooperatives, economic development and sustainable poverty reduction

- Mobilize women to help each other to develop household economy and get out of poverty in a sustainable manner; encourage the spirit of creativeness and start-up, increase productivity, and strive to get rich. Provide communication, information, consultation and support for women to apply science and technology, take part in production  and business restructuring, focusing on high-tech agriculture to create products and services meeting demands of the market in the context of the international integration. Create changes in women’s awareness and behaviors while implementing “clean production, clean processing, and clean consumption”, actively mobilize society to improve food hygine and safety; take actions in response to the campaign “Vietnamese use Vietnamese products”.

- Mobilize women to actively participate in cooperative economic models of value chain approach, focusing on safe production and consumption. Improve the performance of new style cooperative groups established by the VWU, provide them with pilot loans, and help find market for their products. Assist women in developing household economy and farm economy in response to economic restructuring requirements.

- Effectively implement the project “Supporting women in start-up in the 2017-2027 period”; join efforts to develop link chains and models of supporting women in business starting and start-up. Promote the role of female entrepreneur associations and clubs in connecting and supporting women to realize ideas regarding innovation, start-up, and production and business development.

- Renovate vocational training and job creation with the orientation towards labor restructuring, attached with supporting women in business starting and start-up, focusing on those who borrow loans from the funds managed by the VWU, on women residing in the agricultural areas converted to other land uses, women affected by climate change, and women at risk of losing jobs in industrial zones. Collaborate with businesses, organizations and individuals to organize short-term and online training courses to improve women’s capacity in economic areas. Improve the performance of VWU’s vocational training establishments, gradually convert or supplement their functions; enhance collaboration in providing vocational counseling and training services for female workers to meet the demand of the labor market.

- Support women in approaching and using capital sources effectively through expanding VWU entrusted activities with the Bank of Social Policies and trust loans with the Bank of Agriculture and Rural Development and other banks. Improve the quality of saving activities, upgrade VWU management capacity, diversify saving practices at the grassroots, attach savings with social welfare and practice savings to generate investment capital for production and daily life. Expand micro-finance activities within the VWU system; step by step merge and standardize the micro-finance funds and programs managed by the VWU; diversify their products and customer targets.

- Expand and improve the quality of women’s mutual support activities for household economy development and activities targeting specific addresses to move women out of multidimentional poverty, focusing on the regions with high concentration of poor households by synchronously applying such measures as sustainable employment support and guidance on managing household economy and accessing social welfare services, with priority given to areas of ethnic minority, remote areas and extremely poor communes.

2.2 Mobilize women to participate in environmental protection and responses to climate exchange

- Communicate and raise women’s awareness on environmental protection and community-based prevention of disasters and climate change response; on economical and effective use of natural resources in production and daily life. Provide VWU members and general women with skill guidance and support for disater risk reduction and climate change responses.

- Uphold the VWU’s role, improve WU staff’s capacity in activities relating to disater risk reduction and climate exchange responses. Mobilize women to take part in supervising laws and policies relating to environmental protection in community.

   - Each WU unit develops at least a suitable community-based scheme to help preserve environmental  sanitation, reduce pollution and reduce discharge of pollutants into the environment or a model of livelihood adaptation to climate change. Pilot activities to promote women’s role in preservation of natural resources.

- Encourage and support the multiplying of women’s innitiatives; mobilize member and general woman so that everyone will have a practical action to help protect environment, reduce disater risks and respond to climate change, contributing to developing new rural and cultured urban areas.

3. Task 3: Building a stronger VWU organization; participating in Party and goverment building; supervising the implementation of the law and giving social feedback to draft laws and policies; strengthening people-to-people international relations

3.1 Strongly renovate VWU operation contents and modes and build a stronger VWU organization

- Make women the center to determine the contents and modes of operation, prioritize practical activities that meet the needs and  aspirations of women and have big impacts on their life. Focus resources, seriously direct, persistently realize breakthroughs, promote women's independence and mobilize society to engage in addressing women's issues. Accelerate theoretical research and practice review, adjust the modality of direction and administration, renovate inspection and supervision, striving to assess the results of VWU activities based on the satisfaction of its members and general women.

Adjust emulation activities to ensure the substance, increase the proactiveness and creativity of local WUs, identify the focus of emulation activities for each period. Improve the quality and efficiency of emulation movements and campaigns to suit different women targets, expand the targets of emulation activities with importance attached to praising and honoring exemplary models, good examples and good practices at the grassroots.

- Consolidate the VWU apparatus at all levels to become efficient in operation and compact in organizational structure, with clearly designated functions and duties and heightened proactiveness and responsibility at every level; promote the cohesive and synchronous collaboration relations in the VWU system. Strengthen the role of the central VWU in providing strategic direction, supervision and social counter arguments, and developing laws and policies. Improve the role of provincial and district levels in giving advises, proposals and guidance, implementing activities, and conducting monitoring and supervision. Bring into full play the proactiveness and creativity of the grassroots level in realizing VWU tasks and organizing activities to support and care for the development of women.

Improve the capacity of and connectivity between the central Center for Women and Development and local Centers for Women’s Development and between regional vocational training centers and provincial vocational training networks.

- Build a contingent of VWU cadres at all levels who have political prowess, moral qualities, enthusiasm towards VWU work, courage in thinking, taking actions and taking responsibility, adaquate capacity and qualities as required by the Union’s tasks,  masses-mobilizing skills, social work skills, close connection with the grassroots, scientific working methods and innovative thinking. Uphold the pioneering and exemplary spirit of VWU cadres who are party members and leaders; commit to train oneself and preserve one’s qualities, ethics and lifestyle; refrain from degradaton, "self-evolution" and "self-transformation". Develop job description by position and title for VWU cadres at all levels. Provide advises and proposals on staff planning and rotate staff in each level and between levels. Build a team of VWU experts on women and gender equality.

Renovate the training and refresher training of VWU cadres on research, recommendation, identification of problems, and activity implementation, especially strategic thinking and macro-level policy recommendation for staff at the central level and capacity of concretize and social work skills for staff at local levels. Attach importance to training and fostering in practice, accelerate decentralization and diversification of training and refresher training modality. Improve the quality of training, refresher training and scientific research of the Vietnam Women's Academy.

- Broaden the VWU’s coalition; put into practice the motto "Wherever there are women, there are WVU activities"; diversify and multiply effective member outreach models. In addition to membership gathering by neighborhood, develop methods to outreach specific groups of women such as businesswomen, leaders and managers, migrants, factory workers, women in new urban areas, etc. Cooperate with other socio-political organizations to carry out practical activities for their women members. Improve the strength of WU organization and the quality of WU activities at the grassroots level; focus on consolidating weak WU units; improve the content and form of member meetings  to become more practical, lively and democratic to meet the needs of women; promote the voluntarism, self-consciousness and self-discipline of members in WU activities; advance the role of core members.

Increase networking with the domestic and international organizations that have common goals of women’s advancement and gender equality. Promote the role of the Vietnam Association of Women Entrepreneurs and Vietnam Association for Intellectual Women in VWU activities; encourage the establishment of local Associations of Women Entrepreneurs, and chapters of the Association for Intellectual Women that are based in central and provincial agencies, universities and research institutions.

3.2 Participate in the Party and Government building; recommend and propose policies; conduct supervision and social counter arguments

- Mobilize women to participate in building of the Party and the Government under the Political Bureau's Decision No. 218-QD/TW in connection with the implementation of the Resolution of the Fourth Plenum of the 12th Party Central Committee “Enhancing the building and adjustment of the Party; preventing and repelling the degeneration of political thought, morality, lifestyle, "self-evolution", "self-transformation". Facilitate women to realize their rights to representative and direct democracy at the grassroots through contributing their ideas and comments towards local and national socio-economic development policies and programs. Conduct communication activities and mobilize women to seriously observe the Party's and State's undertakings and policies, especially in the sites of the programs and projects that have big impacts on people's living. Foster and introduce female cadres for the Party; organize activities to increase the representation of female cadres; network female cadres and promote their role.

- Take the initiative to review existing policies and regulations and conduct empirical research on the issues facing women, girls, gender equality and the family in the context of international integration, which serves as a basis to propose policies on female workers, social security, female cadre, development of female talents, improving the quality of female human resources, and policies for several particular target groups[1]. Participate in preliminary and final reviews of the resolutions and legal documents related to women and gender equality; advise the Party Central Committee on issuance of a resolution on women's affairs.

- Conduct supervision and give social counter arguments at all levels under the Political Bureau's Decision No. 217-QD/TW, focusing on bills, programs and projects related to women, girls and gender equality; implement the regulations of gender mainstreaming in socio-economic development programs and projects. Focus on monitoring the follow-ups and feedbacks after supervision on how the recommendations and reflection by female voters have been taken.

VWU at all levels proactively seek out information about the situation and issues of women, timely voice out to protect them and participate in resolving cases in which women’s rights and legitimate interests are infringed. Improve the quality and efficiency of complaint handling, legal consultancy and legal aid. Strengthen the networking of the VWU’s consultation and counseling centers or rooms with legal consultation and legal aid centers, hotlines and related organizations to help solve the problems of women and girls.

3.3 Promote people-to-people foreign relations and international cooperation

- Communicate so as the VWU staff, members and general women firmly grasp foreign policies of the Party and the State and international commitments related to women and gender equality; improve knowledge and skills for women to proactively participate in international integration. Promote communication and introduction of the women's movement and VWU activities to international friends and overseas Vietnamese.

- Proactively improve the efficiency of international cooperation, expand friendship activities with the foreign and women's organizations that share the goals of gender equality and women’s advancement; focus on relations with neighboring countries, ASEAN members and advanced countries. Take a responsible role as a member of regional and international organizations; effectively participate in and several international fora, call for international support on the issues of Vietnam's interests. Strengthen cooperation with women's organizations of neighboring countries, contribute to the building of a border line of peace, stability, cooperation, friendship and development, and participate in the settlement of socio-economic issues involving women and girls.

- Explore measures to support women in foreign economic activities. Expand relations of partnership, attract the support by international experts and volunteers, and expats of Vietnamese origin who reside in the country or overseas. Take advantage of international resources for VWU activities.

- Increase networking, exchanging and sharing experience with Vietnamese women in foreign countries. Cooperate with relevant agencies and organizations in exchanging information and protecting just and legitimate rights and interests of women in the relationships and transactions involving foreign elements, especially women as female workers, brides and migrants abroad.

IV. MAJOR SOLUTIONS

1. Renovate direction and management manners

- Renovate VWU Executive Committee meetings focusing on the new and challenging issues affecting VWU activities and the women’s movement; deploy a team of experts to provide information and advice to the Executive Committee; issue thematic resolutions. Increase the responsibility of the Executive Committee members who are not VWU personnel in implementing the Executive Committee’s resolutions and making proposals on women’s issues in respective sectors; advise the cooperation between their sectors and the VWU. Heighten the responsibility of the chairs of the Executive Committees at all levels in directing and implementing the VWU tasks. The Central VWU pilots evaluating the performance of the Executive Committee members who are VWU personnel, and the evaluation results are to be sent to the Party committees of respective levels.

- Improve planning at the central and provincial levels focusing on strategic, long-term and medium-term planning, and at the district and grassroots levels specifying such plans into routine ones, suitable to the their actual conditions and meeting the needs of members and general women. Concentrate resources for the localities and target groups with special difficulty. Pay attention to giving guidance on, monitoring, supervision and evaluation of the planned activities.

- Accelerate administrative reform, ensure the unity in directing and implementing VWU activities among different levels and throughout the system; reduce paperwork and meetings. Issue timely and feasible guidance documents, taking into account the availability of resources and the conditions to ensure the effective implementation; clearly assign personal responsibilities and the deadline for task completion; ensure steadfast leadership and direction. Well implement the Regulation on Democracy at the grassroots level and other regulations, ensure publicity and transparency in association with building the order and discipline within the institution.

- Effectively implement the project "Computerizing the management and administration of the VWU and building VWU’s Portal." Enhance the application of technology in seeking, directing, exchanging information and experience, in manageming work and managing staff and members.

Build VWU’s electronic information portal connected with the Government Portal and websites of provincial and municipal Women’s Unions.

- Diversify the forms of emulation, including special, peak, short-term, long-term, regular, irregular emulation and emulation focusing on specific localities, branches, domains and target groups; broaden the means of praise and honor. Improve the methods of emulation assessment to ensure emulation activities to be substantial, objective and free from "leveling tendency"; praise creative models and operation methods; develop a set of criteria for emulation assessment which is scientific, realistic and suitable for each WU level. Proactively introduce outstanding female individuals and groups for authorities of all levels and branches to give timely praisal and award. Locate, honor, communicate about and multiply outstanding models and examples in the VWU system. Improve the quality and the reach of the Vietnamese Women's Prize and the Kovalevskaia Prize. Provincial and municipal WUs establish and keep up prizes and titles to honor women.

- Review, evaluate, appraise and multiply the effective models and methods which are suitable for specific levels, women groups, sites and fields of operation. Pilot several models and methods of operation to meet the needs of members and women, focusing on certain new and challenging areas (i.e. finding outputs for safe products, micro insurance services, support women in business start-up, legal consultation and legal aid, etc.). Encourage provincial and municipal WUs to establish and develop models or services to raise fund for VWU activities.

- Build a network of collaborators with high expertise in a number of areas such as strategic research, international integration, gender mainstreaming, start-up, and response to climate change, etc. Mobilize female intellectuals and business women who are both members and non-members to participate in VWU activities.

2. Renovate the information, education and communication activities

- Select the topics for IEC on tradition, politics ideology and law dissemination which are suitable for specific women's groups with special attention given to women of ethnic minorities and religions  and migrant rural women; periodically provide information and news about citizen’s rights and obligations and the protection of the country sovereignty. Improve and diversify forms of communicating resolution, conduct direct communication through member meetings and VWU activities, community activities, conferences, workshops, forums, dialogues, and online training; apply information technology and diversify communication products.

- Annually give a consistent orientation within the VWU system on a number of key communication topics. Closely cooperate with mass media to help orientate women ideologically and aesthetically; periodically publish pages or columns about women and VWU activities; increase the frequency and quality of information about outstanding women, creating positive effects in society; suggest and recommend to functional agencies to trim down gender stereotypes in communication products; explore joint efforts to incorporate gender equality programs in the national education system.

- Media units of the VWU cooperate smoothly in communication activities; focus on the dissemination of the VWU action results, women's movement, and practical matters for the women; encourage VWU staff to write for VWU newspapers and websites at all levels. WU units continue to promote reading and following books and newspapers among members; organize book and newspaper festivals.

- Build a group of resource persons who are full time VWU staff; periodically foster knowledge and skills for resource persons; organize resource person contests, etc. Well implement regulations on activities of resource persons and communicators. Promote the role of member organizations in jointly organizing activities to improve knowledge and skills for members and women.

-  Expand the scope and diversify the form of communication, cultural and sport events on the anniversaries of the country and the VWU, promote the contribution by the private sector and pay attention to the grassroots in organizing such events.

3. Promote the ownership role of VWU members and general women

- Organize various activities to grasp the thinking and aspirations of members and women; initiate forums and dialogues for members and women to discuss and express their aspirations and to make recommendations to the Party, authorities and the VWU at all levels. VWU levels periodically pull together opinions and aspirations of members and women and reflect them to authorities for timely settlement. Communicate to women their rights and responsibilities so as they actively participate in supervision and revealing of the signs of degeneration, "self-evolution", and "self-transformation" of officials and party members.

- Gather opinions of women's groups in the process of supervision and provision of social counter arguments, and propose amendments and supplements to the policies, laws and socio-economic development plans at the central and local levels.

- Mobilize the participation of women and encourage them to raise their innovation ideas and initiatives for the improvement of VWU activities. Create conditions for members and women to access information; mobilize VWU core members and women role models to share their experience, guide women to comply with laws and policies, become enthusiastic in their work and production, participate in patriotic emulation movements, and well exercise citizens’ rights and obligations.

4. Invest in theoretical reasearch and empirical review

- Improve the methodology for VWU levels to implement scientific research, ensure the balance between strategic and forcast research, studies to solve practical problems of the women's movement and VWU activities, and research to propose policies and provide social counter arguments, especially on theoretical issues of gender, women and women's work, on newly-emerging issues, and such issues as women in economic restructuring, current issues of the family, gender-based violence, support for women’s start-up, microfinance, and social security, etc.

Concentrate on studying, reviewing, and assessing operation models in practice, guidance methods, good and innovative practices, etc. to supplement, develop and improve theoretical knowledge, and to serve as a scientific basis to develop the VWU’s strategy in the new situation.

- Consolidate and improve the effectiveness of the VWU’s Scientific Council in advising on research direction in each period; promote the participation of experts in the areas relating to women, children and gender equality.

- Develop and provide data sources on women's work and gender equality. Network research institutions inside and outside the VWU and among VWU levels; update and share national and international research results on women and gender equality. Make use opinions of experts and scientists and gather grassroots information for successful provision of social counter arguments and gender mainstreaming in policies and legal documents.

5. Improve the capacity of VWU staff

- Issue and implement the regulations that clearly define the responsibilities, tasks and authority of each VWU level to ensure convergence, consistence and coherence of VWU system. Develop personnel plans and train staff in accordance with job placement. Assign jobs and devide workload in such a way to boost the capacity and strength of VWU staff; take good care of the staff members who are young, ethnic minorities and professionally mature in practice; apply mechanisms to find, attract and promote talents. Pay attention to task assigning, supervising and evaluating staff performance, which is a basis to review and renew the staff planning, training and fostering.

- Diversify and refresh training methods for VWU staff. Propose mechanisms and coach staff through rotation, guidance, mentoring, and emprical training in the grassroots. Initiate specific regulations on the obligation of VWU staff of all levels to take business trips to the grassroots level. Promote modern teaching methodology and online training on the websites of Vietnam Women's Academy and provincial and municipal WUs. Compile curricula, training material, online lectures and manuals for staff experience sharing by respective levels and positions.

Regularly foster the capacity of the VWU staff at all levels to do research, locate and solve problems. Each VWU staff member at the central and provincial levels every year undertakes at least a thematic paper, an initiative or a renovation proposal to improve the effectiveness of the VWU activities. The district and the grassroots levels directly collect information, timely locate, detect, reflect and proactively help solve problems and cases in which the interests of local women are violated.

- Organize contests of distinguished staff, honor excellent cadres, strengthen the twinning of VWU units, exchanges and events to praise, honor exemplary  staff and share work experience.

6. Widen coordination and association activities

- Strengthen cooperation with the Government, ministries, branches, the Fatherland Front and other mass organizations, etc. in establishing mechanisms for WU activities at all levels. Sustain and strengthen joint efforts in implementing projects, national target programs, socio-economic development programs of localities, branches and sectors. Review the signed cooperation programs and sign new ones with ministries, branches, the Fatherland Front, mass organizations, and other organizations inside and outside the country

- Diversify resources for women's work and gender equality. Proactively propose and develop national and international programs and projects to address strategic issues related to women and the family. Provincial and municipal WUs take the initiative in proposing and registering with the authorities the work to be done by the WUs in local socio-economic development projects and programs. Pilot and expand the fund-raising schemes in which the WUs provide several public services to increase resources for the VWU activities. Mobilize corporations to take on social responsibility. Develop regulations for effective management and use of resources in the VWU system.

- Strengthen networking with, learning from and sharing experience with the national and international organizations working on ​​women’s issues and gender equality; mobilize the participation of society at large, males, collaborators, volunteers, and member organizations, etc. to support the VWU activities; consolidate and expand the model of community consultative groups.

With the spirit of Solidarity, Renovation, Equality, and International Integration, the 12^th National Women’s Congress calls on Vietnamese women of all strata to uphold patriotism, unite and work together with our whole Party, people and armed forces to seize opportunities, overcome difficulties and challenges, contribute to the successful implementation of the Resolution of the 12^th National Party Congress, and accelerate the renewal process in a comprehensive and consistent manner to achieve "a rich people, a strong country and a democratic, equitable and cultured society", for the advancement, happiness and equality of women.

[1] Policies to support women and girls of ethnic minorities to improve their knowledge and life skills; the maternity policy for women who are not subject to compulsory social insurance; the policy for female cadres, civil servants and employees who bring their under-36-month children when attending training and fostering courses under Article 14 of the Law on Gender Equality.