Strong Vietnamese commitments to promoting women, peace, and security agenda

As part of his address at the event, Deputy Foreign Minister Do Hung Viet stated that the introduction of the UN Security Resolution 1325 in 2000 marked the birth of the WPS agenda, with the two major objectives of ensuring better rights for women and girls, and promoting women's participation in all stages of conflict settlement and peace building process.

According to Minister Viet, so far the agenda has become an important framework whilst serving as the foundation for the mobilisation of resources and organisation of actions, supporting women amid conflicts and crises, helping them to better protect their rights, whilst more effectively promoting their role in society.

Deputy FM Viet therefore emphasized that locally women have made great contributions to the cause of national construction and defence. Currently, many officials, entrepreneurs, and UN peacekeepers of Vietnam are women, he went on to say.

Prioritizing the promotion of women’s role in maintaining peace and international security has been affirmed immediately from the nation’s first participation in the UN Security Council in the 2008 to 2009 tenure, he said.

The country left an important imprint by pushing for the UN Security Council's adoption of Resolution 1889 (2009) on the role of women and girls in post-conflict context, which is widely considered to be one of the four fundamental resolutions of the council’s WPS agenda.

The nation has been one of the countries with a high rate of women joining UN peacekeeping operations with a figure of 16%, much higher than the UN’s average rate of 4%, noted Deputy Minister Viet.

He recalled that in 2020 in Hanoi, the country successfully hosted an international conference commemorating the 20th anniversary of the UN Security Council’s Resolution 1325, during which the Hanoi Commitment to Action was adopted with the co-sponsorship of 75 countries, thereby calling for the building of NAPs on WPS.

However, the official said that there are many challenges ahead in the path of realizing the goal of gender equality in general, as well as the WPS agenda in particular. This due to Vietnamese women still facing many war consequences and Vietnamese women and girls’ contributions to families and community having yet to be fully recognised.

Therefore, the country’s building of the NAP on WPS has significant meanings in the current context, thereby reaffirming the nation’s strong commitments in the international community’s joint efforts to promote this agenda, said Deputy Minister Viet.

He said that the NAP is set to supplement and complete the policy framework on gender equality and women empowerment. Particularly, it will be the first comprehensive framework for this aspect in the field of peace and security, with specific goals and solutions aimed at further promoting actions for women, peace, and security, especially in the face of emerging challenges and non-traditional security challenges.

For her part, Caroline Nyamayemombe, acting interim women’s representative of the UN in Vietnam, highly valued Vietnamese efforts in building the NAP on WPS.

This is an action to deliver on the Vietnamese Government’s commitment in implementing the Hanoi Commitment to Action, she stated, adding that the nation’s NAP on WPS helps to realise one of the commitments included in the Hanoi Commitment to Action, which is to recognise the important role of Vietnamese women in creating peace and sustainable development.

Participants at the event, which will run until November 7, offered their ideas on major tasks, goals, and solutions set out in the draft NAP, as well as sharing their expectations for the implementation of the NAP after it is adopted.