Vice President Vo Thi Anh Xuan speaks at the opening ceremony of the 2021 Global Summit of Women in Lisbon, Portugal, on October 28 (Photo: VNA)
Lisbon (VNA) – Women
should be placed at the centre of every post-pandemic recovery and development
effort, Vietnamese Vice President Vo Thi Anh Xuan told the 2021 Global Summit
of Women in Lisbon, Portugal, on October 28.
Addressing the summit’s
opening ceremony, Vice President Xuan underlined women’s comprehensive role in
and enormous contributions to common efforts to contain the COVID-19 pandemic and
respond to its negative impacts.
However, she noted, women and
girls are also the ones suffering the most from the pandemic and facing the
risk of lagging behind after the pandemic.
To achieve a peaceful,
prosperous, humane, and sustainable world, the Vice President underlined the
need to promote women’s role and full and equal participation in keeping
national and international peace and security, especially in preventing
conflicts and resolving non-traditional challenges, thus creating a solid foundation
for transforming economies.
Women should be placed at the
centre of every socio-economic recovery and development effort in the
post-pandemic period. They need to be given all possible conditions to access
resources and knowledge, apply science and technology, and acquire skills for
starting business and developing a digital economy, according to Xuan.
She held that it is necessary
to improve women’s digital access and application, bring into play their role
in building a digital economy with green, inclusive, and sustainable growth, in
tandem with the realisation of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Participants in the 2021 Global Summit of Women in Lisbon, Portugal (Photo: VNA)
She suggested the summit
establish a fund or annual awards for honouring excellent initiatives to ensure
gender diversity in business leadership, and for women who run micro-, small-,
and medium-sized enterprises or greatly contribute to society, the pandemic fight,
and environmental protection.
The Vice President also
called for enhancing the role and improving operations of women’s networks in
various areas and at all levels so that women can connect, share experience,
seek partners, and assist one another more easily.
Highlighting Vietnamese
women’s significant role and major contributions to the country throughout
history, she noted women are accounting for 30.26 percent of deputies to the
country’s incumbent National Assembly (the highest percentage over the last 45
years), 50 percent of the key positions in ministries and ministry-level
agencies, and 26.5 percent of the business owners (ranking sixth in the world
in terms of the rate of women entrepreneurs). They have also been actively
engaging in the COVID-19 combat, especially in the frontline.
Promoting gender equality and
women empowerment is a consistent policy and also one of the top priorities of
Vietnam in regional and international cooperation frameworks, the Vice
President affirmed.
During the summit, the
Vietnamese delegation actively took part in nearly 20 plenary and panel
discussions on different issues.
International delegates spoke
highly of Vietnam’s achievements in gender equality promotion and women
empowerment, noting that they are impressed with the dynamism of Vietnamese
businesswomen.
Themed “Women Transforming
Economies”, the summit attracted more than 500 delegates from 45 countries and
territories, including officials, female business leaders, and representatives
of women’s organisations./.