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NA Chairwoman meets IPU leaders on sidelines of IPU

VGP - National Assembly (NA) Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan met with Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) Secretary General Martin Chungong and IPU President Gabriela Cuevas Barron in Doha, Qatar on April 8 on the sidelines of the ongoing 140th Assembly of the IPU.

April 09, 2019 9:31 AM GMT+7

National Assembly (NA) Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan meets Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) Secretary General Martin Chungong, Doha, Qatar, April 8, 2019 - Photo: VNA

At the meeting with the IPU Secretary General, Ms. Ngan asserted that Viet Nam will continue to consider the participation in the IPU activities an important task to promote and protect its legitimate interests, thus helping increase its position in the international area.

She expressed her satisfaction with the results of cooperation between the Vietnamese legislature, the IPU, and the United Nations in Viet Nam towards realizing parliamentary partnership.

With the support of the IPU in general and the Secretary General in particular, the Vietnamese NA will continue activities to promote its role in the implementation of sustainable development goals, she added.

The Vietnamese top legislator also spoke highly of the important role of the Secretary General to the IPU, especially in intensifying cooperation between the union and the UN, thus contributing to raising the roles and voices of parliaments and parliamentarians on international issues.

Martin Chungong, in turn, confirmed that the IPU is willing to cooperate with Viet Nam in the field of nutrition, expressing high expectations for the continued promotion of the implementation of sustainable development goals in Vietnam.

He appreciated Viet Nam’s commitment to joining IPU activities at the highest level, hoping that the country will help improve the influence of the Asia-Pacific Parliamentary Forum in the time ahead.

National Assembly (NA) Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan meets IPU President Gabriela Cuevas Barron in Doha, Qatar on April 8, 2019 - Photo: VNA

While meeting with President of the IPU Gabriela Cuevas Barron on the same day, the Vietnamese NA leader affirmed that Vietnam has been a responsible member of the union.

She told the IPU President that the Self-Assessment Toolkit for Parliaments, which evaluates the performance of parliaments in implementing Sustainable Development Goals, has been launched in Viet Nam, making the country the first to translate it into its national language and popularize it among localities.

If the toolkit is successfully applied in Son La province, the locality chosen to pilot it, the toolkit will be deployed in all other localities. The UN in Viet Nam will support a project to develop sustainable agriculture to promote livelihood for locals in Son La.

Members of the Vietnamese NA will make field trips to supervise the realization of SDGs basing on the toolkit, which is built by the IPU and the UN.

For her part, Ms. Gabriela Cuevas Barron lauded the Vietnamese NA’s active engagement in the IPU’s activities, showing her delight at Viet Nam’s efforts to apply the toolkit at the national and local level.

Viet Nam has become a model in implementing international commitments, she stated.

The IPU leader pointed to a number of challenges in implementing international commitments at the local level, stating that understanding the practical demand of locals is always difficult, congratulating Viet Nam on its achievements in the field with many effective initiatives.

She said she hopes to receive collaboration from the Vietnamese NA in seeking initiatives and recommendations.

By Hoang Ha