Vietnam-UN: Cooperation partnership for sustainable development

Ambassador Dang Hoang Giang, Permanent Representative of Vietnam to the UN, speaks at the UN General Assembly meeting on protecting the planet (Photo: VNA)

The visit takes place at the time when Vietnam is preparing for the celebration of the 45th anniversary of its membership in the largest global multi-lateral organisation (September 20, 1977-2022).

On the foundation of their 45-year-old cooperation, Vietnam and the UN have become each other's partner, and are working together to realise 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) so as to address major development challenges facing people in Vietnam and around the world.

Vietnam has built a National Action Plan towards SDGs which serves as the basis for the country to design its own goals in accordance with the situation of the country, provinces and cities. On September 25, 2020, the Government issued Resolution No. 136/NQ-CP on sustainable development, setting out Vietnam’s 17 SDGs until 2030.

Most of the goals have been included in the country's national institutional system, especially the current Constitution, as well as in resolutions and socio-economic development programmes of the Government, ministries, departments, sectors and localities.

Under the Joint Strategic Plan for 2017-2021 between Vietnam and the UN signed on July 5, 2017, the organisation has assisted the Vietnamese Government in implementing the Socio-Economic Development Plan for the  2016-2020 period and the SDGs with four priority areas of investing in human, ensuring adaptation to climate change and sustainable environmental development, promoting prosperity and partnership, and strengthening justice, peace and inclusive governance.

Through development assistance programmes, Vietnam has to date been one of the countries that seriously implements the UN's development goals, especially the SDGs until 2030, which have been mainstreamed in the country’s socio-economic development strategies and plans, in harmony with cooperation frameworks signed with the United Nations in each period.

Among 17 general goals and 169 specific ones of the 2030 Agenda, Vietnam has nationalised 17 general and 115 specific ones, suitable to the development conditions and context of the country.

Female soldiers of Level 2 Field Hospital Rotation 1 set off to receive missions in South Sudan (Photo: VNA)

Regarding investment in human, the COVID-19 pandemic has adversely affected the achievement of goals. However, Vietnam has managed to maintain and continue making some significant progress in the implementation of the SDGs, with many outstanding results such as a sharp reduction in the rate of multidimensional poverty, from 9.2 percent in 2016 to 4.8 percent in 2020. The coverage of essential health services is higher than the global average. In 2021, the proportion of people participating in health insurance reached 91.01 percent of the population.

In the field of ensuring climate change adaptation and sustainable environmental development, Vietnam ratified the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, committed to implementing the 2015-2030 Disaster Risk Reduction Framework and is currently working on the intended nationally determined contributions with the goal of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 8 percent by 2030, or by 25 percent with international support. At the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26), Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh made a strong commitment to reducing net emissions to zero by 2050, and 30 percent of methane emissions by 2030.

UN Development Programme Resident Representative Caitlin Wiesen spoke highly of the commitments by PM Pham Minh Chinh at the COP26 in Glasgow, the UK, especially the commitments to net zero emissions by 2050.

“Vietnam is also taking the very proactive steps establishing a national steering committee and realigning key climate change strategy documents as well as Power Development Plan No. 8,” she said.

The UNDP official emphasised that although there are big challenges, the opportunities are large too, saying Vietnam is “on the threshold of also planning a future way of growth that has not yet been fully experienced in the world.”

Vietnam and the UN have approved the Strategic Cooperation Framework for 2022 - 2026 with the focus on inclusive social development; combating climate change, natural disasters and environmental sustainability; transformation of economy and governance.

The effective implementation of the SDGs not only brings positive changes to the socio-economic development of Vietnam, but also is a proof of the country’s active participation and increasing role in multilateral mechanisms, especially the UN, thus contributing to peace and stability in the world. It also affirms cooperation between Vietnam and the UN as a typical example of development cooperation among UN member countries, and affirms the organisation’s role in promoting international cooperation to solve socio-economic, cultural and humanitarian issues./.

VNA