Vietnam supports UNICEF's goals to protect, promote children's rights
(VOVWORLD) - Vietnam cherished the cooperation with United Nations Children’s Fund in the past 40 years and its contributions to the global efforts in protecting and caring for children, said Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh at a meeting with UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russel in New York on May 16.
 Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh (left) and UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russel. (Photo: VGP) |
The Vietnamese leader noted that from a recipient of humanitarian assistance, Vietnam has become a trusted partner of the UN and UNICEF on many fronts.
Vietnam supports UNICEF Strategic Plan for 2022-25 Towards 2030, including the emphasis on children’s rights like every child has the right to study and life skills, to be protected from abuse and violence, to get access to clean water, hygiene and safe environment, etc. – all of which are also the goals Vietnam are striving towards.
PM Chinh thanks UNICEF for its assistance, especially in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Vietnamese Prime Minister said Vietnam’s COVID-19 vaccination coverage has reached 84 percent of its the population, with nearly 100 percent of the people aged from 12 to older fully vaccinated, thanks in part to UNICEF and development partners’ help in the development of the national expanded immunisation system.
Vietnam is currently rolling out vaccination for children in the 5-12 age group and welcomes UNICEF’s support in this issue.
The Vietnamese Government leader highly valued the major cooperation agendas in the Vietnam-UNICEF cooperation plan 2022-26, saying that they are in line with the Government’s priorities – especially in issues such as climate change, disease response, gender equality, children’s protection.
He said Vietnam is providing 100,000 USD to UNICEF as part of the humanitarian assistance worth 500,000 USD to Ukraine.
Catherine Russell expressed her delight at the close and effective cooperation between UNICEF and Vietnam over the past four decades, and spoke highly of Vietnam’s socio-economic achievements and realisation of the sustainable development goals in the challenging context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The UNICEF chief especially welcomed and highly valued Vietnam's cross-cutting guidelines and policies on the care and protection of children's rights in national programmes and action plans, including items like educational rights and welfare of children in mountainous, remote and isolated areas, and improving the nutrition for children.
She affirmed that UNICEF will continue to actively implement the Vietnam-UNICEF 2022-26 Country Programme to meet the country’s priorities. UNICEF will accompany the organisations in the COVAX initiative to continue to support Vietnam in responding to the COVID-19, especially in the supply of vaccines and domestic production of vaccines, contributing to the protection and bringing a better life to Vietnamese people, especially children, against the pandemic.