Vietnam has made significant progress in realising its United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), particularly in poverty reduction and the universalisation of primary school education, General Director of the United Nation Development Programmes Helen Clark said on November 9. The UNDP Administrator made the remark at a seminar on women of ethnic minority groups and development issues in Hanoi, adding that Vietnam still needs a concrete action plan to accelerate the implementation process of the goals’ with a clear roadmap. She said the voice and knowledge of ethnic minority women play an important role in accelerating this implementation process as well as in working out development agenda after 2015. Addressing the event, Vice Chairwoman of the National Assembly Tong Thi Phong affirmed that Vietnam has been active in boosting gender equality by including it in a number of laws such as the Law on Election of National Assembly Deputies, Law on Gender Equality, and Law on Domestic Violence Prevention and Control. The country has also ratified the UN Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women and bought in into domestic legal framework. She stressed that ethnic minority women have been involving in all fields of socio-economic life from education, healthcare to production. (vietnamplus.vn Nov 9)
