PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc is scheduled to meet with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and attend the 40th anniversary of Viet Nam’s accession to the UN in New York during his official tour of the U.S. from May 29-31.

Effective support for VN’s construction and development path

Viet Nam official joined the UN on September 20, 1977. Since then, the relations between Viet Nam and the international body have flourished.

Agencies under the UN, including the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the World Food Program (WFP), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the World Health Organization (WHO) have provided remarkable assistance for the Vietnamese Government's socio-economic development, especially on education, healthcare, child and mother protection, population, and family planning.

The cooperation had also helped Viet Nam improve industry, promote scientific and technological advances; build production sites; and empower development capacity.

In the 1986-1996 period, Viet Nam pursued the renewal path. The UN provided significant support for the Vietnamese Government in policy development, enhancement of administrative management for offices and staff. The international organization also made valuable contributions to increasing technical production, human resources development, and settlement of social issues in Viet Nam.

In the 1997-2000 period, the UN gave a priority to backing poverty elimination; social policies, reform, development management, management of the environment and natural resources, State management, and resource mobilization.

In 2001-2005: the UN shifted from providing technical support to aiding reforms in policy and economic regulations, SOEs, public administration, law, public investment planning, banking system development; then expanding to other fields, such as HIV/AIDS prevention, serious disease prevention, democratic regulations at grass-roots level, and gender equality.

At the present, the organization helped Viet Nam speed up the reform by supplying consultations in amending important laws; poverty eradication, implementation of Program 135; combination of the UN Develop Goals, natural resource protection, enhancement of public awareness on the environment; building strategies and policies on natural resource management, environmental management, and biodiversity.

Shaking hands on global issues

Viet Nam has developed ties with the UN to cement and deepen bilateral and multilateral ties with other countries and other international organizations.

Especially, the country successfully accomplished the mission as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council in the 2008-2009 period. This was the first time, Viet Nam joined the most important body of the UN in  international peace and security. Viet Nam became a member of the 1998 Chemical Weapons Convention,  and one of the very first signatories of the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT); and a member of the 1996 Conference on Disarmament.

In addition, Viet Nam partook in other large-scale conferences including those on Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 2000, 2005, 2010; and UN Conferences on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in 2001 and 2003.

The country also did its best to affirmed its position at the UN by running for and being elected as the Vice President of the UN General Assembly in 1997 ; a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors in 1997-1999; a member of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and the United Nations Human Rights Committee in May, 2000; a member of the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization Broad Committee in the 2014-2016 period. In June, 2014, Viet Nam, for the first time in history, participated in the UN peace-keeping mission. The country has proactively run for a non-permanent seat in the UNSC in 2020-2021.

Viet Nam not only attracted aid from UN development organizations, but also built cooperative modals and partook in these agencies. The three-side models initiated by Viet Nam, FAO, and Senegal on paddy cultivation has been broadened and regarded as an example for NAM-NAM cooperation. Viet Nam also shook hands with the UN to pilot the “One UN” Initiative.  

In the 2012-2016 period, the Common Ground Initiative was concretized by the building of a green house of the UN in Ha Noi. This was the first environmentally-friendly house of the UN, thus contributing to raising operation and combination of the UN in Viet Nam.

The 2017-2021 cooperative program between Viet Nam and the UN within the One UN Initiative has been composed and submitted to the Government for approval. The program targets to support the Vietnamese Government to build the socio-economic development plan in the 2016-2020 period and sustainable development goals.

Viet Nam and the UN set an example in development cooperation which presents the role of the international body in promoting international cooperation and settlement of issues on economics, society, culture, and humanity.

VGP