Vietnam overwhelmingly won its election to the 54-member United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) for the 2016-2018 tenure with 182 out of 187 valid votes.

A meeting of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (Photo: VNA)

The UN General Assembly also elected 17 other new members of the ECOSOC on October 21 to serve the three-year term beginning on January 1, 2016.

This is the second time Vietnam has been elected to the ECOSOC. The country first served on the ECOSOC from 1998 through 2000.

The re-election marks a new step forward in the country’s efforts to implement its foreign policy of independence, self-reliance and proactive and active international integration in line with Resolutions of the 11th National Party Congress and the Political Bureau.

It also demonstrates the international community’s confidence in Vietnam and their acknowledgment of national construction and defence achievements as well as its contributions to the UN and common efforts for a better world.

Talking with a Vietnam News Agency correspondent immediately after the election results were announced, Head of the Vietnamese Mission to the UN Ambassador Nguyen Phuong Nga said Vietnam is well aware of its great responsibility as a new member of the ECOSOC, which takes on a pile of tasks in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development approved by world leaders at a UN summit last September.

Vietnam will take an active part in ECOSOC activities, mobilise social involvement, contribute to revamping the operation of the UN’s development system and effectively make progress on development cooperation to successfully implement the agenda and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially those related to poverty reduction, sustainable and comprehensive economic growth and environmental protection, she pledged.

As one of the six UN agencies, the ECOSOC considers issues related to international economic, social, cultural, educational, health and humanitarian affairs, and makes recommendations to promote respect for and exercise of human rights.

Vietnam’s election to the ECOSOC has received warm responses from international friends, who said they pin high hopes on the country and the other 53 members in realising the SDGs.

ECOSOC President, Ambassador Oh Joon of the Republic of Korea, congratulated Vietnam on its election, which, he said, took place after the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development was approved last month. The agency is expected to play a crucial role in implementing the new agenda.

Expressing his pleasure to cooperate with a friendly country like Vietnam, Oh Joon said he hopes to partner closely with Vietnam in performing major tasks of the ECOSOC in his capacity as President.

ECOSOC Vice President, Argentinean Ambassador Maria Cristina Perceval, said Vietnam’s election manifests UN members’ confidence in the country.

According to him, implementing the SDGs and inspecting budget allocations for development projects are main tasks for this year and next year, and Vietnam is one of the key players of the UN Group of 77 developing nations.

As a member of the ECOSOC, Vietnam will contribute its opinions on building policies, documents and activities of ECOSOC covering global socio-economic aspects.

The country will also have more opportunities to exchange experiences with international friends in socio-economic development.

As human and economic development in Viet Nam has increased over the nearly three decades of Đổi mới (‘Renewal’), people’s expectations of governance are also changing. Viet Nam’s Constitution and political structure offer opportunities for citizens to participate in governance both directly (through in-person engagement at the local level) and indirectly (through voting for People’s Council and National Assembly delegates).

These forms of participation can be summarised in the two familiar slogans of ‘People know, people discuss, people do, and people monitor’, and ‘Government of the people, by the people, and for the people’. Yet the implementation of legal rights to participation often lags behind the letter of the law. How can citizens be more actively involved in public decision making?

This research report is the result of collaboration between the international non-governmental organisation, Oxfam and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to examine and analyse citizen participation in policy-making processes and political life.

It forms part of a series of UNDP-commissioned studies on Viet Nam’s governance and public administration performance conceived on the basis of the wealth of data and information provided by the Viet Nam Provincial Governance and Public Administration Performance Index (PAPI).

The report employs an innovative combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis to compare citizen participation at the national level with indepth conditions in local communities.

Research into citizen participation in governance and public administration issues is of particular importance at this time considering that in 2016, the Communist Party of Viet Nam will hold its five-year Congress and elections will be held for a new National Assembly for the period 2016-2021.

With these upcoming events in mind, the report provides insights into people’s understanding and perceptions of local governance and suggests potential policy responses to address matters of concern surrounding direct and indirect participation.

Vietnamese citizens participate in a wide array of mass organisations and informal social groups at the grassroots level. PAPI survey data indicates that associational membership may be increasing nationwide over the last several years.

Qualitative research results offer a more nuanced picture, in which membership is strong in some locations and among some citizens whilst remaining weaker for others. Participation in associations, however, does not necessarily equate to active involvement in socio-economic development, such as land use, development planning, or budget monitoring.

Meanwhile, citizen monitoring of local government performance through vertical accountability structures forms the lowest performing area of direct participation, with People’s Inspection Boards (PIBs) and Community Investment Supervision Boards (CISBs) often not functioning as designed. Regardless, each of the research locations visited exemplified certain positive governance practices to be recognised and highlighted.

Regarding elections, the report notes discrepancies between the very high nationally reported turnout and PAPI data on election participation.

Constitutional guarantees of election quality are realised in National Assembly and People’s Council elections more than in village head elections, and more consistently in some locations than others.

Beyond analysing the current situation of participation in political life, the research team asked both individual and focus group respondents their views on a set of potential electoral reforms that are either already piloted or proposed in Viet Nam.

All ideas were supported by at least some respondents, though levels of acceptance varied widely among both citizens and local officials. The reforms with the highest overall support were a change in election procedures to guarantee ‘one person, one vote’ and a restriction on the number of dual appointments between government and elected bodies.

In conclusion, qualitative research on direct and indirect participation in local governance, combined with analysis of PAPI data, reveals a number of specific ways in which implementation of citizens’ constitutional rights, laws and policies on grassroots democracy and elections can be promoted within the present Vietnamese political system.

Efforts to promote substantive participation are already being made through pilot and experimental programmes of the Vietnamese government, donors, and international and domestic NGOs. These programmes should be expanded and promoted with cooperation of local authorities and mass organisations, particularly the Fatherland Front./.

Taking advantage of giving feedbacks to the draft political report for the 12^th National Congress of the Party, some people spread their opposition to the guideline of developing the socialist-oriented market economy (SOME). However, their views have been proved wrong both theoretically and practically.

The implementation of the guidelines of SOME development over the past 30 years has brought about significant and historic achievements. Institutions of SOME, particularly legal system, mechanism, policies, have been supplemented and gradually perfected, meeting the membership requirements of WTO, FTAs that Vietnam has been a signatory. The role, effectiveness, and competitiveness of the economic actors, of business types in the economy have been enhanced. Business and investment environment has been improved and made more equal and accessible. Market factors and types have been established more synchronously and operated smoothly and linked with regional and international markets. Almost all production prices are determined by market principles. State’s role has been adjusted to match market mechanism and promote democracy in socio-economic life. The mobilization and allocation of resources associated with strategies and plans for socio-economic development have been made more suitable with market mechanism, limiting and controlling monopoly. National economy is integrating more deeply and widely into the world economy at different scales and gradually adapts to principles and standards of the world market. Thereby, the country’s status and strength have improved significantly. The country has no longer been a low-developed one but a developing country with average income and an average growth rate of GDP at 6.6% since 1986. The economy’s size and potential have been increased from USD 6.3 billion in 1989 to USD 186 billion in 2014 and will reach USD 204 billion in 2015. Export turnover also increases 30fold from 1995 to 2014 and Vietnam has been listed among the top exporters in pepper, coffee, cashew, rice, seafood, textile, footwear, tea, etc., of the world. Infrastructure has been developed rapidly with new and modern projects being built. Economic structure has been changed positively towards modernization and industrialization. Industry and service account for 83% of GDP. Major achievements have been gained in the fields of social progress and equality. Vietnam is among the top countries to realize UN Millennium Development Goals. Social security and welfare are always paid attention to.  No program has been cut down even in the time of economic slowdown. The government has carried out 41 strategies and national programs on socio-economic development with priorities given to vulnerable groups. In the period between 2011 and 2015 alone, VND 364,000 billion have been spent on hunger eradication and poverty alleviation. Thereby, the percentage of poor households decreased sharply from 58% in 1993 to 6% in 2014 and below 5% is projected at under 5% in 2015. People’s spiritual and material lives have been improved greatly. Per capita GDP increases 21fold in comparison with that before the start of renewal and is estimated at USD 2,200 in 2015, narrowing the gap with other countries. Politics is stabilized; defense and security are strengthened; national sovereignty is safeguarded; external relations are widened and deepened; the country’s status and strength are increasingly improved in international arena. The country’s reality after 30 years of renewal is a persuasive evidence for the soundness of the guideline of developing SOE.

However, some people intentionally neglect those achievements to deny the Party’s guideline on SOME. They keep repeating their arguments that market economy is a product of capitalism and that market economy should not be socialist oriented and once choosing market economy we must choose capitalism. With this argument, they demand our Party openly declare its choice of capitalist market economy which in essence, demand the Party give up socialism to follow capitalism.

It should be noted that, the attribution of market economy to capitalism, considering it a unique feature of capitalism is unreasonable because market economy is just an economic model of human kind and able to exist in any social regimes. Therefore, the attribution of an economic model to a particular social regime is a mechanical and partial thinking. That thinking once leading us to socio-economic stagnation and crisis is now employed by hostile forces to destabilize our internal political ideology, hence we should be vigilant.

Market economy is the high development of commodity economy when both inputs and outputs of production are determined by market. Producing capacity when reaching a certain level will create objective conditions for the existence of commodity economy – the starting point of market economy. They are the division of labor and different ownership models of production supplies. These conditions still exist in socialism so the pursuit and development of market economy in Vietnam today is relevant to the objective reality and compliant with the rules of developing socialism from an economy with small productions.

The undeniable achievements after 30 years of renewal in light of SOE have proved that interests brought about by market economy are useful to the cause of building socialism in our country. This doesn’t contrast with socio-economic missions of the transiting period to socialism but fosters the accomplishment of those missions more effectively.

Progress in controlling the mortality rate in small children has brought Vietnam come close to achieving the related Millennium Development Goal 4 on reducing child mortality, according to the Ministry of Health (MoH).

According to the Department of Maternal Health and Children under the MoH, the mortality rate among children under one reduced from 44 per 1,000 in 1990 to 14.9 in 2014 and is currently only 0.1 percent higher than the MDG 4.

The rate, however, varies between regions and ethnic groups. The rate is 8.7 per 1,000 in urban areas and 17.9 per 1,000 in rural areas. Central Highlands, midland and mountainous north, the central north and the coastal central regions have the highest rates.

The rate among ethnic minority groups is 30 per 1,000 and stands at 12 per 1,000 for the majority Kinh group specifically.

Infant mortality rate is importantly associated with maternal health, but statistics for the rate have yet been collected in Vietnam.

The mortality rate among children under five halved from 1990-2004 at a rate of 2 per 1,000 each year, but the pace has slowed to 0.5 per 1,000 each year in recent years. The rate was 22.4 per 1000 in 2014, 3.1 deaths above the level required by the MDG 4.

The slowdown of the mortality rate reduction among children under-one and under-five in recent years is due partly to persistently high rates in mountainous and remote areas where health facilities and human resources desperately need improvements.

The overall success is the result of many factors that include the national immunisation programme, the national strategy for reproduction healthcare, the Vietnam population and reproduction health strategy for 2011-2020 and the family planning policy implemented since 1990.

The health sector continues to reinforce its caring systems from the grassroots level and focus on training and re-training staff.
A special support policy will be issued for ethnic minority midwives and health workers who are stationed at far-flung hamlets and villages.-VNA

Recent years, more and more Vietnamese people have been rewarded with international prizes. By their talent and intelligence, Vietnamese people have brought honor to the country through world prestigious awards. From famous people’s artist Dang Thai Son, mathematician Ngo Bao Chau, talented chess player Le Quang Liem, etc to thousands of students and pupils who have gain high prizes in many competitions like Olympics, they are all our country’s pride. In opposition, some “so-called international prizes” awarded by some foreign organizations for individuals who have committed crimes in Vietnam, do not bring any honor to the country but even undermine the country’s image in eyes of international friends. These so-called international prizes are largely human rights ones which are awarded by self-proclaimed human rights organizations.

 Nowadays, human rights is raising to be a hot debated issue by some countries which want to impose their influences and try to use human rights as an excuse to pressure countries that resist their interference. Difference in viewpoint of human rights is due to many different reasons about culture, education, political system, outlook on life, etc. Therefore, the U.S. and Western policy of imposing their human rights values has been criticized by many countries for intervening to attain political goals.

 When judging human rights records, we need to look at achievements which states have brought to their people. Imposing human rights to get political, economic or religious goals is a fact that Western experts must admit. The U.S. and the West have exploited the UN International Declaration on Human rights passed in 1948 to support their foreign policies on human rights, but even that, they still have to ignore principles in the Declaration on civil and political rights that show human rights must bear limitation of laws.

 Clashes from different view on human rights values promise to be a lingering conflict, and one of means used in the human rights warfare is offering human rights prizes. Even, the Nobel Peace Prize which has been awarded annually to those who have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses, now has been distorted by human rights warfare. Experts said the Nobel Peace Prize has derailed from its primitive missions. Unlike its fellow prizes, the Nobel Peace Prize’s aims are expressly political. According to Deputy Professor Ronald R.Krebs on Foreign Policy magazine in US, between 1946 and 1970, the prize was awarded twice (9.5 percent of the time) to domestic dissidents, between 1971 and 2008, it was given 10 times (21 percent) for this purpose, all the winners are not recognized to have substantial contributions to interstate or intrastate peace.

 The situation is same to Vietnam, many prizes given to Vietnamese people go with political goals, especially human rights ones. Never before, so many human rights prizes have been awarded to Vietnamese political dissidents like shower. We can count human rights prizes for individuals who protest against Vietnam such as Hellman/Hammet awarded by Human Rights Watch, Stephanus Prize of German International Association on Human Rights, Gruber international prize of International Association of Lawyers, Gwangju Human rights prize; Human rights prize of Vietnam Human Rights Network, Sakharov human rights prize of  the European Parliament,… These prizes, if not for reactionary organizations like Viet Tan, Vietnam’s Democratic Party… and western communication stations like VOA, BBC, RFA, RFI… and some hostile blogs and social networks, known by no one. Do you see them familiar?

Those individuals who were awarded or nominated are Vietnamese reactionary elements like Thich Quang Do, Nguyen Van Ly, Duong Thu Huong, Le Thi Cong Nhan,… For that reason, these human rights prizes just aim for individuals who conduct anti-government activities. It is totally against fundamental principles listed in international documents on human rights./.

The US’s new strategy in Syria is considered illusive and risky when the US’s weapons would be potentially under the IS control.

The United States will largely abandon its efforts to train moderate Syrian rebels fighting Islamic State, and instead provide arms and equipment directly to rebel leaders and their units on the battlefield, the Obama administration said on Friday.

Admitting mistakes and failures

Washington's announcement came as Islamic State fighters seized villages close to the northern city of Aleppo from rival insurgents, according to a monitoring group, despite an intensified Russian campaign.

From Washington Post, the military and national security editor, Missy Ryan assessed that the Pentagon’s decision was the admission of mistakes and consecutive failures in the training program for Syrian rebels. The goals of the U.S. $580 million program were to train and equip units of fighters at sites outside of Syria, after its disastrous launch this year fanned criticism of President Barack Obama war strategy.

However, after the strict recruitment process and tough training program, the US-trained rival units had been defeated consecutively on the battlefield in the fights with the IS fighters. On of the rival units even surrendered and handed over all of the US’s equipments and weapons for Al-Qaeda militants.

The failures in the training program is considered one of the main reasons that have made the US’s campaign against the IS falling into deadlock. Thousands of the air strikes of the US and its allies can’t prevent the IS from spreading its control in both Iraq and Syria.

The strategy switch comes as the Obama administration grapples with a dramatic change in the landscape in Syria's four-year-old civil war, brought about by Russia's military intervention in support of President Bashar al-Assad. Moscow's intervention has cast doubt on Obama's strategy there and raised questions about U.S. influence in the region.

The illusive strategy

On October 9, the NYTimes commentator, Andrew Rosenthal, wrote that the US’s new plan to equip weapons for Syrian rebels was “the illusion”, especially when Russian jet fighters were striking the IS forces in Syria.

Therefore, it’s hard to believe that the US will be successful surprisingly in the effort of finding the rival groups that share the goals with the US to weaken the IS and not to bring down the Government of President Bashar al-Assad. The historical experiments of the US in Syria and recent wars show that the indigenous fighters, who were recruited and trained by the US, are often very shaky and the US weapons are not strictly under control and easily to cause brutal disasters.

Craig Whitlock, a national security analyst in London, argued that the military assistant for rival militants in the region including IS fighters would be a dramatic change form the US’s previous policy. However it’s potentially risky if the weapon is taken by IS forces or the rival units are defeated by the Government and its allies forces.

The analysts have also expressed their concern over the possibility of confrontation between the US’s and Russia’s fighters when they are conducting air strikes to support rival forces and the Government’s military nearby the city of Raqqa.

It would be better for the US to be patient for the dramatic change in battlefield rather than being risky to provide weapon for rival forces and make things more complicated in Syria. The most viable choice for the US is to promote a big improvement in diplomacy and accept Russia as an equal partner in solving the Syria crisis./.

For 20 years, Vietnam has been trying to raise power, quality of life and status of Vietnamese women.

Impressive figures

For 20 years, Vietnam has been implementing the Beijing Platform, which was adopted at the 4^th international conference of women in Beijing in 1995, with the effort of the society and the responsible of the entire political system. Vietnam is recognized by the UN on attaining some of the Millennium Development Goal targets including gender equality and empowering women.

Vietnam now has females who have high-ranking position on the political arena such as two Politburo members, one Party central secretary, two National Assembly vices, one Deputy President.

Females also account for nearly 9% of the senior Party members of the 11^th tenure, 11.3% provinces’ Party Committee for 2015-2020 tenure, 24.4% delegates of 12th National Assembly.

There are 50% of the ministerial offices that have female officers are senior leaders and 24/63 (38%) provinces and cities that have female Presidents or Deputy Presidents of the People Committee.

In the economic field, the rate of joining labor force of Vietnamese women is 73.5%, while men’s one is 82.5%. This rate is very high in comparison with a lot of countries. Vietnamese women also account for 25% the owners of the companies. The wage gap between the women and men is reducing at the rate of 106.7% in 2014.

In the medical field, the average life expectancy of Vietnamese women is quite high at 73.2. The reproductive health of mothers is cared much. In 2014, 95.8% of the maternal mothers are checked at least one time and 73.7% of the maternal mothers are checked at least 4 times. The maternal mortality rate is also reducing.

In education and training field, the rate of literacy of women at the ages of 15-35 is 98.9%. The female intellectual force is getting bigger in number, higher in quality and younger in age. In universities, 19% of the Doctors and 38% of the Masters are women. In science and technology field, 38.6% of the Deputy Professors, 30.9% of the Doctors and 54.6% the Masters are women.

These figures has shown the great achievement in gender equality, raising role, status and quality of life of Vietnamese women which Vietnam has been trying for last 20 years.

Difficulties

The Beijing Declaration and Platform is the result of the fights of the women all over the world for decades to attain the gender equality. The important document, which was adopted at the 4^th international conference of women in Beijing in 1995 with the attendance of delegates from over 180 countries, was to reflect the issues and concerns of the women at the late 20^th century.

Vice President Nguyen Thi Doan said that “The Beijing Platform has been widely implemented in Vietnam for 20 years and considered an important factor to make improvement in the gender equality process. However in the implementation of the Beijing Platform there are still difficulties that need to be rightly assessed to change in the future.”

Despite the important achievements, the effort in making the gender equality of the Vietnamese women has been a lot of difficulties. Vietnam has a low starting point of an agricultural country, having outdated ways of thinking such as preferring sons more than girls. In remote areas, women are bound by outdated customs and practices; the proportions of poverty and illiteracy in women are still high; the problems of domestic violence, women and children trafficking, marrying foreign men are very complicated…

To effectively deal with this problem and implement the gender equality, promoting the human rights in the work of building and protecting the nation, our Party and State are conducting policies with the participation of the entire community. In which we are focusing on strengthening and diversifying the forms of propaganda and education to raise awareness of gender and gender equality./.

When the National Assembly of Vietnam is preparing to review the Law on Association, there are some opinions that remains "cautious" about freedom of association because the idea of ​​building law had been for a long time but so far still in the building process! Even some the ideas in the name of "democracy" proposed to have "civic space" for society and do not have to control all associations and groups in society.

Indeed, "the civil space" for society still exist. Since there was no Act of Congress, there have been many active civic groups and associations in society without control. Naturally, the activities of associations, groups must adhere to the law, for its benefit and members. Those who form associations and groups for activities contrary to national interests, or infringe upon the interests and confidentiality of individuals, organizations and others in society, countries will also be dealt with responsibility...

According to the Interior Ministry, as of December 2014, there were 52.565 associations with 483 associations operating on a national scale and 52.082 others on local scope. 8.792 ones have specific characteristics, including 28 operating on national scale and 8.764 associations operating on each local scope. Regarding classification, some associations are defined as socio-political organizations, socio-professional and 10 have the right to establish their own parties and unions to lead the organization's activities. The remains are defined as social-occupational or social -humanitarian organizations, operating under the principles of voluntariness, which cover operational expenditure. 31 groups conduct activities throughout the country.

The freedom of association is not only recognized in the 1946 Constitution and the 2013 Constitution, as some people believe. This is one of the fundamental rights of Vietnamese citizens which is recognized throughout all of the Constitution by the National Assembly of Vietnam on ever.

Thus, freedom of associations for Vietnamese citizens is always recognized in Vietnam's Constitution. Moreover, the rights considered fundamental human rights in international conventions including freedom of association is also guaranteed and protected over the periods by the State of Vietnam. Vietnam Penal Code also stipulates very clearly trespassing the rights of association, belief and religion for citizens.