Presiding over Workshop No. 4, Member of the Party Central Committee, Vice Chairman of the Central Committee of the Vietnam Fatherland Front (VFF) X term, Chairwoman of the Vietnam Women's Union Le Thi Thuy and Vice Chairman of the Central Committee of the VFF Hoang Cong Thuy.
Ms. Le Thi Thuy, Member of the Party Central Committee, Vice Chairwoman of the 10th Central Committee of the Vietnam Fatherland Front, President of the Vietnam Women's Union, presented a keynote report with strategic orientations.
Ms. Le Thi Thuy emphasized that people-to-people diplomacy and work for overseas Vietnamese are particularly important tasks, and are practical methods to expand the great national unity bloc.
In the new era, the Vietnam Fatherland Front needs to clarify its core role, propose orientations to expand and deepen cooperative relations with international People's organizations. The 11th National Congress of the Vietnam Fatherland Front especially noted the innovation of content in a professional direction, strengthening cultural diplomacy and proactively fighting against false information to protect national interests. In particular, promoting the resources of the Vietnamese community abroad, especially intellectuals and entrepreneurs, is considered the key to promoting knowledge transfer and innovation in the country.
From the overseas Vietnamese community, Ms. Phan Bich Thien, Chairwoman of the Vietnamese Women's Forum in Europe, shared her thoughts and solutions to maximize the resources of overseas Vietnamese. After 40 years of settling abroad, Ms. Thien expressed her emotion at the profound change in the relationship between the country and the Vietnamese community, from the position of "departing people" to becoming "people who go with the nation".
Ms. Thien demonstrated the strength of people-to-people diplomacy through the fact that the Vietnamese Women's Forum in Europe successfully organized events right at the headquarters of the highest legislative body of the host country, affirming the prestige and position of Vietnamese people in international politics.
Ms. Phan Bich Thien believes that culture is the most effective "soft power" to promote the country's image. Through activities such as honoring ao dai, cultural heritage or writing contests about expatriate women, love for homeland and Vietnamese have been naturally passed down to the younger generation. However, to sustainably promote this resource, she proposed that the Front should have more specific mechanisms to support members abroad to connect with equivalent organizations in the locality.
She also especially emphasized the need to ignite patriotism in a substantive way to the young generation of overseas Vietnamese through connecting digital platforms and multilingual communication, creating an attractive space for them to contribute their intelligence to the country instead of just calling for it with dry slogans.
According to Ms. Thien, if there is a specific mechanism for people-to-people diplomacy to truly become the main pillar, Vietnam will unlock an extremely large hidden potential from the community of more than 6 million Vietnamese people around the world.
The Center for Discussion No. 4 also heard delegates contribute more ideas, basically all showing agreement and appreciation for the preparation of the Congress Documents and recording the results of people-to-people diplomacy activities of the Vietnam Fatherland Front in the past time.
Along with that, delegates also proposed to continue to innovate the content and methods of people-to-people diplomacy activities in a practical, professional, flexible and effective direction; strongly shift from friendly exchange activities to substantive cooperation, from traditional operating methods to effective combination with digital transformation, application of information technology and digital platforms.
In particular, delegates proposed that the Vietnam Fatherland Front Committee should continue foreign information work, widely promote the image of the country and people of Vietnam; proactively provide official information, spread positive information, and promptly fight and refute false and distorted information that divides the great national unity bloc; and at the same time continue to pay attention to caring for and protecting the legitimate and lawful rights and interests of the Vietnamese community abroad; support people to stabilize their lives, integrate well with the local society, preserve Vietnamese language, national cultural identity, and at the same time be more attached to their homeland and country.
Regarding the issue of mechanisms and policies, delegates proposed that the Vietnam Fatherland Front should have appropriate mechanisms and policies to further promote the resources of overseas Vietnamese, especially intellectuals, experts, scientists, entrepreneurs, and young Vietnamese people abroad to participate in policy advice, knowledge transfer, investment, innovation, science and technology development, trade promotion and promotion of Vietnamese culture.
Speaking in conclusion, Vice Chairman of the Central Committee of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Hoang Cong Thuy highly appreciated the opinions that have shown the high sense of responsibility and enthusiasm of the delegates for the cause of great national unity; and at the same time proposed many practical solutions to improve the effectiveness of people-to-people diplomacy, international cooperation and the work of Vietnamese people abroad in the new period.
