During his working trip to New York, USA, on September 24, General Secretary and President To Lam had meetings with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, President of the 79th United Nations General Assembly Philemon Yang, Director-General of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Achim Steiner and Executive Director of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) Catherine Russel.
According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, at the meeting with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the General Secretary and President suggested that the United Nations should promote cooperation to enhance the capacity of countries to withstand and respond to natural disasters and manage risks and disasters. The General Secretary and President also suggested that the UN Secretary-General continue to pay attention to promoting cooperation areas such as energy transition, green transition, digital transformation, building a digital governance system, etc., in which, paying attention to the interests of developing countries, including Vietnam.
The UN Secretary-General expressed his special affection for Vietnam, highly appreciating the role, position and achievements of Vietnam in socio-economic development. Mr. Gutteres thanked and highly appreciated Vietnam's active participation and contributions in important agencies, as well as in all priority areas of the UN, especially in peacekeeping, implementing the Sustainable Development Goals, responding to climate change and making a fair energy transition.
The two sides agreed to continue efforts, enhance dialogue and promote further deepening of Vietnam - United Nations and ASEAN - United Nations relations in the coming time, promoting ASEAN's central role in resolving regional issues. The two sides also agreed on cooperation measures to promote sustainable development, put the 2030 Agenda back on track, energy transition, capacity building to effectively respond to global challenges, and further enhance Vietnam's participation in UN peacekeeping activities in the coming time.
At the meeting with General Secretary and President To Lam, President of the 79th United Nations General Assembly Philemon Yang highly appreciated Vietnam's relations with the United Nations and Cameroon, said he was impressed by Vietnam's socio-economic development achievements; highly appreciated Vietnam's active, dynamic role and increasing position, and agreed to cooperate with Vietnam to promote compliance with the United Nations Charter, international law and multilateralism.
At a meeting with General Secretary and President To Lam, UNDP Director General Achim Steiner said that Vietnam is a model in socio-economic development and implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, bringing valuable practical experience to the United Nations and the international community.
Mr. Achim Steiner affirmed that UNDP is proud to be Vietnam's development partner in green growth, energy transition and innovation. UNDP is ready to support Vietnam in building a green, sustainable and inclusive socio-economic development policy, attracting investment, finance and green technology sources to improve the ability to respond to climate change and promote a fair energy transition and digital transformation to improve self-development capacity, avoiding becoming a market of monopolies.
At the meeting with General Secretary and President To Lam, UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russel highly appreciated the efforts to implement the Sustainable Development Goals in Vietnam, especially in the fields of child protection, care and education, especially climate education, as well as the readiness to prevent and provide relief related to natural disasters with many good typical experiences that can be shared with other countries.
For its part, UNICEF will continue to actively implement the Vietnam - UNICEF Country Programme for the period 2022-2026 to best meet Vietnam's priorities, support the settlement of the consequences of Typhoon Yagi, especially for schools to reopen soon, be ready to coordinate the implementation of Vietnam's initiative on International Day of Play on June 11 every year and hope that Vietnam will be UNICEF's partner in promoting girls' access to science and technology.
