November 20, 2019 | 20:11 (GMT+7)
Vietnam, UNDP cooperate in war consequence relief
PANO – Senior Lieutenant General Nguyen Chi Vinh, Deputy Defense Minister, hosted a reception for Caitlin Wiesen, United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Resident Representative in Vietnam, on November 19 at the Headquarters of the Ministry of National Defense.
At the meeting, Ms. Wiesen congratulated Vietnam on taking over the Chairmanship of ASEAN Defense Ministers’ Meeting (ADMM) and ADMM+ from Thailand in 2020. She also highlighted achievements recorded by the first Level-2 Field Hospital in the UN Mission in South Sudan as well as Vietnam’s recent successful deployment of the Level-2 Field Hospital Rotation 2. The UNDP official hoped that UNDP and Vietnam will obtain more achievements in cooperation in UN peacekeeping operations.
Regarding war consequence settlement, Ms. Wiesen highlighted the positive outcomes of the project, “Vietnam – the Republic of Korea cooperation in unexploded ordnance (UXO) consequence relief in Quang Tri and Binh Dinh provinces from 2018 to 2020,” jointly conducted by the Vietnam National Mine Action Center, the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), and UNDP in Vietnam.
General Vinh highly appreciated the effective cooperation between UNDP and Vietnam’s Ministry of National Defense in settling war consequences and in UN peacekeeping missions. As Head of the National Steering Committee on the Settlement of Post-war UXO and Toxic Chemical Consequences (Steering Committee 701 in short), General Vinh affirmed that outstanding achievements in the project implementation between Vietnam and the RoK came from timely instructions by Steering Committee 701 and active support of UNDP.
He hoped that in the coming time, UNDP and the RoK will continue cooperating and supporting Vietnam in overcoming war consequences not only in Quang Binh and Binh Dinh provinces, but also other localities which have been heavily contaminated with UXO.
Translated by Tran Hoai