PANO – A seminar “From 2000-2015 Millennium Development Goals to post-2015 sustainable development goals: Role of parliaments” got underway in Hanoi on March 17th.

The event was co-organized by the Institute for Legislative Research of Vietnam’s National Assembly (NA) Standing Committee, the Organizing Board of the 132nd Inter-Parliamentary Union Assembly (IPU-132), and the United Nations in Vietnam.

Addressing the opening ceremony, NA Deputy Chairwoman Tong Thi Phong affirmed the agreement of Vietnam’s NA to the major theme of the forthcoming IPU-132 “Sustainable Development Goals: Turning Words into Actions”.

NA Deputy Chairwoman Tong Thi Phong addressing the workshop

She held that over the past time, in spite of difficulties and challenges, Vietnam has been a responsible member of the UN in carrying out eight Millennium Development Goals and gained considerable achievements, especially in poverty reduction, gender equality, and education and training.

Besides, she highly valued the importance of this workshop to help Vietnam’s NA delegation well attend IPU-132, hosted by Hanoi from March 28th to April 1st.

Meanwhile, UN Resident Coordinator in Vietnam Pratibha Mehta said that though Vietnam has harvested good results at the state level in implementing the Millennium Development Goals, some localities have not reached the goals yet. Thus, the UN is ready to support Vietnam to conduct Millennium Development Goals, as well as for the Vietnamese NA to oversee them.

At the workshop, delegates delivered speeches to evaluate Vietnam’s implementation of the Millennium Development Goals and other post-2015 sustainable development goals.

Translated by Van Hieu