ASEAN Women Leaders’ Summit held
Hanoi (VNA) – The ASEAN Women Leaders’ Summit was
held on November 12 within the framework of the 37th ASEAN Summit
and related meetings.
The event afforded ASEAN leaders a chance to talk with
outstanding female leaders in the region and at international organisations
about how to further uphold their role in the process of building the ASEAN
Community following the COVID-19 pandemic.
It was also one of the important
activities within the framework of the ASEAN Year 2020 to mark the 25th anniversary of the United Nations’ adoption of Beijing Declaration on gender
equality, the 20th anniversary
of the UN Security Council’s first Resolution on women, peace and security, and
the fifth anniversary of the ASEAN Community and the realisation of the UN
Sustainable Development Goals till 2030.
Speaking at the event, Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan
Phuc described women as an indispensable factor in the process of building peace
and sustainable security.
Most recently, women’s
role has been proved in the fight against COVID-19 when countries led by women
record deaths that are six times lower than those in other countries, he said.
He cited the UN’s
estimate as saying that 435 million women and girls will be pushed into poverty
by 2021, 47 million of them are directly hit by COVID-19. Additionally, social
distancing policies and national resources for pandemic prevention and control
also contribute to increasing domestic violence and reducing the quality of key
medical services for women.
The PM wished that
the summit would offer important orientations to help ASEAN women contribute
more widely and effectively to the process of building ASEAN Community as well
as actively join efforts to ensure peace, security, sustainable and inclusive development
in the region.
Speaking about the theme
“Women Empowerment for Inclusive and Sustainable Development in a
Changing World”, Dutch Queen Maximax, who is also special advocate to the UN Secretary-General for Inclusive Finance
for Development, spoke highly of women’s
increasingly important role in the development of the world in the near future,
including increasing economic empowerment for women on inclusive finance,
digital transformation and e-commerce.
World Bank Vice President for East
Asia and Pacific Victoria Kwakwa shared
suggestions to protect women’s health as well as help them join socio-economic activities
following the pandemic.
At the event, Vietnamese National
Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan called for ensuring legitimate economic
and health benefits of women via effective and timely measures. She urged that
global, regional and national efforts related to gender equality should be
maintained and unobstructed.
Accordingly, ASEAN needs to
put women into focus of reconstruction and recovery, enhance women’s leadership
and voices in decision-making process, increase their economic empowerment to
narrow development gap, strengthen ASEAN Community’s resilience against
external shocks, she said.
Amid rapid and
complicated developments in the region and the world, she called on ASEAN to
take new, creative and effective approaches to upholding women’s role in every
aspect, especially tapping benefits from digital technology.
According to her, Vietnam will hold
the ASEAN High-level Forum on women’s role in comprehensive and sustainable
recovery next year. She believed that the forum would offer practical
recommendations to realise the ASEAN comprehensive recovery framework recently
adopted at the 37th ASEAN Summit as well as assist the process of
building post-2025 ASEAN Vision./.