About 100 parliamentarians and experts from Asian countries on April 25-26 gathered in the Lao capital city of Vientiane for the 26th Asian Parliamentarians’ Meeting on Population and Development.

Themed "Population and Adaptation to Climate Change", the meeting focused on topics such as climate change and women, and population issues with adaptation strategies and concrete measures to combat climate change.

Addressing the function, Lao National Assembly Chairman Thongsinh Thammavong suggested countries in the Asian region tighten their cooperation to deal with population issues that are emerging and threatening people in rural areas, who mainly live on traditional agriculture and lack access to education and health care.

He also called on legislative bodies to increase their role in lawmaking and increase their capacity in supervision over the implementation of laws along with socio-economic development plans in each country on the above issues.

A Vietnamese delegation headed by Nguyen Van Tien, Vice Chairman of Committee on Social Issues, attended the event.

At the meeting, Vietnamese participants presented a special report on gender equality and the improvement of the role of women in line with another on parliamentarians’ roles in preparation for climate change adaptation.

The reports said Vietnam ranks first among ASEAN countries in terms of gender equality and that each year the Vietnam National Assembly examines and appraises the government’s reports on the results of gender equality implementation and other related issues./.