HCM City (VNA) – Vice Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee Vo Van Hoan received Elisa Fernandez Saenz, Country Representative of UN Women in Vietnam, on May 4, appreciating his guest’s contributions to the promotion of gender equality and the protection of women and girls.

On behalf of local leaders, Hoan highly valued the initiatives of the UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women to protect women and promote their progress in HCM City and Vietnam at large, noting that many of its programmes and models implemented in the city have proved fruitful and become role models for not only Vietnam but also many other countries.

The Party and State of Vietnam have paid great attention to the protection of women’s and girls’ rights by issuing many specific policies and setting up a specialised agency for this regard, he stressed.

HCM City pledges to maintain close coordination with UN Women in Vietnam and continue to effectively carry out the UN-supported programmes and models on protecting their rights and promoting the progress of local women, the official affirmed.

For her part, Elisa Fernandez Saenz applauded HCM City’s support for the programmes and projects implemented by UN Women here, noting their effective implementation shows local leaders’ attention to and the community’s active engagement in promoting gender equality and protecting women and girls.

She said UN Women in Vietnam hopes that through its programmes and projects, all people, especially women, will have conditions to contribute to local development, and that HCM City will be a place for women to demonstrate their dynamism and creativity and also be safe for women and girls.

The UN official highly valued HCM City as one of the leading localities in protecting women and girls from gender-based violence, asking it to share experience with other Vietnamese localities and cities in the world.

On this occasion, Vice Chairman Hoan presented a badge of HCM City to Elisa Fernandez Saenz in recognition of her contributions to the development of local women./.