PM Pham Minh Chinh meets Director-General of UNESCO

Paris (VNA) - Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh visited the headquarters of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in Paris, France, and met with Director-General of UNESCO Audrey Azoulay on November 5 (local time), during his official visit to France.

The PM highlighted the role and position of UNESCO as well as its contributions to peace and prosperity in the world. 

He underlined that Vietnam has paid heed to the implementation of the people-centred policy and sustainable development based on cultural and historical values, as well as environmental protection in line with the UN’s sustainable development goals.

Chinh highly appreciated UNESCO’s accompanying Vietnam in national construction and development, while hoped that the two sides will further bolster cooperation to lift the UNESCO-Vietnam relations to a new height in a more practical and efficient manner, particularly with a focus on sharing knowledge and ideas, promoting models and support in capacity enhancement for sustainable and inclusive socio-economic development in Vietnam.

He affirmed that Vietnam will continue to uphold the role of an active and responsible member that effectively contribute to UNESCO activities during Azoulay’s second term, especially when the country is running for a seat in the UNESCO Executive Board for 2021-25, the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage for 2022-26, and the world heritage committee for 2023-27.

He invited the UNESCO Director-General to visit Vietnam soon to discuss orientations and cooperation priorities in the new period, helping the UNESCO-Vietnam relations continue flourishing in the coming time.

For her part, the UNESCO Director-General expressed her delight to welcome the Vietnamese PM on the occasion of 75th anniversary of UNESCO, 45 years of the UNESCO-Vietnam ties and on the threshold of the 41st session of the General Conference of UNESCO, which aims to set out cooperation orientations in the new decade and adopt global initiatives such as the future of education, ethics in artificial intelligence and open science.

She spoke highly of the Vietnamese Government's due attention, affirming that Vietnam has always been a dynamic and responsible member, and among pioneers in the effective implementation of UNESCO programmes and activities.

Azoulay hailed Vietnam’s proactive role as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council for the 2020-21 tenure and a key member of ASEAN, contributing to fostering cooperation between the region and the UN and UNESCO in particular.

She expressed her pleasure with the sound UNESCO-Vietnam relations in the past 45 years, and pledged to further support and assist Vietnam in education, human resources quality improvement, culture, science and communications, and creating favourable conditions for Vietnamese to work in UNESCO.

On the occasion, the Vietnamese PM attended an exhibition marking the 45th anniversary of the UNESCO-Vietnam partnership for peace and sustainable development and witnessed the signing of a memorandum of understanding on Vietnam-UNESCO cooperation for the 2021-25, along with an cooperation agreement between SOVICO Group and UNESCO on promoting a network of innovative cities and sustainable tourism development in Vietnam./.