PM Pham Minh Chinh meets Director-General of UNESCO
VGP – Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh visited the headquarters of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in Paris, France, and met with UNESCO Director-General 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 Viet Nam 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 Viet Nam in national construction and development, while hoped that the two sides will further bolster cooperation to lift the UNESCO-Viet Nam 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 Viet Nam.
He affirmed that Viet Nam 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 Viet Nam soon to discuss orientations and cooperation priorities in the new period, helping the UNESCO-Viet Nam 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-Viet Nam 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 Viet Nam has always been a dynamic and responsible member, and among pioneers in the effective implementation of UNESCO programs and activities.
Azoulay hailed Viet Nam’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-Viet Nam relations in the past 45 years, and pledged to further support and assist Viet Nam in education, human resources quality improvement, culture, science and communications, and creating favorable conditions for Vietnamese to work in UNESCO.
On the occasion, the Vietnamese PM attended an exhibition marking the 45th anniversary of the UNESCO-Viet Nam partnership for peace and sustainable development and witnessed the signing of a memorandum of understanding on Viet Nam-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 Viet Nam./. VNA