Encourage women to participate in collective economic development and build cooperatives.

Party Central Committee Secretary, Head of the Party Central Committee's External Relations Commission Le Hoai Trung and delegates visited the booth introducing products of cooperatives.

The Asia- Pacific Women Cooperative Leadership Summit is an annual event on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific International Cooperative Alliance Board of Directors meeting. This is a forum for female leaders, directors and businesswomen in the region to better identify challenges and emerging issues in cooperative economic development, connect, and share experiences in encouraging women to participate in and run cooperatives.

Ms. Cao Xuan Thu Van - President of Vietnam Cooperative Alliance - delivered the opening speech at the conference.

Speaking at the opening of the conference, Ms. Cao Xuan Thu Van - President of the Vietnam Cooperative Alliance said that the Vietnamese Government has issued many mechanisms and policies to encourage women's participation in collective economic development and cooperative building. The Government's program on collective economic development and cooperatives for the period 2021 - 2025 emphasizes the requirement to "Continue to establish cooperatives and cooperative unions owned by young people, women, veterans, and ethnic minorities"; The National Strategy on Gender Equality for the period 2021-2030 sets the target "The rate of female directors/owners of enterprises and cooperatives must reach at least 27% by 2025 and 30% by 2030".

However, according to the President of the Vietnam Cooperative Alliance, there is still a gap in gender equality in this sector, the proportion of women participating in leadership and management accounts for only about 25% of the total number of leaders of cooperatives and most of them only hold positions from deputy level down. The capacity of the cooperative leadership team, especially women, is still limited in knowledge and skills in financial management, production and business organization, technology application, and trade promotion. Therefore, promoting women's participation in cooperatives is an important requirement, contributing to the development of a dynamic, effective, sustainable collective economy and socio-economic development in general.

Party Central Committee Secretary, Head of the Party Central Committee's External Relations Commission Le Hoai Trung, delivered a congratulatory speech at the conference.

Congratulating the event, Secretary of the Party Central Committee, Head of the Party Central Committee's External Relations Commission Le Hoai Trung assessed that the initiative to organize the Asia- Pacific Women Cooperative Leaders Summit is very meaningful and consistent with the theme of the International Cooperative Day 2024, "Cooperatives build a better future for all". The conference will provide opportunities for connection and trade between Vietnamese cooperatives and cooperative partners in the region to promote cooperation, joint ventures, market and technology connections in the future.

Party Central Committee Secretary, Head of the Party Central Committee's External Relations Commission Le Hoai Trung and delegates attending the conference

To further promote the potential and strengths of women, Mr. Le Hoai Trung hopes that through the conference, countries will increase experience sharing in promoting and raising awareness of the community and leaders at all levels about the role and contributions of women to the sustainable development of cooperatives; connecting female entrepreneurs and female cooperative leaders with the Government, authorities at all levels, between female entrepreneurs and female cooperative leaders at the national, regional and international levels.

The Head of the Central External Relations Committee also requested the Vietnam Cooperative Alliance to continue to proactively propose and coordinate with relevant agencies and ministries to implement joint initiatives and activities to promote the role of female managers and leaders of cooperatives and make substantial and effective contributions to economic development; ensure the presence of female members in the Board of Directors of cooperatives and the Board of Directors of the Cooperative Alliance at all levels, contributing to the implementation of the National Strategy on Gender Equality for the 2021-2030 period.

Also on the afternoon of July 29, the International Cooperative Alliance Asia-Pacific (ICA-AP) coordinated with the ICA-AP Women's Committee and the Vietnam Cooperative Alliance to organize a conference of the International Cooperative Alliance Asia-Pacific Leadership Board to promote global development as well as the cooperative sector.

This regional leadership meeting is very important as the leaders focused on unifying and making decisions on issues including reports on the activities of the Committees, personnel participating in the Leadership Board, especially the ICA-AP Strategic Plan for the period 2025-2030.

Source: https://daidoanket.vn/khuyen-khich-phu-nu-tham-gia-vao-phat-trien-kinh-te-tap-the-xay-dung-hop-tac-xa-10286762.html