People-to-people diplomacy vastly contributes to the country’s foreign affairs, said Vice President in-charge cum General Secretary of the Vietnam Union of Friendship Organizations (VUFO) Don Tuan Phong on August 12 at the 19^th National External Conference.

In the 30^th Diplomatic Conference themed "Activeness and creativeness for effective integration and sustainable development”, VUFO Vice President in-charge Don Tuan Phong had delivered a speech on the contribution of people-to-people diplomacy to the Party and the state’s foreign affairs.

VUFO Vice President Don Tuan Phong speaks at the Conference.

According to him, people-to-people diplomacy plays the role of an important assistant of the Party and the State’s foreign affairs.

In recent year, people-to-people diplomacy has witnessed robust growth, largely contributing to ensuring and maintaining peace, expanding friendly relations and cooperation, creating favorable conditions for Vietnam to effectively complete the renewal process and bring the country’s position in international arena to a higher level.

Together with the Party and the State’s foreign affairs, people-to-people diplomacy have formed part of the comprehensive force of the country’s diplomacy.

Keeping in mind the approaches of being proactive, flexible, creative and effective, VUFO and its members organizations have expanded and persified the friendly relations with peoples of different countries worldwide, via the diplomatic channels of the people, the Party and the State. VUFO has been putting efforts in fostering in-depth cooperation with neighbor countries, strategic and prioritized partners of Vietnam.

At the same time, VUFO has been working hard to help consolidate the friendship between Vietnam and traditional friends as well as reinforcing the country’s relations with progressive peace advocate forces, left-wing organizations, making friend with organizations and inpiduals which support Vietnam.

Furthermore, the Union has participated effectively in the propaganda and communication of foreign policies of the Party, State to the public and proactively improve its role in managing overall external affairs activities conducted by people organizations in Vietnam. Aid disbursement value during the 2001-2017 period hit USD 4 billion.

In addition, VUFO takes account of nurturing local-level member organizations; while actively support localities in training staff, particularly providing capacity building in international economic integration, managing foreign NGO aid, and fostering decentralized cooperation.

At the same time, the network of Union of Friendship Organizations in provinces/cities, local-level external affairs agencies, key authorities working in foreign NGO aid mobilization are consolidated and expanded. The role, position of province/city's Union of Friendship Organizations are improved impressively.

In the conference, the VUFO leader also pointed out several areas for improvement of people-to-people diplomacy work. For instance, the coordination between people-to-people diplomacy and state foreign affairs have not been effective enough to meet with the demand of the new situation. The strength and distinctive characteristics of people-to-people diplomacy has not been optimized to support foreign affairs of the Party and the state.

VUFO Vice President Don Tuan Phong talks to delegates at the sideline of the Conference.

In order to increase the effectiveness of the coordination, VUFO Vice President proposed three solutions:

First, increase the coordination, identifying the mechanism, approaches and contents of coordination between the state's foreign affairs and people-to-people diplomacy; accelerating the building and signing of regulation for cooperation between agencies specializing in people-to-people diplomac, joining hand with MOFA to organize traiing for officers in p-to-p diplomacy.

Furthermore, there is a need for more research in promoting the role of people-to-people diplomacy in advantaged areas and increase the participation of people-to-people diplomacy in these areas.

Secondly, it is relevant to improve the capabilities of personnels specializing in people-to-people diplomacy in localities, according to the directive 28-CT/TW enacted by the General Secretaries of the Central Committee of the Party (10^th tenure) on continuing renewing and enhancing the effectiveness of people-to-people diplomacy in the new context and the Decision NO. 41/2013/QĐ-TTg of the Prime Minister on certain policies for VUFO.

Thirdly, all the charter, termination of friendship organizations and their personnel arrangement at central level and local levels must strictly comply with the regulations set by the General Secretaries of the Central Committee of the Party.

In summary, in the time to come, VUFO will keep on maintaining close connection with the Central Commission for External Relations, external affairs agencies in localities to fruitfully deploy the tasks in people-to-people diplomacy assigned by the Party and the State, contributing to the development of the country's foreign affairs, the fulfillment of national defence mission in the new situation, according to the Decree of the Nation Party’s Congress XII./.

( Translated by Y.T )