At the opening session.

Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs Nguyen Minh Vu attended and spoke at the opening session, he also had meetings with UNESCO leaders and Heads of delegations from some participating countries.

Joining the Vietnamese delegation at the meeting were Ambassador Le Thi Hong Van, Head of the Vietnam Permanent Delegation to UNESCO; Mr. Dao Quyen Truong, Member of the Secretary of the Vietnam National Committee for UNESCO, and representatives of the Secretariat of the Vietnam National Committee for UNESCO and the Vietnamese Delegation to UNESCO.

The 217th session takes place in a context when the world faces many challenges and difficulties due to the impact of complex fluctuations in world politics, serious climate change, as well as new global concerns such as artificial intelligence.

In that context, all countries evaluate UNESCO's more important role than ever in maintaining peace and solving global challenges through promoting multilateral cooperation in specialized fields of education, science, culture, information and communication.

UNESCO Director General Audrey Azoulay presented the report for the period 2022-2023 and many member countries highly appreciated the important results that UNESCO has achieved. Among them, the mission to promote cooperation and world peace stands out; increase priorities in promoting education, gender equality, scientific and technological development and ethics in science in general and artificial intelligence in particular; activities that support the protection of the natural environment and biodiversity conservation through programs such as ocean science, cultural and natural heritage, intangible cultural heritage, reserves biosphere, global geopark towards sustainable development.

Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs Nguyen Minh Vu (middle)

Speaking at the opening session, Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs Nguyen Minh Vu emphasized the importance of multilateral cooperation in the context of many changes that are difficult to predict in the world and called on countries to continue to promote international cooperation, strengthen dialogue, strengthen trust and solidarity to find common solutions in addressing the challenges of the times.

Faced with the remarkable results that UNESCO has achieved in the period 2022-2023, the Head of the Vietnamese delegation highly appreciated the efforts of the Director General and UNESCO Secretariat in building and implementing programs and activities, such as Recommendations on ethics in artificial intelligence, the World Conference on Sustainable Development Policy MONDIALCULT, the United Nations Decade on Ocean Science… contributing to supporting member countries in implementing the goals sustainable development to 2030 of the United Nations, and welcomes UNESCO’s urgent humanitarian assistance actions and programs in areas under its jurisdiction for crisis or conflict-affected countries such as Afghanistan, Haiti, Ukraine.

Vietnam will further coordinate the implementation of the memorandum of understanding on cooperation with UNESCO for the 2021-2025 period, he affirmed.

On this occasion, Assistant Minister Nguyen Minh Vu had meetings with UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay, UNESCO Deputy Director General Xing Qu, Chairperson of the Executive Board Tamara Rastovac Siamashvi and leaders of the organization's departments, and delegation heads of several countries to promote bilateral and multilateral cooperation.

The UNESCO leaders and delegation heads spoke highly of good cooperation between Vietnam and UNESCO and other member countries, as well as Vietnam’s role and contributions to key mechanisms of the organization.

Congratulating Vietnam on having the first inter-provincial UNESCO-listed world heritage site Ha Long-Cat Ba, the UNESCO leaders and Secretariat pledged to further support the country’s new heritage dossiers, and help it preserve and promote values of recognized world heritages such as the Yen Tu - Vinh Nghiem - Con Son, Kiep Bac relic and landscape complex, intangible cultural heritage such as the Ba Chua Xu Temple Festival on Sam Mountain, Dong Ho folk painting craft; support in preserving and promoting the value of world heritage sites registered by UNESCO, including the Project to preserve, restore and promote the value of the Imperial Citadel of Thang Long – Hanoi.

They hoped that Vietnam would win a seat at the UNESCO World Heritage Committee for the 2023-2027 tenure.

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