Hanoi (VNA) - With its efforts taken over the past years, Vietnamhas gained many achievements in gender equality, making it recognised by theworld as one of the 10 countries best implementing the United Nations’ goal No.5on promoting gender equality and empowering all women and girls.

After 10 years of implementation, the National Strategy onGender Equality for the 2011-2020 period has obtained many encouraging results,contributing to narrowing the gender gap in all fields, and fostering the nation’ssocio-economic development.

The Human Development Report 2020 of the United NationsDevelopment Program (UNDP) shows that Vietnam’s human development index (HDI)for 2019 is 0.704, putting the country in the high human developmentcategory and positioning it at 117 out of 189 countries and territories.

Gender equality results are also reflected in the reductionof gender gap in the fields of economy, labour and employment. The recentPopulation and Housing Census of the General Statistics Office shows that womenmake up 47.3 percent of the country’s main labour force. There are over 285,600enterprises headed by female entrepreneurs, accounting for 24 percent of thetotal number of enterprises in the country. The literacy rate among women aged15-60 reaches 97.33 percent.

Especially in the past 10 years, gender equality has beenadded or integrated into many important legal documents of Vietnam.

In the context of severe impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic,the Government has implemented many policies and solutions to support peopleand businesses, with gender equality-related issues mainstreamed to ensure therights and needs of each gender.

Deputy Minister of Labour, Invalids and Social AffairsNguyen Thi Ha said that the May general elections showed that 30.26 percent of deputiesto the 15th National Assembly and nearly 30 percent deputies of the People'sCouncils at all levels for 2021-2026 are women, which is a clear demonstrationof efforts in realising gender equality in Vietnam.

Elisa Fernandez Saenz, Country Representative of UN Women inVietnam, an agency that has provided technical support in building the2021-2030 strategy, suggested seriously integrating the strategy’s goals intosectoral and local plans and national target programmes to ensure financialresources for gender equality.

Vietnam also needs targeted investment in changing socialnorms towards promoting gender equality, which is also the first objective ofthe 2021-2030 strategy, she added.

In the national strategy, Vietnam expects to see womenholding key leadership positions in 60 percent of state management agencies andlocal administrations at all levels by 2025 and 75 percent by 2030.

In addition, the number of paid women employees in Vietnamwill increase to 50 percent by 2025 and around 60 percent by 2030.

The country also aims to reduce the average time women spendon doing the unpaid housework to 1.7 times by 2025 and 1.4 times by 2030 ascompared to that of men.

By 2025, 80 percent of women suffering from domestic andgender-based violence will be given access to at least one of basic supportservices, and the figure is expected to reach 90 percent by 2030./.