Minister Counsellor Nguyen Hoang Nguyen, deputy head of the Permanent Delegation of Vietnam to the UN, delivered a speech at the opening general debate of the annual session of the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations (also known as the C34) on February 21.

Members of Vietnam's Level-2 Field Hospital Rotation 1 depart for the UN peacekeeping mission in South Sudan in October 2018.

The sending of personnel to UN peacekeeping operations since 2014 is an important landmark in Vietnam’s foreign policy, he emphasised, highlighting the willingness to keep expanding the scale and scope of personnel deployment.

Priority will continue to be given to promoting women’s participation in those operations so as to increase the rate of female officers and soldiers to 15% at the deployed units and 20% of the deployed individuals.

Nguyen called on the UN to take timely measures to improve the capacity to ensure security and safety for peacekeeping forces. In particular, it should prioritise resources for pre-deployment training programmes and the supplementation of essential medical supplies to peacekeeping missions.

As one of the four Southeast Asian countries with a UN-recognised international training centre for implementing the Triangular Partnership Programme (the UN, Vietnam, Japan), Vietnam backs the UN’s efforts to develop a global partnership on peacekeeping and enhance cooperation with regional organisations, including the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the diplomat added.

The debate, held at the UN headquarters in New York, was attended by President of the 77th UN General Assembly Csaba Korosi, representatives of member states, including 125 countries sending military and police personnel to UN peacekeeping operations, and many international and regional organisations.

Participants discussed emerging challenges to peacekeeping operations – an essential tool of the UN for maintaining international peace and security.

More than 76,000 troops are performing UN peacekeeping tasks at 12 missions in four regions, mostly in Africa. Since 2014, Vietnam has sent more than 520 military and police officers and soldiers to the UN missions in the Central African Republic, South Sudan and the Abyei Area, and to the UN headquarters.

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Vietnam has recorded an impressive percentage of women in UN peacekeeping operations, said Caitlin Wiesen, former Resident Representative of the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in Vietnam.

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Source: VNA