It is the first time Vietnam has undertaken the role sincejoining the UN peacekeeping activities in 2014 and being an APPTC member.
The Vietnamesedelegation to the event was led by the head of the Vietnam Department ofPeacekeeping Operations, Maj. Gen. Hoang Kim Phung.
The April 23-26 event took the theme “Stepping Up to the Challenge: The Asia-PacificActions and Response to Increasing Effective Performance in United NationsPeace Operations”, attracting 21 delegations from member states such as Canada,Australia, New Zealand and Bangladesh and ASEAN member countries, except Laos.
It aimed tostrengthen ties among Asia-Pacific peacekeeping centres with discussions onimproving operation capacity, peace and security, and citizen protection, thussuggesting common plans to deal with new challenges.
Participantslooked into restructuring the UN agencies in charge of peace and security,citizen protection via enhancing women’s role in peacekeeping activities, aswell as training results.
Speaking at theevent, Phung highlighted Vietnam’s efforts and achievements over the past fiveyears, affirming that Vietnam always supports the UN’s criteria for improvingwomen’s role in peacekeeping activities, evidenced by its sending of the firstfemale officer to the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) while the rate ofwomen at Vietnam’s level-2 field hospital on duty at UNMISS reached 16 percent,higher than the UN’s suggested level of 10-15 percent.
The Vietnamese sidealso reaffirmed that if Vietnam could replace the UK engineer corps at the UNMISS,it will send at least 10 percent of female staff in its corps to the mission.
The Vietnamese headdelegate also offered ideas to improve the efficiency of training forpeacekeeping staff before their departure for the mission.-VNA