UN Assistant Secretary-General and UNDP Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific Kanni Wignaraja (Photo: VNA)
UN Assistant Secretary-General and UNDP Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific Kanni Wignaraja has expressed her hope that Vietnam will play an even bigger role on the global stage.
She made the remark while talking to the Vietnam News Agency ahead of President Luong Cuong’s trip to the US from September 21 to 24, during which he will attend the high-level general debate of the 80th session of the UN General Assembly and engage in bilateral activities.
Reflecting on Vietnam’s remarkable journey, Wignaraja offered congratulations to the country, saying with everything it has gone through in the past, Vietnam takes its history as part of its story, but it doesn't allow history to hold it back. The National Day celebration really showed that it was a celebration of Vietnam today and going forward.
A country that has come together and stood strong sees itself as one country where everyone should have an equal place, she said, describing this as what to be celebrated, and that for the UN and UNDP, it's those core values that are most important.
At the heart of that is the role that Vietnam now wants to play not just inside the country, but certainly for ASEAN, the broader Asia - Pacific region, and the world, she noted.
The official perceived that the world needs more voices like Vietnam to show that things can be done differently. “You can come out of a war and a postwar period and leave that behind. Learn from it and work towards peace and stability, not only for the country, but also for the world.”
As a deep admirer and with the respect she has for Vietnam, Wignaraja expressed her wish to see the country playing even a bigger global role, whether that's in peacekeeping and peacebuilding, whether it's showing some of the new development, trajectories that it's going to follow, and to support countries that are less fortunate because when Vietnam was hurting, other countries helped it, and now Vietnam can help others who are hurting.
Looking back on the long-standing partnership, Wignaraja recalled that UNDP has been present in Vietnam since 1978, setting up one of the first UN offices here. It has accompanied the country through reforms since the early Doi Moi (Renewal) period, from supporting institutional changes to improving public service capacity, all of which have contributed to Vietnam's development.
She went on to say that she feels so proud coming back to Vietnam to look at the next stage of governance reforms, how the judiciary responds to the new demands of Vietnam both internally and externally, and how to deepen the domestic capital market if the country is going to grow its private sector.
Vietnam needs more vibrant domestic capital, not just FDI, and FDI will come when it sees a strong capital market locally, according to the official.
Mentioning how to keep growing human capital, she said the skills learned yesterday is not what people need for tomorrow, suggesting the education sector shift with the young Vietnamese who have to be competitive in a global marketplace.
The UN official emphasised that with support from UNDP and other partners, Vietnam could show the world that economic growth not necessarily come at the expense of the environment.
“Prosperity is both for people and for our planet,” she continued. “I think that would be a development model that will be achieved here and shown to the rest of the world” when it comes to sustainable development.
Regarding the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Wignaraja described them as a continuously growing and evolving journey rather than a final destination.
She welcomed Vietnam embedding the SDGs in its national plans, but also pointed out the question that with the recent reforms, whether every province has embedded those goals in local planning and development. She added that is something UNDP will be giving a lot of priority to.
The merger of administrative units does not mean that development shouldn't reach every single person where they are. If every Vietnamese understands what the SDGs mean to improve their lives and that they support the improvement of their community, the SDGs succeed here, the UN Assistant Secretary-General opined.
“For UNDP, we will work with all of our local partners, our international partners, to make that happen here,” she added.
She also addressed concerns about the so-called “middle-income trap”, noting UNDP prefers not to use the term. In her view, it creates a sense of powerlessness – being put in a cage and unable to get out. That is not the story of Vietnam or many other countries in the region.
Instead, she described it as a “mental trap”, but “we hold the key, it's not that someone has locked us up in a cage, and so you can't get out.”
It is a determined sense of what policies, what mix of institutional reforms, and how to use financing to improve prosperity for more people so that the country is not stuck at one level, but to attract financing that comes in and really boost not just the economy but also the societal well-being.
Another big question is that whether Vietnam only wants to be a high-income country where it's measured by income, but everyone's deeply unhappy.
“It's a different set of measures when people look at it from the lens of does everyone have a fair chance? Does everyone feel very strongly for the country? Is there a sense of fairness and justice for everyone? Can everyone dream right of where they want to go? And it's not just for the big cities.”
“These are the issues that really take one out of this sense of feeling trapped and put us on a different path.”
Wignaraja said this is why for UNDP and the UN, it's a privilege to work in Vietnam because it's a country that believes in these core values, stands by the UN Charter, and will play an increasingly key role globally and in the region./.
