In his opening speech at the event running the overall theme of “Overcoming the pandemic today and building a better tomorrow: the role of parliaments”, Duarte Pacheco, IPU president emphasized that the opening of the 142 nd IPU Assembly is a time when parliamentarians from around the world gather together, sharing a common goal and commitment to inter-parliamentary dialogue and cooperation.
The IPU President mentioned the major calamities and challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, with more than 3 million deaths, along with natural disasters and economic recession that have reversed great progress in human development.
To cope with the negative impact of the pandemic, it is very necessary for countries to build a new and breakthrough way of working at this time, he stressed.
According to IPU President Duarte Pacheco, it is currently hard to access COVID-19 vaccines, thereby requiring countries to unite to create an effective source of supply. With the current conditions, all nations need to join hands, connect equally and tolerantly, together to create a solid foundation worldwide based on the digital platform in order to gradually overcome the pandemic.
Addressing the event, Vice Chairman of the National Assembly of Vietnam Tran Thanh Man said right from the first days of the pandemic, Vietnam has taken drastic, synchronous and timely actions, with the participation of the whole political system in the fight against COVID-19.
The nation has also carried out the dual goal of effectively combating the pandemic to protect people's health, and ensuring socio-economic development and social security in the new normal.
The major focus of Vietnam's battle against COVID-19 is to advise all citizens to strictly follow the Ministry of Health's 5K message: khau trang (facemask), khu khuan (disinfection), khoang cach (distance), khong tu tap (no gathering), and khai bao y te (health declaration), in addition to using vaccines, and increasing the application of information technology.
Vietnam is basically containing the pandemic situation, maintaining stability and socio-economic development, thus gaining the people's trust, support, and international friends' appreciation, Man said.
In the fight against the pandemic, the National Assembly of Vietnam has worked together with the Government on timely allocating the budget to respond to the pandemic, adopting a range of measures and policies to support people and businesses, while sharing experience in dealing with the epidemic at inter-parliamentary multilateral forums, as well as taking practical actions to show solidarity with parliaments of other countries such as donating masks and medical supplies.
Man also underlined the need to continue promoting the partnership between the Inter-Parliamentary Union and regional and international parliamentary organizations in the region in preventing and dealing with crises or emergencies such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
The IPU should call on countries with the advantage of vaccine production to support the people of developing countries, and those suffering the severe consequences of COVID-19 in having equal access to COVID-19 vaccines, and modern medical equipment at a reasonable cost.
Besides, member parliaments need to urgently finalize national policies to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, timely allocate budget and intensify government supervision and accountability when implementing programs and crisis handling mechanisms to overcome the pandemic, he said.
The Vietnamese National Assembly delegation also proposed that the World Health Organization and other countries promote partnerships and cooperation in technology transfer for vaccine production and training to improve COVID-19 response capacity.