PetroVietnam Ca Mau Fertilizer JSC, Phuc Khang Investment & Construction JSC and Bao Minh Confectionery JSC are honored for their efforts in fostering gender equality in the workplace 

Women’s economic empowerment is not only fundamental to promoting gender equality but also important for enhancing business competitiveness, inclusive economic growth and a just society. Many programs have been launched in ASEAN to invest in women. Innovative methods have been used to improve women’s economic participation as employees and entrepreneurs while also affecting the enabling environment to promote women’s economic empowerment. These include the Workplace Gender Equality Program (WGE), impact investment for women-owned small and medium-sized businesses, and impact on gender norms. The WGE Program is one of the programs implemented in Vietnam with the imprint of the Vietnam Business Coalition for Women’s Empowerment (VBCWE).

 In the last five years in Vietnam, with the support of the Australian Government through the Investing in Women Project, VBCWE has made innovative imprints in promoting gender equality in the workplace. The focus has been on the private sector to help create equal and fair values for employees. The goals are to further foster diversity and inclusion (D&I), increase employment opportunities and work quality for women, expand and support women workers in industrial parks and women with disabilities, women-owned businesses, provide job opportunities associated with childcare and support policies, and train and improve technological and soft skills for employees to speed up and keep pace with job trends amid the rapid development of intellectual technology. These are also goals pursued by the Vietnam Business Council for Sustainable Development (VBCSD).

The forum attracts a large number of businesses

Madam Ha Thu Thanh, Chair of VBCWE, emphasized the roles of VBCWE: “VBCWE’s mission is to foster the sustainable development of enterprises and the business community by connecting and converging pioneering enterprises in creating and respecting the values of cultural diversity and inclusion in corporate culture. The goal is to accompany companies to build a happy working environment with the development of cultural diversity and inclusion associated with gender equality. VBCWE also aims to spread the values of cultural diversity and inclusion and gender equality in the workplace to the business community, inspiring and influencing changes in the perception and actions of companies. The goal is to deliver values associated with sustainable development of human resources on the path to sustainable development for businesses in Vietnam.”

Besides, VBCWE has been supported by its first important partner - VBCSD under the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI). Mr. Nguyen Quang Vinh, Executive Vice President of VCCI and Chairman of VBCSD, said that cultural diversity, inclusion and equity are preeminent and companies with these factors will create very strong and outstanding competitive advantages for themselves. At the same time, they will have stronger post-crisis resilience and recovery than other companies.

He added: “In the last four straight years, VBCSD-VCCI has closely coordinated with VBCWE to launch the Corporate Sustainability Index (CSI) - a program on benchmarking and announcing sustainable companies in Vietnam. The CSI Program 2023 is the third year that we include the thematic award category of praising “Pioneering enterprises in building and implementing a diverse and inclusive culture” in the Awards. After the CSI 2023 Launching Ceremony on May 31, VBCSD has worked with VBCWE and its partners to organize training sessions on sustainable corporate governance for building a diverse, inclusive, fair culture. The goal is to promote the Vietnamese business community to embrace this sustainable development trend associated with cultural diversity, inclusivity and equity. This will help build a solid foundation for corporate sustainable development.”