The Vietnam Women Entrepreneurs Council - VCCI and the UN Women recently hosted an online launch of the “Women’s Empowerment Principles Awards” (WEPs) in a bid to recognize efforts of companies with innovations and action plans for gender equality and women's empowerment; raise awareness and engage more and more companies to apply Women's Empowerment Principles in their businesses.

In 2020, the Vietnam Women Entrepreneurs Council and the UN Women debuted the Women's Empowerment Principles Awards in Vietnam, which drew enthusiastic responces from many companies. 2021 is the second edition of this award.

The WEPs Award 2021 has six categories: Leadership commitment on gender equality; Young leadership commitment to promoting gender equality; Gender equality in the workplace; Gender equality in the market; Gender equality through community engagement and partnerships; and Transparency report on gender equality.

All businesses, regardless of their size or industry, have the best programs and practices for fostering gender equality that meet one or more of the Awards' categories and have an Executive Director or a business leader (current or former) signed or intended to sign Endorsement Statement for Women's Empowerment Principles. They can apply for up to two of the six award categories.

The organizers will start accepting registration applications from May 31, 2021, at the website www.asiapacificwepsawards.org and the deadline for registration application is July 31, 2021.

Domestic awards ceremonies will be organized in seven WeEmpowerAsia member countries and the event in Vietnam is scheduled for October 2021 in Hanoi. The regional award ceremony will take place online in November 2021.

WeEmpowerAsia (Enhancing Economic Empowerment of Asian Women) is a joint program between the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) and the European Union (EU). The Joint Strategic Plan for the 2017-2021 period was signed between the Government of Vietnam and the United Nations in Vietnam.

The overall goal of WeEmpowerAsia is to increase the number of women who lead and participate in the private sector business toward sustainable development. The program is being implemented in seven middle-income countries in the Asia-Pacific region, including China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. The Vietnam Women Entrepreneurs Council is currently the national partner of UN Women to implement the program in Vietnam.

One core WeEmpowerAsia activity is engaging companies to commit to and apply WEPs in the workplace, initiated by the UN Women and the UN Global Compact in 2010. This toolkit consists of seven principles to help businesses realize gender equality in the workplace, in the market and in the community.