Vietnam’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MoNRE) and the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union have jointly launched a national campaign to make the world cleaner in response to the “Clean up the World” initiative.

The event aims to call on countries to jointly take actions to create changes to the global environment. This year’s message focuses on enhancing public awareness of the significance and their role in protecting the environment in socio-economic development.

The campaign also aims to encourage sustainable development, natural disaster mitigation, and climate change adaptation in the new normal state.

As part of the program, the organizers will present awards to winners of the “Youth Creativity for Climate” contest and release a music video on Vietnam’s environmental protection efforts on social media platforms in late September.

Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Vo Tuan Nhan speaks at the launching ceremony. Photo: The Hanoi Times

Speaking at the launching ceremony, Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Vo Tuan Nhan said that in response to the campaign amid the Covid-19 pandemic, the MoNRE has proposed ministries, sectors and agencies, localities and organizations to hold suitable communication activities such as hanging banners, panels, posters at public areas and workplaces.

“Other activities include collecting and treating waste; solving urgent environmental problems in localities, agencies, schools, enterprises; and dredging canals, ponds, lakes, and drainage systems,” Nhan stressed.

Agencies and localities are also requested to launch and respond to movements such as “recycling day”, “green life festival”, “volunteer Saturday”, “green Sunday” among others, accelerate the construction and completion of projects and works on environmental protection in order to better serve socio-economic development activities, he said.

The deputy minister added that collectives, individuals, and enterprises that have outstanding achievements in rationally using natural resources, and those taking effective solutions and initiatives in the work, should be honored.

The launching ceremony was held online. Photo: The Hanoi Times

For his part, Youth Union Secretary Ngo Van Cuong noted that each young people can respond to the campaign through actions such as sorting and recycling plastic wastes, cleaning up the environment, and planting trees where they live and work.

On the occasion, a program was launched to encourage young people to share photos or short video clips of a location before and after being cleaned up or about tree planting on Facebook.

The "Clean up the world” campaign was organized globally for the first time in 1993. It has become one of the annual international environmental events responded to by hundreds of millions of people in more than 130 countries around the world.