The 9th Global Conference of Young Parliamentarians is seen as an opportunity for Vietnam to demonstrate its cultural identity and promote international cooperation and exchange. On this occasion, Bui Hoai Son, a permanent member of the National Assembly's Committee on Culture and Education, spoke to The Hanoi Times about his expectations for the conference.

An opportunity to promote Vietnam's image

How do you assess the importance of the 9th Global Conference of Young Parliamentarians with Vietnam as the host country?

The conference will help Vietnam strengthen its position and reputation in the international arena, creating opportunities to promote the image of the country, culture and people of Vietnam while promoting international partnerships and contributing to national development.

Bui Hoai Son chairs the discussion on cultural diversity on September 16.

The conference attracts the participation of many young parliamentarians from many countries around the world. This is an opportunity for young Vietnamese National Assembly (NA) deputies to exchange experiences, especially in legislative work and nation-building.

In addition, it is a platform for young parliamentarians from around the world to discuss and propose solutions to important issues affecting the world. The role of the host country will allow Vietnam's proposals and views on international issues to be better heard globally.

Vietnam and the whole world have just experienced the COVID-19 pandemic. The current world context is also very complicated, so we need international events and forums to motivate, inspire and strengthen solidarity to overcome difficulties together. That's the purpose of this conference.

What are the advantages and challenges for Vietnam to host this major event for the first time?

Although this is the first time that Vietnam is hosting the Global Conference of Young Parliamentarians, we have a lot of experience organizing international events, including the International Parliamentary Union Assembly (IPU-132) in 2015.

We also have support from Party and State leaders and the IPU.

Regarding challenges, for an international event, effective communication and respect for countries' cultures are extremely important. We need to pay close attention to the details of the foreign culture and train staff and volunteers to ensure appropriate communication and respect for the cultural diversity of the delegates.

We must also focus on other factors such as smooth logistics, especially transportation, hotels, internet connection, or security to ensure safety. The safety of the large number of delegates attending is also a factor to consider.

Next, we need to ensure that staff and volunteers have the skills and knowledge and pay more attention to media campaigns to raise awareness of the event and make it more attractive for international delegates to attend.

Respect cultural diversity

In the discussion, the culture session will take longer than the other two, which shows the importance of culture in development and the National Assembly's interest in culture. What are your thoughts on this issue?

Culture is an increasingly important process in development. After we have satisfied basic human needs, people are more concerned about spiritual life, human happiness and national prosperity. Because of this importance, we have seen a shift in the world's cultural focus.

In the current context, with the rapid development of Industry 4.0, all countries are facing a digital society, digital economy, digital citizenship and digital culture. This brings opportunities, benefits, challenges, and difficulties for protecting diverse cultural expressions. Therefore, the parliaments of all countries want to establish a policy and legal system to create a favorable environment for the development of culture, thereby bringing advantages to national development in the new context.

Young parliamentarians are the ones who play an important role in the process of discussing and making these policies and laws, so the choice of the theme "Promoting respect for cultural diversity for sustainable development" is relevant. It's also one of the priorities of the National Assembly of Vietnam.

A discussion on promoting respect for cultural diversity.

What are your expectations for the conference?

I fully believe in the success of the conference. This is not only because of the thoughtful and enthusiastic preparation by the Vietnamese side but also because of the theme, the discussion method, and the participants.

On the Vietnamese side, we will share experiences on the process of our Party and State, especially the Vietnamese National Assembly, in formulating specific views, policies and actions to protect and promote diverse cultural expressions so that culture becomes the strength of the nation, especially in the era of digital transformation and international integration.

We also want young parliamentarians from other countries to share more experiences on digital cooperation, promote the role of culture in development policies, advocate the protection and promotion of cultural diversity, create a favorable environment and ecosystem for culture and cultural diversity, the role of culture in sustainable development, in the process of solving problems such as climate change; combatting illegal trafficking and transportation of cultural assets.

This is also an opportunity to emphasize the role of the creative economy and cultural industries and develop a system of cities under the UNESCO Creative Cities Network.

Thank you very much.