National unity promoted

During its 90-year history, the Vietnam Fatherland Front has always exerted efforts to perform its role as the host of campaigns and activities to mobilise resources in all social strata to contribute to the country’s socio-economic growth and ensure national defence and security. Vice President of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Central Committee Ngo Sach Thuc says the Front has promoted patriotism, solidarity and creativity among people, which could be seen through effective implementation of its mobilisations on realising the country’s development goals and improving its people’s livelihood. He says: “The Front has become a bridge to converge people and promote national unity. It could be seen through warm responses of people to mobilisation campaigns targeting the poor, policy beneficiaries, the disadvantaged and fellow residents affected by floods, etc.” In the mobilisation campaign of ‘All people unite to build new-style rural areas and civilised urban areas’ in 2015, the Fatherland Front at all levels has coordinated with other agencies to call on people to donate land and strength to develop infrastructure, develop the economy, sustainably reduce poverty, protect the environment, adhere to the law, preserve and promote traditional cultural values towards building happy and civilised communities. Thuc says, “the mobilisation has managed to call on the whole political system and a majority of people to participate and achieved comprehensive results. 60% of communes nationwide have been recognised as new-style rural areas as of 2020”. Every year, the Fatherland Front cooperates with relevant ministries, agencies and organisations to implement the programme ‘Vietnamese people prioritise Vietnamese goods’. From 2015 to 2020, the Fatherland Front at all levels have raised a total fund of 19.7 trillion VND (over 850,000 USD) for social welfare programmes and over 4.6 trillion VND (over 200 million USD) particularly ‘For the poor’ fund; built and upgraded over 153,000 houses for poor households; built thousands of welfare projects; assisted millions of households to develop business models, examine their health and facilitate their children to go to school. The Fatherland Front’s member organisations have organized several programmes targeting policy beneficiaries, people with meritorious services to the nation, disadvantaged people, Agent Orange victims, people with disabilities and the underprivileged. They have also promptly assisted people affected by natural disasters and critical incidents, as well as effectively organised search and rescue missions. As of September, 2020, the Front raised over 2 trillion VND (over 87 million USD) for the national fund for preventing and fighting COVID-19.

Performing social supervision and criticism

The Vietnam Fatherland Front has organised and co-organised 12 central-level supervision programmes on several fields, including policies towards people with meritorious services to the nation; implementation of the Law on Science and Technology; education and training reforms; agricultural supplies management, manufacturing and trading; handling complaints and denunciations at grass-root level; administration reforms, among others. Mentioning the Fatherland Front’s achievements in social supervision and criticism, Ngo Sach Thuc says “In the past five years, provincial Fatherland Fronts have organised and participated in 4,093 supervision projects; while those at district level 22,679 projects and communal level 466,012 projects. The Standing Committee of the Central Committee of the Vietnam Fatherland Front has performed its tasks of giving opinions and social criticism, along with monitoring and approving the Front's activities. It gives comments on over 30 legal documents every year.”

Protecting legitimate rights and benefits of people

According to Politburo member and standing member of the Party Central Committee Secretariat Tran Quoc Vuong, the Vietnam Fatherland Front should continually reform, especially in its mode of operation, to consolidate its position in the country’s political system. He says the Front needs to exert efforts to fulfill its role as a medium agency connecting political and social organisations as well as outstanding individuals. The Fatherland Front must perform its role of protecting people’s legitimate rights and benefits; making use of potentials from the great unity bloc; implementing democracy, improving social consensus; promoting people’s patriotism; etc. to safeguard the nation in the new situation, Vuong stresses. “A proud 90-year history of the Vietnam Fatherland Front is an endless flow of patriotism and national unity tradition. Under the Party’s leadership, our people have united within the Fatherland Front, created great miracles that increase the nation’s prestige,” President of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Tran Thanh Man says./.