Category: National

On Oct 14 of each year, members of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) commemorate World Standards Day, which recognizes voluntary technical agreements published as International Standards.

World Standards Day offers an opportunity to raise awareness on the importance of standardization. This year, World Standards Day emphasizes international standards for achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – the theme of this year is “Shared vision for a better world”.

In the Lao PDR, the Department of Standardization and Metrology (DOSM) of the Ministry of Science and Technology is the leading authority in standardization, metrology, accreditation and conformity assessment. DOSM promotes the adoption and implementation of these international standards for export opportunities within ASEAN countries.

Under its project ‘ASEAN Regional Integration Support from the EU Plus – Lao PDR’ (ARISE Plus Lao PDR), the International Trade Centre (ITC) provides technical support and capacity building in adopting product, quality and environmental standards and conformity assessment capabilities, among other areas.

ARISE Plus also contributes to the country’s harmonization and promotion of national standards, and the development of an effective standardization programme as part of ASEAN standardization efforts to assist small firms in demonstrating compliance and preparing for international accreditation, to the International Trade Centre supports strengthening standards, national inspection, testing, and certification organizations.

In this context, the International Trade Centre will conduct a five-day training-of-trainers session with DOSM members on the effective implementation of ISO 14001: Environmental Management Systems. This follows a similar event held in July on ISO 9001: Quality Management Systems.

Source: Lao News Agency

Some 573 new Covid-19 cases have been recorded nationwide over the past 24 hours bringing the total to 31,188 including 7,529 active cases and 36 deaths, according to Deputy Director General of the National Centre for Laboratory and Epidemiology, Ministry of Health, Dr Bouaphan Khaphaphongphan.

Of the new confirmed cases, 571 were classified as local infections and two as imported cases with the local transmissions reported in Vientiane 145, Khammuan 161, Vientiane (province) 86, Luang Prabang 45, Savannakhet 42, Borikhamxay 31, Champassak 25, Xaysomboun 21, Bokeo 10, Saravan four and Attapeu one, Dr Bouaphan told a press conference in Vientiane today.

The imported cases were reported in Savannakhet and Saravan one each.

Yesterday, some 6,512 people were tested for Covid-19 and 231 patients were discharged from hospital.

Source: Lao News Agency

On 14 October 2020, eleven Lao high school students headed for Japan to study in Japanese high schools under the Asia-Kakehashi Project (Kakehashi means “bridging” in Japanese) supported by the Japanese Government.

They were full of hope at being able to travel to Japan during the COVID-19 pandemic. Until March 2022, these students will stay with a Japanese host family.

The eleven Lao students (nine from Vientiane and two from Luang Prabang) were selected based on their academic achievements, interest in Japanese language and culture, and their potential to become future leaders in their respective fields.

In February, the online interviews were conducted for the first time amid the global pandemic in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and Sports of the Lao PDR, the Embassy of Japan and the AFS Intercultural Programmes Thailand.

The Kakehashi students are expected to communicate with many Japanese people to deepen mutual trust and understanding as well as to build a basis for further friendship and cooperation between the two nations.

The Embassy of Japan expresses their sincere hope that they will treasure each day and enjoy every one of the new challenges they face in Japan.

The Asia-Kakehashi Project is an initiative announced by then Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo in 2017 to strengthen relations between Japan and the rest of Asia.

The programme provides full scholarships for Asian high school students to live and study in Japan. The first 100 students from Asia arrived in Japan in August 2018, and the programme has currently expanded with 235 students participating this year.

Source: Lao News Agency

Yet in the midst of this all, there is an encouraging new momentum and energy building as we strive to overhaul the ways in which our food is produced, stored, distributed and consumed. We have started confronting the problems and making the structures more fit for purpose.

Last month’s UN Food Systems Summit convened by the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, mapped out the broad outlines of how the world needs to move forward to transform agri-food systems.

The closing maxim of the gathering was: “From New York back to Rome,” where the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and sister UN food agencies are based.

We at FAO have already rolled up our sleeves and got down to the practical tasks of leading the implementation and driving the transformation.

A groundbreaking World Food Forum was successfully convened here in the Italian capital early this month, powered by the global youth, and youth representatives at FAO and our sister agencies, focused on harnessing the creativity and resilience of our younger generations. They have the most at stake. They will be the ones living with the direct consequences of the climate crisis and malfunctioning agri-food systems. At the same time, the 1.8 billion young people in the world today between the ages of 10 and 24, of which nearly 90 per cent are living in developing countries, provide an unlimited potential to tap.

We have already started to leverage that into widespread awareness, holistic solutions and concrete youth-lead actions for change. Of course the young aren’t the only ones who need to worry about our agri-food systems not being fit for purpose, and on how to make them more efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable.

Even before COVID-19 shone a spotlight on the vulnerability of the world’s agri-food systems, hundreds of millions of people worldwide were afflicted by hunger – and that number has increased in the last year up to 811 million. Despite the world producing sufficient food to feed all of us. This is unimaginable and unacceptable.

At the same time, 14 per cent of the food we produce is lost, and 17 per cent is wasted. Combine this with other stressors — such as pests and diseases, natural disasters, loss of biodiversity and habitat destruction, and conflict — and you can see the magnitude of the challenge we face in meeting the world’s growing food needs, while simultaneously reducing the environmental and climate impact of our agri-food systems.

FAO, as the leading agency working on food and agriculture, has developed a toolbox which we are confident can enable us to make an impact on many of these complex systemic problems.

We have a clear sense of where we are going, framed in the objectives: Better Production, Better Nutrition, a Better Environment and a Better Life. And our work is underpinned by a new Strategic Framework 2022-2031 for the next ten years that defines the concrete actions and inputs needed to make the Four Betters a reality, and leave no one behind.

FAO estimates that as much as US$40 to US$50 billion in annual investments on targeted interventions are needed to end hunger by 2030. There are plenty of low-cost, high-impact projects that can help hundreds of millions of people better meet their food needs.

For instance, targeted interventions on Research and Development to make farming more technologically advanced, innovation in digital agriculture, and improve literacy rates among women can go a long way to reducing hunger. But there are also other essential elements such as better data, governance and institutions, that need to be added to the equation.

In addition, our approach can only be effective if it’s rooted in working together with governments, and key partners, as they forge their own national pathways towards transformation in line with their specific conditions and needs.

We also need to realize that scientists and bureaucrats and even food producers and distributors will never be able to bring about all these desperately needed changes on their own.

The transformation can and must start with pragmatic and concrete action by ordinary consumers and the choices we make. The decisions we make everyday on the foods we consume, where we buy them, how they are packaged, how much food we throw away – all these have an impact on our agri-food systems and the future of this planet.

All of us have the potential to be food heroes. Our actions are our future. The process of transforming our agri-food systems – and making an impact on global hunger, healthy diets, environmental damage and waste – starts with you and me.

But it doesn’t end with you and me. The old adage goes: “We are what we eat.” It also holds true that how our children and grandchildren develop will also be influenced by what we eat. Hope is in their hands to carry on. Let us learn together, work together and contribute together.

Source: Lao News Agency

The year 2021 is a truly remarkable one for the Chinese people. This year marks the centenary of the Communist Party of China. It is also the 50th anniversary of the restoration of the lawful seat of the People’s Republic of China in the United Nations, a historic event which will be solemnly commemorated by China. We will continue our active efforts to take China’s cooperation with the United Nations to a new level and make new and greater contributions to advancing the noble cause of the UN.

Mr. President,

A year ago, global leaders attended the high-level meetings marking the 75th anniversary of the UN and issued a declaration pledging to fight COVID-19 in solidarity, tackle challenges together, uphold multilateralism, strengthen the role of the UN, and work for the common future of present and coming generations.

One year on, our world is facing the combined impacts of changes unseen in a century and the COVID-19 pandemic. In all countries, people long for peace and development more than ever before, their call for equity and justice is growing stronger, and they are more determined in pursuing win-win cooperation.

Right now, COVID-19 is still raging in the world, and profound changes are taking place in human society. The world has entered a period of new turbulence and transformation. It falls on each and every responsible statesman to answer the questions of our times and make a historical choice with confidence, courage and a sense of mission.

First, we must beat COVID-19 and win this decisive fight crucial to the future of humanity. The history of world civilization is also one of fighting pandemics. Rising to challenges, humanity has always emerged in triumph and achieved greater development and advancement. The current pandemic may appear overwhelming, but we humanity will surely overcome it and prevail.

We should always put people and their lives first, and care about the life, value and dignity of every individual. We need to respect science, take a science-based approach, and follow the laws of science. We need to both follow routine, targeted COVID-19 protocols and take emergency response measures, and both carry out epidemic control and promote economic and social development. We need to enhance coordinated global COVID-19 response and minimize the risk of cross-border virus transmission.

Vaccination is our powerful weapon against COVID-19. I have stressed on many occasions the need to make vaccines a global public good and ensure vaccine accessibility and affordability in developing countries. Of pressing priority is to ensure the fair and equitable distribution of vaccines globally. China will strive to provide a total of two billion doses of vaccines to the world by the end of this year. In addition to donating 100 million US dollars to COVAX, China will donate 100 million doses of vaccines to other developing countries in the course of this year. China will continue to support and engage in global science-based origins tracing, and stands firmly opposed to political maneuvering in whatever form.

Second, we must revitalize the economy and pursue more robust, greener and more balanced global development. Development holds the key to people’s well-being. Facing the severe shocks of COVID-19, we need to work together to steer global development toward a new stage of balanced, coordinated and inclusive growth. To this end, I would like to propose a Global Development Initiative:

— Staying committed to development as a priority. We need to put development high on the global macro policy agenda, strengthen policy coordination among major economies, and ensure policy continuity, consistency and sustainability. We need to foster global development partnerships that are more equal and balanced, forge greater synergy among multilateral development cooperation processes, and speed up the implementation of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

— Staying committed to a people-centered approach. We should safeguard and improve people’s livelihoods and protect and promote human rights through development, and make sure that development is for the people and by the people, and that its fruits are shared among the people. We should continue our work so that the people will have a greater sense of happiness, benefit and security, and achieve well-rounded development.

— Staying committed to benefits for all. We should care about the special needs of developing countries. We may employ such means as debt suspension and development aid to help developing countries, particularly vulnerable ones facing exceptional difficulties, with emphasis on addressing unbalanced and inadequate development among and within countries.

— Staying committed to innovation-driven development. We need to seize the historic opportunities created by the latest round of technological revolution and industrial transformation, redouble efforts to harness technological achievements to boost productivity, and foster an open, fair, equitable and non-discriminatory environment for the development of science and technology. We should foster new growth drivers in the post-COVID era and jointly achieve leapfrog development.

— Staying committed to harmony between man and nature. We need to improve global environmental governance, actively respond to climate change and create a community of life for man and nature. We need to accelerate transition to a green and low-carbon economy and achieve green recovery and development. China will strive to peak carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060. This requires tremendous hard work, and we will make every effort to meet these goals. China will step up support for other developing countries in developing green and low-carbon energy, and will not build new coal-fired power projects abroad.

—Staying committed to results-oriented actions. We need to increase input in development, advance on a priority basis cooperation on poverty alleviation, food security, COVID-19 response and vaccines, development financing, climate change and green development, industrialization, digital economy and connectivity, among other areas, and accelerate implementation of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, so as to build a global community of development with a shared future. China has pledged an additional three billion US dollars of international assistance in the next three years to support developing countries in responding to COVID-19 and promoting economic and social recovery.

Third, we must strengthen solidarity and promote mutual respect and win-win cooperation in conducting international relations. A world of peace and development should embrace civilizations of various forms, and must accommodate diverse paths to modernization. Democracy is not a special right reserved to an individual country, but a right for the people of all countries to enjoy. Recent developments in the global situation show once again that military intervention from the outside and so-called democratic transformation entail nothing but harm. We need to advocate peace, development, equity, justice, democracy and freedom, which are the common values of humanity, and reject the practice of forming small circles or zero-sum games.

Differences and problems among countries, hardly avoidable, need to be handled through dialogue and cooperation on the basis of equality and mutual respect. One country’s success does not have to mean another country’s failure, and the world is big enough to accommodate common development and progress of all countries. We need to pursue dialogue and inclusiveness over confrontation and exclusion. We need to build a new type of international relations based on mutual respect, equity, justice and win-win cooperation, and do the best we can to expand the convergence of our interests and achieve the biggest synergy possible.

The Chinese people have always celebrated and striven to pursue the vision of peace, amity and harmony. China has never and will never invade or bully others, or seek hegemony. China is always a builder of world peace, contributor to global development, defender of the international order and provider of public goods. China will continue to bring the world new opportunities through its new development.

Fourth, we must improve global governance and practice true multilateralism. In the world, there is only one international system, i.e. the international system with the United Nations at its core. There is only one international order, i.e. the international order underpinned by international law. And there is only one set of rules, i.e. the basic norms governing international relations underpinned by the purposes and principles of the UN Charter.

The UN should hold high the banner of true multilateralism and serve as the central platform for countries to jointly safeguard universal security, share development achievements and chart the course for the future of the world. The UN should stay committed to ensuring a stable international order, increasing the representation and say of developing countries in international affairs, and taking the lead in advancing democracy and rule of law in international relations. The UN should advance, in a balanced manner, work in all the three areas of security, development and human rights. It should set common agenda, highlight pressing issues and focus on real actions, and see to it that commitments made by all parties to multilateralism are truly delivered.

Mr. President,

The world is once again at a historical crossroads. I am convinced that the trend of peace, development and advancement for humanity is irresistible. Let us bolster confidence and jointly address global threats and challenges, and work together to build a community with a shared future for mankind and a better world for all.

Source: Lao News Agency