(VOVWORLD) - Today (March 20), more than 1.2 billion French-speaking people worldwide are celebrating the 53rd anniversary of the International Organization of Francophonie (OIF). Since Vietnam joined the organization in 1979, its relations with the Francophonie community have grown steadily.
Over the past 53 years, the Francophonie community has become a diverse political-economic-cultural space, contributing to maintaining peace, cooperation and sustainable development around the world. The OIF has 88 members with a total population of 1.2 billion, who account for nearly 20% of global trade and 16% of the world's GDP.
Elevating Vietnam’s status
Over the past decades, especially during the embargo period, Vietnam has received a lot of valuable financial, intellectual, and technological support from the Francophonie community. The community has been a forum for Vietnam to promote its foreign policy and strengthen bilateral relations with other members, particularly France, Canada, and the French-speaking African countries.
Vietnam has introduced initiatives to strengthen dialogue between members of the community. Vietnamese leaders have attended all Francophonie Summits and by hosting the 7th Francophonie Summit in 1997 in Hanoi, Vietnam promoted economic cooperation in addition to political and cultural-linguistic cooperation within the OIF.
From mapping out cooperation strategies to promote administrative reform, Vietnam has been a key contributor to planning and implementing OIF cooperation.
Vietnam has been elected to important OIF positions several times. The OIF regularly sends high-level delegations to Vietnam. During his visit to Vietnam in 2019, OIF Secretary General Louise Mushikiwabo praised Vietnam’s role in the Francophonie community.
Multiple cooperation achievements
The OIF, related agencies, and Francophone members have carried out programs of French language training, scientific research, technology, economics, pharmacy, and law in Vietnam.
Many Francophonie countries in Africa consider Vietnam a great success story in hunger eradication, poverty reduction, socio-economic development and international integration, and want to continue to strengthen cooperation with Vietnam.
Despite the challenges brought by the COVID-19 pandemic, trade between Vietnam and other OIF members grew impressively in 2021 to nearly 33 billion USD.
At a UN Security Council session in September, 2020, an open discussion of cooperation between the UN and the OIF took place. As a non-permanent member of the UNSC, Vietnam introduced several initiatives to build a Francophone network to share experience in implementing UN projects in Africa and strengthening UN-Francophonie-African Union tripartite cooperation in addressing conflicts.
Implementing a foreign policy of multilateralization, diversification, and proactive international integration, Vietnam has, over the past 44 years, been an active and responsible member of the Francophonie community. On the basis of their good relations, Vietnam and the Francophonie community will continue to build an effective and sustainable partnership in the coming years.