International workshop on “Human security in Asia: Sharing European perspective and policy implications for Vietnam”

In the opening speech, Prof. Dr. Vo Khanh Vinh, Vice President of VASS, affirmed that human affairs are concerned by the Party and Government for process of country and human development in Vietnam. This is meaningful subject in many dimensions such as politics, economics, culture, society … not only in national area but also in the region and the world. The subject more and more become a centre point and attention of humanity. In previous time, many natural and social events, especially war and conflict related events, profoundly affected awareness of human and security for people. International and regional communities, especially Vietnam, more and more pay attention to human security and implement research and training programmes, in particular consultancy of development policy for ensuring security for human. Therefore, security for human became a common subject of scientists, policy-makers and whole society. As a pioneer of the field, in previous time VASS conducted multi-sector and inter-sector researches on human security, however these researches still contain limitations that need further researches, including research of other countries’ experiences, particularly developed countries for sharing experiences in aspects of theories, training and policy consultancy.

In the next speech, Dr. Wilhelm Hofmeister said that definition of human security was put under debate at international conferences since 20 years ago. That is an useful method to think and brainstorm of human response to challenges in century XXI from many different angles with many different constraints. Climate change happens seriously more and more all over the world, that affect economic growth and impact differently nations in terms of society. Trend of globalization, much transformation of economic and fiscal system; conflicts, violence affect all nations. Efforts of reducing poverty households, ensuring food security, ect. bring more benefit to people. Differentiation of society, the rich and the poor is increasing in nations, that needs to be approached from different angles for solving. That can not be seen as challenges which are solved in a simple solution. That need combination of many plans and approaches of many different angles for successfully solving. Definition of human security is approached multidimensionally and variously where people are centre of different pillars of human security with principles of making people safe without fears. Each nation ensure human security for itself and the region. The workshop is opportunity to share experience, enhance approach of human security for the nation, the region and the world.

The workshop has four discussing sections with 13 speeches that focus on following major issues:

In the section 1, speakers presented many relevant issues to more understand human security, means and constraints regarding to different elements of human security (economic security and sustainable development, environmental security, food and health security, personal and communal security, and political security) ect. The speakers are Prof. Dr. Christan Arndt, Faculty of Agriculture, economics and management, Nurtingen- Geislingen University, Germany; Dr. Tamara Nair and Dr. Alistair Cook, Center for Non-traditional security (NTS) studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore; Mr. Conrado Heruela, United Nations Environment Programme, Bangkok, Thailand; Dr. Bharat R Sharma, Principal Researcher (water resources), Consultant Group for international agriculture research (CGIAR), India; Prof. Dr. Mike Hardy, Executive Director, the Institute for Community Cohesion, Coventry University, the United Kingdom.

In the section 2, Prof. Dr. Torberg Falch, Norwegian University of Sciences and Tecnology mentioned role of education – the basic fundament for human development via comparison of educational systems in Asia and Europe.

In the section 3, speakers together shared research experience and need of cooperative reinforcement, ensuring human security in terms of the region in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam, that is in speeches of Mr. PouSothirak, Executive Director, Cambodian Institute for Cooperation and Peace (CICP), Phnom Penh, Cambodia; Mr. Young Chanthalangsy, Director of Institute for Foreign Affairs, Lao PDR.

In the section 4, Vietnamese speakers of Dr. Nguyen Manh Hung, Acting Director of Institute of African and Middle East Studies, VASS and Dr. Dang Xuan Thanh, Vice Chairman of the Lao Cai People’s Committee focused on analysis of definition of human security at angles of theory and practice in the context of Vietnam.

On basis of summary of speeches, in the closing speeches, Prof. Dr. Vo Khanh Vinh and Dr. Wilhelm Hofmeister all affirmed importance of research on human security to humanity, that support explanation of human security policy in Vietnam. Prof. Dr. Vo Khanh Vinh also said that on the basis of experience, cooperation and academic exchange of countries in Europe, Asia and ASEAN region, VASS will continue to reinforce new research direction, provide criteria of measuring definition of human security, contributing to affirmation of research, summary of practices, training and consultancy of development policy in Vietnam in the near future.

The workshop is a dialogue space, useful academic exchange between European and Asian scholars for exchanging theories and practices of human security, narrowing distance of knowledge, and developing effective policies in response to human security affairs in the world, region and some specific nations, that contributing to suggestion of ideas in research and making effective policies to promote human security for development in the future./.

Nguyen Vu