Promoting the role of the Front in building social consensus

On August 27, the Institute of Strategy and Policy of the Fatherland Front organized the Northern Regional Scientific Conference with the theme "Promoting the strength of great national unity in the new context".

Mr. Le Cao Thang - Director of the Institute of Strategy and Policy of the Fatherland Front and Ms. Tran Thi Phuong Hoa - Standing Vice Chairwoman of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Committee (VFF) of Hanoi City chaired the workshop.

The conference was attended by scientists, experts, along with leaders, Front officials and socio-political organizations, especially the Chairmen and Vice Chairmen of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Committees of communes and wards - those who directly work for the Front at the grassroots level.

Speaking at the Conference, Mr. Le Cao Thang - Director of the Institute of Strategy and Policy of the Fatherland Front said that the conference is an activity in the series of regional conferences organized to listen from practice, identify new issues being raised for the work of great national unity.

From there, contributing to finding more appropriate methods for the Vietnam Fatherland Front to continue to perform well the role of gathering and mobilizing the People, consolidating trust and building social consensus in the new development stage.

Speaking at the workshop, Ms. Tran Thi Phuong Hoa - Standing Vice Chairwoman of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Committee of Hanoi City said that for Hanoi, the arrangement process has reduced the number of commune-level administrative units from 526 to 126 units, including 51 wards and 75 communes.

In the new model, commune and ward levels must directly undertake a larger workload, a wider management scope and higher requirements for the quality of serving the People.

At the same time, the relationship between the city government and grassroots government becomes more direct; the relationship between grassroots government and people is also more frequent, requiring higher transparency, accountability and responsiveness.

From there, the issue raised for Front work is not only how to propagate and mobilize people to agree with the new organizational model, but more deeply, how the VFF must innovate to truly become an institution connecting the government with the people, connecting social communities, participating in building consensus and mobilizing social resources for development?" - Ms. Hoa asked.

Accordingly, the Standing Vice Chairman of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Committee of Hanoi City made a number of recommendations for Front work in the two-level local government model.

That is, it is necessary to continue to improve awareness of the position of the VFF in the new local governance model. The VFF is not only a coordinating force to perform socio-political tasks, but needs to be fully promoted in its role of representing, gathering, connecting and creating social consensus.

Second, build a mechanism for the voice of the People to truly participate in the policy cycle. The reception of opinions must be linked to feedback, explanation and monitoring of handling results.

Only when people realize that their opinions are listened to and have a practical impact, will participation transform into trust and consensus.

Third, consider social consensus as a content that needs to be identified, monitored and evaluated regularly. This is a new approach, helping Front work shift from responding to arising problems to proactively forecasting and preventing.

Fourth, invest appropriately in the capacity of the Fatherland Front work at the grassroots level. When the area is wider, the population is larger and social issues are more complex, the requirements for Fatherland Front cadres, Fatherland Front Work Committees and core forces in the community are also higher...

Mr. Nguyen Tien Phong - Vice Chairman of Hanoi City Cooperative Alliance said that with 2,962 cooperatives and over 619,744 members, the collective economic sector is creating a large network of socio-economic links.

The Hanoi City Cooperative Alliance, together with the Farmers' Association, Women's Union, Youth Union, Trade Union and other member organizations, can create an ecosystem to gather, link and promote People's resources.

If coordination is carried out regularly, substantively and with a clear mechanism, each cooperative is not only an economic unit but can also become a community-linking nucleus; so that people's voices can be transformed into development initiatives and social consensus built from specific benefits, from cooperation and from trust formed in practice" - Mr. Nguyen Tien Phong expressed.

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