Nestlé Vietnam to promote gender equality and women's empowerment

Nestlé Vietnam and the Vietnam Women's Union signing the cooperation agreement in Hanoi

The content of the cooperation agreement focuses on three main areas, including promoting communication to raise awareness of gender equality and women's empowerment; supporting women to increase income, creating jobs for economic development; and sharing experiences and successful assistance models contributing to replication of good practices.

Tran Thi Huong, vice president of the Vietnam Women's Union said: “Over the past years, the Vietnam Women's Union and its partners have implemented many specific cooperation programmes to contribute to the remarkable progress for the advancement of women day by day.”

The signing of this agreement not only celebrated the 90th anniversary of the establishment of the VWU but also the 25th anniversary of the establishment of Nestlé in Vietnam. This event also marked the 3-year milestone of the cooperation between Nestlé Vietnam and the Vietnam Women's Union on healthcare, nutrition, safety for women and children, and supporting women to start a business to increase income, improve their quality of life, contributing to supporting women's comprehensive development.

The most prominent part of this cooperation is the "Sister Nest" programme, said Nguyen Minh Nguyet, Food business director at Nestlé Vietnam. “The programme has helped provide training to improve knowledge about nutrition, business skills, and increase the income for rural women. Nestlé Vietnam has been cooperating with the VWU since 2017 has helped connect 9,000 members in 1,500 communes in 20 provinces and cities, supporting more than 1.5 million rural households.”

This programme demonstrates Nestlé's efforts to realise its commitment to empower women.

Another example of gender balance and women's empowerment throughout the entire value chain is the NESCAFÉ Plan. This project has contributed to enhancing the role and status of women, through training a team of female leaders for groups of coffee farmers.

“Women's empowerment and gender equality are among the top priorities for Nestlé. We have realised these commitments by building specific staff development policies and strategies and building an equal value-based culture and an environment respecting differences and the principles of empowering women in our company and throughout our value chain through collaboration with government partners and agencies,” shared Binu Jacob, general director of Nestlé Vietnam.

With these achievements, at the end of November, the United Nations Agency on Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women (UN Women) awarded the Women’s Empowerment Principles Award (WEPs) to Nestlé Vietnam for its commitments and achievements in the categories of Community and Industry Engagement and Gender-Inclusive Workplace