Building up and promoting the strength of great national unity constitute a consistent strategy of our Party, serving as an enormous source of strength and a decisive factor in the cause of Fatherland construction and protection. That strategy has been grasped, concretised, and synchronously, effectively implemented by the Party Organisation, Authority, and people of Son La province.

Son La is a mountainous province, sharing a 274-km-long border with the two provinces of Houaphanh and Luang Prabang of Laos; it has 6 border districts, 17 border communes, and 73 border hamlets; it has a population of more than 1.3 million with 12 ethnic groups (83% of them belong to ethnic minority groups). Over the years, bringing into play the tradition of unity and self-reliance, following Uncle Ho’s teachings on better preserving unity among all people when the President visited Son La in 1959, grasping the Party’s guidelines and the State’s law and policies on great national unity, the Party Committee, People’s Council, and People’s Committee of Son La province have focused their leadership and direction on synchronously taking measures to build up and bring into play the strength of great national unity to encourage cadres, soldiers, and ethnic people to join hands to develop the province.

Leaders of the province participate in the “Great National Unity Festive Day” program of 2023 at Pe hamlet, Song Pe commune, Bac Yen district

All-level party committees and authorities within the province have concentrated on boosting socio-economic development, removing hunger, alleviating poverty, and raising the people’s material and mental life. Investments have been centred on developing hi-tech agriculture, promoting trade, and carrying out new-style countryside projects, social welfare policies, and policies for persons with meritorious services to the revolution and especially for households under resettlement programs of Son La and Hoa Binh hydroelectric plants. Great value has been attached to improving education and training, health care, and culture, ensuring defence, security, and diplomacy, preventing and combating crime for the sake of political security and social order and safety. As a result, the province has witnessed a comprehensive development in its agriculture, industry, and services; the people’s living standards have gradually improved. Cultural institutions and facilities for sports and community activities have been constructed and promoted. Education, health care, and other social fields have continued to be developed; 179 communes, wards, and townships within the province have fulfilled the national commune health criteria; 54 out of 188 communes have met the new-style rural area standards. Traditional culture of ethnic people have been preserved and developed; social evils and depraved customs have been basically pushed back. Grass-roots level party organisations’ leadership capacity and the quality of cadres and party members have been raised. There have been new changes in the operations of the Fatherland Front and politico-social organisations. The Regulations on Grass-roots Democracy, the mechanism of “Party’s leadership, State’s management, people’s mastery”, and the motto “people know, people discuss, people do, people inspect, people supervise, people benefit” have been effectively implemented as the basis for cementing the great national unity bloc and the people’s faith in all-level party committees and authorities.

Nevertheless, the province has been faced with a lot of difficulties. Its socio-economic infrastructures have yet to be synchronised; its economic development has yet to be steady; its per capita income has been low; the rate of poor households has been high. The province has been frequently confronted with natural disasters and hostile forces’ sabotage strategy regarding “ethnicity”, “religion”, and “human rights”. Besides, crime of all types, social evils, and free migration have been still complex. Against that backdrop, the province advocates grasping and effectively, seriously implementing the Party’s resolutions and directives on great national unity, particularly Resolution 43-NQ/TW dated 24 November 2023 by the 13^th Party Central Committee on “continuing to promote tradition and the strength of great national unity, building an increasingly prosperous, happy nation” in order to stimulate patriotism, national self-reliance, and aspirations for Son La’s green, rapid, sustainable development, with a focus on the following solutions.

First, stepping up the work of propagation and education to raise public awareness and responsibility of the entire political system and people towards great national unity. This is a primary solution as raising public awareness and responsibility, particularly for building up and promoting the strength of great national unity will always give an incentive to revolutionary movements and tasks. Thus, all-level party committees and authorities should further enhance the work of propagation and education with reference to the importance of building up and promoting the strength of great national unity in the new situation. Significance should be attached to raising public awareness of implementing the province’s major guidelines and projects on socio-economic, cultural development as well as programs and policies on sustainable poverty reduction. Propagation and education concerning the tradition of great national unity should be closely combined with the Party’s guidelines and the State’s law and policies, especially viewpoints, targets, tasks, and measures for building the great national unity bloc. To that end, all-level party committees and authorities should actively diversify forms of propagation and education relevant to each locality, office, and unit, closely combine online and in-person propagation and education, and bring into play mass media and cultural institutions. At the same time, it is necessary to remain vigilant, proactively identify, prevent, combat, and opportunely handle plots and artifices against our great national unity bloc. Doing so will help create a consensus among all people and promote the responsibility and synergy of the political system to synchronously, effectively implement solutions for building up and bringing into play the strength of great national unity within the province.

Second, focusing leadership and direction on fostering socio-economic development, ensuring defence and security, improving the people’s life. Grasping and implementing Central and provincial resolutions, directives, and action programs on socio-economic development, particularly the Resolution of the 15^th Provincial Party Congress for the 2020 – 2025 tenure, all-level party committees and authorities should accelerate the progress of socio-economic development projects and programs. Emphasis should be placed on three national target programs on new-style rural area building, socio-economic development in ethnic minority and mountainous areas, and sustainable poverty reduction under plans made by the Party Central Committee and the Provincial Party Committee Standing Board. Due attention should be paid to promoting advantages to build Son La into a centre for hi-tech agriculture, food processing, dairy and medicinal plant production, and tourism in the Northwest as well as to develop a National Research Centre for Hi-tech Agriculture in Moc Chau district of the province. Moreover, it is important to improve education and training, health care, and culture, protect natural resources, effectively manage social welfare, and improve the people’s life in ethnic minority, remote, isolated areas and resettlement areas of Son La hydroelectric plant simultaneously. Due regard should be paid to closely combining socio-economic, cultural development and diplomacy with defence and security and vice versa, building the all-people national defence and the posture of all-people national defence in tandem with the people’s security, the posture of people’s security, and a firm “posture of people’s hearts and minds”, maintaining political security and social order and safety, protecting national sovereignty and border security, preventing and combating crime of all types as a favourable condition for the people’s production.

Third, enhancing Party building and rectification, promoting the role of all-level authorities in building the great national unity bloc. All-level party committees and organisations should continue to grasp and strictly implement resolutions and directives on building and rectifying the Party and political system, particularly Conclusion 21-KL/TW dated 25 October 2021 by the 13^th Party Central Committee’s 4^th Plenum on stepping up the building and rectification of the Party and political system, resolutely preventing, pushing back, and stringently handling the degradation in political ideology, morality, and lifestyle as well as the signs of “self-evolution” and “self-transformation” among cadres and party members, the Provincial Party Committee’s Resolution 02-NQ/TU dated 21 January 2021 on raising the leadership capacity and combativeness of grass-roots party organisations within commune-level party organisations. To that end, it is necessary to make party committees and organisations at all levels pure and strong in terms of politics, ideology, morality, organisation, and personnel. Importance should be attached to heightening the example-setting responsibility of cadres and party members, particularly heads of all-level party organisations and authorities. It is essential to well implement programs and projects on human resources development, particularly the Provincial Party Committee Standing Board’s Project 03-ĐA/TU dated 30 December 2021 on “building a contingent of young, female, and ethnic minority cadres under the Provincial Party Committee Standing Board’s management towards 2030”. Emphasis should be placed on personnel planning and preparation for all-level party congresses for the 2025 – 2030 tenure and elections of deputies to all-level people’s councils for the 2026 – 2031 tenure. Consideration should be given to raising the effectiveness of the anti-corruption campaign, strictly handling the degradation in political ideology, morality, and lifestyle as well as the signs of “self-evolution” and “self-transformation” among cadres and party members, stepping up the study and following of Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, ethics, and lifestyle, strengthening unity within Party organisations as the nucleus of the political system’s unity and the great national unity bloc within the province.

Fourth, unceasingly expanding and diversifying forms of gathering the people, promoting the role of the Fatherland Front and mass organisations in building the great national unity bloc. To that end, the province will effectively realise the Law on the Implementation of Grass-roots Democracy, promote the people’s right to mastery, concretise the motto “people know, people discuss, people do, people inspect, people supervise, people benefit”, and create a favourable environment for the people’s participation in supervising the operations of Party bodies, authorities, cadres, and party members. It will enhance dialogue with the people, step up administrative reform, promote the efficiency of its public administration centres at provincial and district levels, and keep improving the public administrative service satisfaction index.

Furthermore, it is necessary to drastically, comprehensively renew the organisation and operational method of the Fatherland Front and politico-social organisations under the 12^th Politburo’s Announcement dated 15 January 2020. Measures should be flexibly, properly taken to diversify forms of gathering youth union members and other unions’ members and raise the effectiveness of coordination between the Fatherland Front, politico-social organisations, mass organisations and all-level authorities in receiving feedback, grasping public opinions, and opportunely settling issues right at grass-roots level. Great value should be attached to enhancing supervision and social criticism, protecting the rights and legitimate benefits of youth union members, other unions’ members, and citizens, and well conducting mass mobilisation work, especially among the youth and religious people for the sake of local development. Besides, the province will actively renew and better the organisation of the “Great National Unity Festive Day” in line with the implementation of the Patriotic Emulation Movement and other ones, such as “clever mass mobilisation”, “all people unite to build new cultural life”, “Son La join hands to build new-style rural areas and civilised urban areas”, “gratitude”, “for the poor – no one will be left behind”. Effectively implementing those above-mentioned solutions will help build an increasingly solid great national unity bloc within Son La as the basis for attaining the province’s goal of green, rapid, sustainable development towards 2025.

NGUYEN HUU DONG

Member of the Party Central Committee

Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee