A household in the northern province of Bac Giang's Luc Nam District was named an excellent production farmer family.
HA NOI — Viet Nam aims to reduce the poverty rate to five per cent or less by the beginning of the next decade from the current estimated rate of 9.45 per cent under a draft resolution on directing sustainable poverty reduction during the 2011-20 period.
Drafted by the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, the resolution is expected to be approved by the Prime Minister later this year.
"The resolution also targets stable employment and diversified income generation activities for poor labourers and seeks to increase per capita income in poor families by 3-3.5 times by 2020," said Deputy Minister Nguyen Trong Dam yesterday at an information sharing and consultation workshop on the resolution.
When finalised, the resolution is expected to guarantee basic conditions for housing, clean water and access to health care, education, vocational training and legal assistance. It will also ensure economic resources such as funds, land, technology and markets, as well as quality infrastructure for production and living practices in poor districts and communes, particularly those in remote, mountainous and particularly-difficult areas.
"Priority will be given to ethnic minority people, women, children, old people and the disabled," he said.
Major policies for poor people include policies that provide preferential credit, free and employment-oriented vocational training, free agricultural-forestry-fishery extension services, fee exemptions and reductions for education, and other support for poor people.
Funds will also be allocated to upgrade medical infrastructure to guarantee basic health services to poor people and suitable interventions will be designed to mobilise and use social resources and the State budget for poor patients suffering fatal diseases. The funds will support medical costs and meals when patients are moved for higher levels of treatment.
Policies on housing and clean water, legal support for poor people and accessibility to cultural and information services are also included in the draft.
Deputy Director of the ministry's Social Sponsor Department Ngo Truong Thi said the resolution was needed because although significant achievements in poverty reduction have been reached and recognised by the international community, the results were still not really sustainable.
"The gap between rich and poor is increasing and the poverty rate in many localities remains high," he said.
Many limitations remained to the implementation of poverty reduction objectives, such as overlaps, disconnection and inconsistencies between policy mechanisms and resources. These were combined with challenges in reaching poverty reduction objectives such as the risks that come with international integration, impacts of climate change and mid-income pitfalls, he said.
To perfect the resolution, Le Thi Thanh Huyen from the United Nations Population Fund in Viet Nam said the resolution should also target other vulnerable groups such as HIV/AIDS patients and people with disabilities.
Cross-cutting issues such as the development of transport and communication systems, and infrastructure in remote and mountainous areas should also be included and linked with the poverty reduction programme, she said.
For example, how could poor farmers sell the items they produced thanks to Government support programmes without infrastructure development, she said.
"It is also essential to effectively co-ordinate poverty reduction programmes with other similar programmes to ensure sustainable and comprehensive results," she said.
She also suggested more specific policies for ethnic minority people such as mobile healthcare services as they have difficulty accessing basic social services as a result of language barriers and transport conditions.
A representative from the United Nations Children's Fund in Viet Nam, Nguyen Thi Van Anh, pointed out the need for the resolution to include more policies to support children under six years old, such as policies to improve health care, education and curb malnutrition to help improve their quality of life.
Viet Nam was one of among 39 countries ranked with a high stunted growth rate, and the poor accounted for a large part of this number, she said.
Nguyen Thi Thu Thuy from Caritas Switzerland, which provides emergency disaster relief and co-operates with partners around the globe to implement reconstruction projects and promote sustainable development, said the resolution has yet to clearly map out measures to ensure the sustainability of poverty reduction.
It was essential to not only create jobs for the poor but it was even more important to ensure sustainable poverty reduction, she said.
She also pointed to the need to train poverty reduction programme officials in different ways in order to gain access to different types of poor people to avoid misunderstandings and complexities, as the poor came from different cultural and social characteristics.
There are around 3.3 million poor people nationwide, according to the ministry. — VNS
http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/Economy/206249/Nation-targets-5-poverty-rate-by-2020.html
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