[Viet Nam] ...celebrates anti-poverty success

From Vier Nam News

HA NOI — Viet Nam celebrated the United Nations’ International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, or Poverty Day, yesterday by reporting the positive results of its programmes to help the poor.

The efforts of the Viet Nam Communist Party, the people and the army in implementing the country’s hunger eradication and poverty alleviation programme have ensured great achievements.

Figures show that the number of poor households in Viet Nam has fallen by more than 340,000 each year from 1992.

Hunger has been eliminated while the number of poor households has dropped from 30.2 per cent in 1992 to 10 per cent in 2000 and 7 per cent using the standard set by the Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs Ministry in 2000.

The United Nations’ Viet Nam development report describes Viet Nam’s efforts at poverty reduction as among the most successful examples of economic development.

Hunger eradication and poverty alleviation have become a highlight among the achievement of doi moi (renewal).

The Government has now decided to provide VND60 trillion to implement the National Target Programme for Poverty Reduction for 2006-10 based on the effectiveness of hunger eradication and poverty alleviation campaign of 2001-05.

The purpose of the programme will be "to reduce poverty more comprehensively and fairly with sustainable development and international integration."

The Government has also approved a new criteria by which households are to be classified as ‘poor.’

The standard will be an average monthly income of VND200,000 or less for rural families and VND260,000 for urban.

The new criteria means the country will have about 4.6 million poor households by the end of 2005, representing 26-27 per cent of all households.

The highest rates of poverty are found in the north-western region - more than 62 per cent - and the Tay Nguyen (Central Highlands) - more than 52 per cent. The lowest rate is in the Eastern Nam Bo in southern Viet Nam with only 11 per cent.

The Viet Nam Fatherland Front Central Committee says the Fund for the Poor has collected thousands of billions of dong, built and repaired more than 310,000 houses for poor families.

The fund had mobilised VND63 billion from October 2000 to the end of last month.

VND7.5 billion has been contributed to the fund by 162 organisations and individuals in the last nine months while the fund spent VND7.3 billion help 64 localities hit by natural calamities.

The Viet Nam Fatherland Front Central Committee reports that the country built and repaired 37,264 houses for the poor in the past nine months.

It built 222,969 houses and repaired 87,053 houses from 2001 to the end of last month.

Social policy banks provided loans worth VND11.6 trillion totally to 3.5 million poor households between 2001 and 2004 and localities started more than 50,000 training courses to teach more than 2 million people farming techniques.

On average, 1.2 million new jobs are created each year, half of them for women.

About 3 million students from poor families and ethnic groups are exempted from school tuition fees every year.

But about 441,654 temporary and degraded houses need to be rebuilt or repaired.

The Fatherland Front granted certificates recognising the efforts of 1,901 communes, wards and towns; 130 districts and six cities and provinces to successfully replace temporary houses with solid construction in the last nine months. — VNS