The Prime Minister has decided to approve the national target program on sustainable poverty reduction for the period 2016-2020.
Poverty reduction is a priority policy for Vietnam to improve poor people’s living conditions, narrow the development gap and implement the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
The program set up a detailed plan cutting down the country’s poverty households by 1-1.5 percent a year. Apart from which, the rate of poverty households in disadvantaged districts must shrink by 4 percent annually and the proportion of poor households in districts of ethnic minority must drop by 3-4 percent a year as per the new program.
The program targets to improve income and living quality of the poor to ensure per capita income of a poor household increasing by 1.5 times by 2020 compared to 2015 and it will increase by 2 times in disadvantaged districts.
Moreover, Vietnam will strive to reduce half of extremely poor districts; 30 percent of difficult coastal and islands out of poverty; 20-30 percent of specially rugged mountainous villages and communes where ethnic minority people live. Additionally, the government will provide free vocational training to approximately 20.000 laborers in low-income families and poor households of which 60- 70 percent of them will work in abroad countries.
Total expenditure for the national program on sustainable poverty reduction for the period will be VND48,397 billion (US$2,170,605). The program is carried out across the country. Coastal areas, island regions, border crossings and extreme poverty communes will be on the top priority in the program.
Before, the government has approve to invest in 21 major programs for the period. Of which, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development runs three programs including sustainable fishery development, sustainable forestry development and agricultural economic re-structure along with natural disaster prevention to improve residents’ living condition. Total cost of the three programs is VND638,782 billion.
The Ministry of Defense is assigned to run a program worth VND27,229 billion and the Ministry of Investment and Planning runs four programs costing VND281,922 billion.
The Ministry of Labor, Invalids ans Social Affairs also runs two programs, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism carries out the two programs; the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resource and the Ministry of Industry and Trade also implement assigned programs.
