Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue chairs a meeting of the Central Steering Committee on National Target Programmes in 2016-2020 in Hanoi on February 28 (Photo: VNA)Hanoi (VNS/VNA) — The average household poverty rate in Vietnamdropped by 1.51 percent from 2016 to 6.72 percent in 2017, according to the nationaltarget programme on sustainable poverty reduction.
The decline rate is higher than the target set by the National Assembly, 1.3percent to 1.5 percent.
The country has also mobilised almost 400 trillion VND (17.7 billion USD) fromthe State budget, enterprises, organisations and individuals for the cause ofnew-style rural area building and poverty reduction.
Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue, while chairing a meeting of theCentral Steering Committee on National Target Programmes in 2016-2020 in Hanoion February 28, asked member ministries of the committee to be more active,determined, creative and aggressive in sustainable poverty reduction.
Bui Sy Loi, Vice Chairman of the NationalAssembly Committee on Social Affairs, praised the Government’sefforts in poverty reduction in 2017, saying he was especially impressed by thefact that the Government had called on enterprises, organisations andindividuals to make donations of more than 126 trillion VND (5.6 billion USD).
For his part, Hue said the remarkable achievement wasthe completion of the legal framework document for the phase 2016 – 2020 interms of new criteria for new-style rural area models and multi-dimensionalapproaches for sustainable poverty reduction. The framework also includes newmodels for agriculture restructuring, climate change adaptation and sustainablelivelihoods.
“The important thing is that member ministries and localities have to be activewhen implementing programmes and ensuring efficiency in investment,” he said.
The Deputy PM required that in the next two years, the Ministry of Agricultureand Rural Development and the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairsto work on the new criteria set for “poor districts”.
“The new criteria should be able to encourage localities to try and escapepoverty, not encourage them to maintain poverty to enjoy supporting policieslike they do currently,” Hue said.
According to the Ministry of Investment and Planning, in 2018 the country wouldtry to reduce the rate of poor households from 1 to 1.5 percent per year,basing on the multi-dimensional poverty approach.
Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Xuan Cuong said thebuilding of new-style countryside needed to focus on improving income forresidents while still protecting the environment and conserving local culturalcharacteristics.
The country would try to have 15,000 agriculturecooperatives by 2020, he added. — VNA
VNA
