A woman tends to her sugarcane garden in Hoa Binh Province (Source: VNA)Hanoi (VNA) - Poverty reduction programmes have had positive impacts on theliving standards of ethnic minorities, but the challenge of sustaining thegains remains, experts say.
DoVan Chien, Minister and Chairman of the Committee for Ethnic Affairs, said thegovernment’s social policies upgraded the socio-economic infrastructure in rural,mountainous and ethnic minority areas, gradually improving the lives of poorpeople.
A2015 survey of nation’s 53 ethnic minority communities showed that the numberof household receiving electricity from the national grid nearly reached 94 percent.All communes have primary and secondary schools.
Thepoverty rate among poor households fell from 35 percent in 2011 to 16.8 percentby the end of 2015.
TheGovernment adjusted its support for ethnic minority and mountainous areas,shifting its focus from families to communities and paying more attention tocreating livelihoods so as to reduce reliance on aid, he said.
Theprovision of grants was replaced by provision of loans at preferential interestrates.
Ethnicminority-inhabited areas benefited from two national programmes, 135 and 30a,one on rural development and the other on sustainable poverty reduction.
TheGovernment promulgated specific policies to support the poor’s access to land,credit, education, housing, clean water and health insurance. However, despiteall these achievements, limitations persisted in efforts to eradicate hungerand alleviate poverty, Chien said.
Alack of long-term support resulted in the fact that many support policiesdidn’t have the desired impact, he said.
TrangA Thao, a resident of Xa Ho commune in the northern mountainous province of YenBai, said his family had not been able to achieve high productivity even afterreceiving support to shift from planting cassava to maize.
XaViet Xuan, Chairman of the People’s Committee of Tan Minh, a disadvantagedcommune in the northern province of Hoa Binh, said such policies likefertiliser and seedling assistance can only help local residents in the shortterm. Since they cannot accumulate enough after each crop, they don’t have theresources to increase or even maintain production.
SonPhuoc Ngoan, former Chairman of the Committee for Ethnic Affairs, saidinsufficient funding led to ineffective poverty reduction.
"Ethnicminorities want to buy a cow but they are only able to buy a part of the cow.So they can’t escape poverty", he said.
Thisview was confirmed by Hoang Thi Dung of Yen Bai province’s Van Yen district.
"Wewant to get rid of poverty but we don’t have the capital to expand ourproduction," she said.
Itcosts between 15-20 million VND (660-880 USD) to buy a buffalo. Of these, 5million VND (220 USD) is given by the government but poor people like hercouldn’t afford to raise the remaining funds on their own, Dung said.
NongVan Tong, who heads the Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs Office in Yen Bai’sBao Lac district, said it is difficult to promote sustainable development withpolicies that don’t focus on key areas.
Underthe 30a programme, farmers received a one-time support. So, if a farmerreceived a cow or seedlings this year, he would not get any assistance thefollowing year, he said.
"Encouragingethnic minorities to proactively escape poverty and avoid relying on supportfrom the State and community is an approach in the right direction, but thereis no alternative to raising capital allocation for extremely disadvantagedareas and reviewing the way people get support," Chien said./.
VNA
