HCM City (VNA) – A workshop was held in Ho Chi MinhCity on April 2 on international experience in making and implementing policiestargeting ethnic minority groups.
Nguyen Dinh Cung, Director of the CentralInstitute for Economic Management (CIEM), said studying ethnic minority policiesof other countries will help Vietnam overhaul its ethnic policies in the future.
He added the event aimed to gain an insight intosome countries’ viewpoints and policies on ethnic minority groups, includingthose on minorities’ languages, migration, education, health care, ethnic cadredevelopment, land, poverty reduction, employment, cultural preservation andreligious affairs.
Dr Tran Van Ha from the Institute ofAnthropology under the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences, who has studiedpolicies on ethnic minorities in some Southeast Asian nations, said all ethnicpolicies of the countries aim to consolidate community and national solidarity.Building national cultural characteristics is considered important indeveloping national unity.
Vietnam needs to focus on building nationalcultural identities and sustainably developing ethnic groups’ culture. It isalso necessary to create development policies for each region and policies forspecific ethnic groups, he noted.
At the workshop, participants discussed thesocio-economic development framework for ethnic minority areas in Vietnam for2016-2020. They said the country needs to build a sustainable infrastructuresystem, develop production, trade, services, tourism, science and technologywhile also making special policies on poverty elimination, credit andemployment for ethnic minorities.
Existing policies should match the socio-economicdevelopment plans of regions nationwide, including border regions which arehome to many ethnic minorities and adjacent areas, so as to devise appropriatepolicies.
Dr Dang Thi Thu Hoai from CIEM said resourcesshould be gathered instead of being scattered in different fields andprogrammes like at present. She added ethnic minority policies over the yearshave resulted in positive outcomes, helping to improve ethnic minority andmountainous areas.-VNA