Vietnam Targets to Reduce Poverty Rate to 10 per cent Next Yr

Vietnam is expected to cut poverty rate to 10 per cent-11 per cent next year, a meeting held June 2 by the Ministry of Planning and Investment in conjunction with UN Development Program (UNDP) in Vietnam said.

 

Vietnam’s general poverty rate had reduced significantly from 58.1 per cent in 1993 to 15.97 per cent in 2006.

 

The meeting in Hanoi was to launch a report of “Vietnam continues to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals”.   

 

Vietnam is trying hard to meet Millennium Development Goals before 2015, Deputy Minister Cao Viet Sinh told the meeting.

 

The integration of goals into every nation’s development policies should closely link them with people’s lives, Sinh said. He added that Vietnam is among the first countries to integrate the broader goals into a socio-economic development plan for 2006-10.

 

However, the report also documents the country lags behind in several goals with respect to ethnic minorities and some geographic areas.

 

Currently, Vietnam still has 12 per cent of its population living under the national poverty line and 16 per cent in need of social sponsoring.

 

At the meeting, Vietnam made seven proposals to the UN to accomplish the goals by 2015.

 

During the event, Christophe Bahuet, UNDP’s deputy country director, reaffirmed the double commitment of the UN in Vietnam.

 

“One is to work with the government, the people, and other interested partners so the goals are met at national and local level. The second is to work with all stakeholders on the monitoring of progress and use the finding for planning and policy making,” he was quoted by the Vietnam News Agency as saying.   (VNA, Investment, Pioneer)