Change in Identifying and Reducing Poverty

“It is time to take into account multi-dimensional poverty in addition to the existing uni-dimensional income or expenditure-based measures, in order to help policy makers identify and formulate more appropriate policies to reduce poverty.” This is one recommendation in the newly released report by ActionAid Vietnam and Oxfam, updating the urban poverty situation in 2010.

 

To date, poverty status in Vietnam has often been measured using expenditure poverty lines defined by the World Bank (WB) and the Government Statistical Office (GSO) or the income poverty line set by the Government. However, as Vietnam becomes a middle-income country, the new report shows poverty is becoming more multi-dimensional, and can be measured by means of income, expenditure and non-income criteria. Non-income criteria might include human resources, livelihoods, living conditions, social capital and access to public services. The report therefore suggests there is a need to design multi-dimensional poverty indicators in order to properly define the severity of urban (and rural) poverty and specific marginalized and vulnerable groups.

 

This report is the result of the third round of urban poverty monitoring in 2010 under the post WTO poverty monitoring initiative of ActionAid Vietnam and Oxfam. Following the first two rounds in 2008 and 2009, research work in 2010 was carried out in collaboration with local partners in several wards/communes in three cities: Hanoi, Hai Phong and Ho Chi Minh in July and August 2010.

 

The research continues to look at the different poor groups such as local poor residents, poor migrants, and the vulnerability of some particular urban social groups. Poor people from these groups continue to face disadvantages and difficulties in reducing poverty. People from migrant groups in particular suffer from even more disadvantages and often are not included in annual poverty reviews. The report therefore recommends that migrants should be identified as an integral part of all urban poverty reduction policies.

 

Urban poverty reduction still faces challenges, such as limited access of the poor to policies supporting vocational training, credit, health and educational services. According to the report, these challenges can be solved by developing a comprehensive welfare policy framework for urban areas towards specific groups with multi-dimensional poverty criteria. Government can also consider formulating a proposal on vocational training for urban labourers, which should be in similar scope and scale to the Proposal on Vocational Training for Rural Labourers that has been approved.

 

To attain sustainable urban poverty reduction and fitness to each group, in addition to the above proposals, the report suggested paying particular attention to the enhancement of social capital of both local residents and migrants in urban poverty reduction efforts, by raising the roles of wards and communes, encouraging sharing, self help and integration among migrants.