Changing Criteria to Advance New Countryside Development

After having met new countryside standards, many localities are now unable to figure out ongoing directions to continue new countryside construction. Even, some are making light of the issue and satisfied with their achieved results.

According to the Central Coordinating Office for New Countryside Development, 51 centrally governed provinces and cities have issued their model criteria for new countryside. However, some criteria are not suitable to locally and regionally indigenous characteristics (e.g. in the northern mountainous region, the Mekong Delta and the Central Highlands). Therefore, the Prime Minister decided to amend some criteria of the National Target Program on New Countryside Development (adjusting five out of 19 criteria).

The Prime Minister has assigned the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to work with concerned ministries and agencies to elaborate the Investment Policy Report on the National Target Program on New Countryside Development in 2021-2025 with specific objectives and criteria focusing on sustainability, response to climate change, urbanization, improved material and spiritual life of rural people: Completing and upgrading the infrastructure system for inclusive rural socioeconomic development linked to urban areas, effectively carrying out agricultural restructuring together with a new countryside construction to form a modern agriculture, ensuring environmental protection and improving rural landscape, raising healthcare quality, education and cultural and sports, preserving and promoting traditional cultural values, and maintaining political security and social order and safety in rural areas.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development issued guidance for advanced new countryside criteria and the Provincial People’s Committee introduced specific targets matching local characteristics to build action plans and assess work results, and recognize and announce communes certified to meet advanced new countryside standards. Mr. Nguyen Minh Tien, Director General of the Central Coordinating Office for New Countryside Development, said, “The introduction of model new countryside commune criteria is considered a new milestone and direction to realize the quality and sustainability quality in new countryside construction. At the same time, new countryside construction is a regular, continuous process, with a starting point but no ending point.”

Mr. Nguyen Nam Cuong, Deputy Director of the Phu Tho Coordinating Office for the National Target Program on New Countryside Development, said, advanced model new countryside criteria are designed for communes and residential areas certified to meet new countryside standards. Accordingly, certified communes must fulfill advanced criteria for new countryside construction, which consist of 17 criteria in five domains: Social and economic infrastructure, rural economic development and people's life improvement, education - health - culture, environmental landscape, security and order - public administration. Similarly, 13 criteria and 30 advanced targets are applied to model new rural residences recognized to meet new countryside standards and to rural residences in communes recognized to meet new countryside standards.

Mr. Le Tuan Quoc, Vice Chairman of the Ba Ria - Vung Tau Provincial People’s Committee, said, “After nearly 10 years of implementation, the National Target Program on New Countryside Development has given a new face and new vitality to rural areas. In particular, agricultural production has gradually linked households, shifted to commercial production, and created product value chains. Assisted by new countryside models, Ba Ria - Vung Tau province has successfully drawn household farms, large-scale farms, cooperatives, and businesses to invest in local agriculture and these models are growing.” Based on its achieved results, the province will continue to offer many creative solutions and associate new countryside construction with agricultural restructuring, with a focus on high-tech applications. At the same time, the province will introduce best approaches to each locality.

During operation, some criteria are unsuitable for local conditions. For example, the 5-star standards will be difficult to apply to OCOP products (One Commune One Product). Moreover, not all localities have OCOP products. Or criteria of farmer income are still inappropriate. The requirement for hardened traffic routes in rural areas will be difficult to achieve and it is not necessary to harden all traffic routes (concreted/ asphalted) in rural areas. Thus, criteria must be adapted to each locality.

In general, representatives of local new countryside offices said that, to accomplish the goal of building a new countryside in 2021-2025, it is necessary to boldly empower localities to focus on what is best to them. Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Tran Thanh Nam said, basically, 19 criteria will not change much but will mainly be adapted to match practical conditions, especially in disadvantaged areas. However, the level and quality of standards such as income, poverty reduction, education, labor, environment, security and order will not be lowered to ensure that the new countryside construction is effective, he asserted.

Source: Vietnam Business Forum