Challenges to Rural Poverty Reduction in Viet Nam - Oxfam Blogs

Participatory poverty monitoring in rural communities in Viet Nam
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live in very low-lying land, on the banks or edges of streams, and on mountain slopes
are vulnerable. Most poor households are short of food between harvests, and when
faced with natural disasters food is even more scarce. Poor ethnic minority groups are
particularly vulnerable as they have minimal proficiency in the Vietnamese language,
lack audio-visual devices, and have limited access to information on natural disasters.
Some households choose not to move from dangerous areas due to their practice of
upland farming and the advantages of living close to water sources. When men work
away from home women and the elderly are forced to cope with natural disasters alone.
People living in isolation. These include those newly arrived in the commune, recently
separated households, households with upland fields and elderly or sick members who
are unable to return home every day and households who rely on forests for a living.
Isolated households in ethnic minority areas often live in temporary houses and have
limited access to crucial infrastructure and services (for example, electricity, water,
schools and health care). They also tend to participate less in in community activities. It
is difficult to communicate and disseminate policies and laws to these households.
People with limited or no productive land. This is a difficulty faced by poor Kh’mer
people in the Mekong River Delta. Due to a lack of productive land, most Kh’mer work
away from home or are engaged in local casual jobs. The Government issued Decision
74 on allocating residential land and farmland to poor ethnic minority households in the
Mekong River Delta. However, the Decision has not been implemented effectively in
Thuan Hoa commune-Tra Vinh, as there is no fertile land for sale and banks are slow to
grant credit. Local authorities have unsuccessfully sought to encourage households to
breed livestock.
Drug use, is a particular problem for the Thai in Luong Minh-Nghe An and Thanh Xuong-
Dien Bien. In Luong Minh-Nghe An, improved roads have caused the spread of drug use
to remote Kh’Mu villages. Households with drug users are disadvantaged in a number
of ways. Drug users tend to sell household property and spend household income on
drugs. Households lack labour. As the majority of drug users are men, women face an
extra burden, and some children give up school in order to support their family. At
present, community-based detoxification measures are ineffective. Almost 100% of
people taking part in short-term detoxification in the two surveyed communes (Luong
Minh-Nghe An, Thanh Xuong-Dien Bien) relapsed. In Thanh Xuong-Dien Bien, the Dien
Bien Provincial HIV/AIDS Centre has since 2010 piloted the use of methadone with some
initial success.
The near-poor
Adequate support policies are not available for the near-poor or those who
have just escaped from poverty. A “near-poor” household has an average per
capita income within 130% of the income poverty line. In mountainous ethnic minority
areas, near-poor households often have unstable incomes as agricultural production is
dependent on weather conditions, and seasonal labour. In addition, the near-poor are
vulnerable to changing prices, illness and the high cost of education.