Challenges to Rural Poverty Reduction in Viet Nam - Oxfam Blogs

Participatory poverty monitoring in rural communities in Viet Nam
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In some places, market factors have eroded social capital. In lowland communes
the use of services and mechanization has reduced the practice of labour exchange.
Well-off households who have more land tend to hire labour and mechanization services.
In places where people work away from home, the effective operation of local groups
is a major challenge. The attendance of weddings, death anniversaries, grand birthdays,
and regular birthdays now requires “gift money”, a heavy burden for poor households.
Land acreage and quality is an important poverty dimension. Population growth
and changing land use is putting pressure on available land in mountainous ethnic
minority areas. New households, or households that lack labour tend to own the poorest
quality land as fertile land and land close to water sources are already occupied. In
lowland areas the re-division of land in the early 1990s means land remains evenly
distributed. However, those born since the 1990s, or women from outside the province
newly married to local men do not have access to productive land.
Programme 30a aims to grant the poor access to productive and forest land. However,
its impact has been limited as there is little available fertile land that can be reclaimed, a
lack of funding for granting of land use right certificates and for documenting contracted
land and protected forest.
Natural resources, important to ethnic minorities, are increasingly scarce. Ethnic
minorities in remote areas rely on natural resources such as rattan, bamboo, bamboo
shoots, leaves, forest vegetables, fish, and wild animals for domestic consumption and
sale. Shrinking forests and increased forest protection means hunting and gathering are
increasingly restricted.
Concessional credit policies have improved access to capital. In 2009 the average
loan was 12 million VND. In 2011 it was 15 million VND (Table 2.15).
TABLE 2.15. Bank loans and purchase on credit, 2009-2011
Commune
Percent of HHs
having outstanding
bank loans (%)
Average bank
loans (million VND)
Percent of HHs
purchasing on
credit from
shops/agents (%)
2009 2011 2009 2011 2009 2011
Thuan Hoa 56 43 8 11 13 8
Ban Lien 68 63 9 13 12 22
Thanh Xuong 52 35 9 17 43 20
Luong Minh 80 90 8 10 42 58
Duc Huong 73 71 20 29 60 56
Xy 35 35 12 8 48 45
Cu Hue 43 41 18 18 55 62
Phuoc Dai 50 52 12 13 42 49
Phuoc Thanh 58 55 12 13 65 68
Thuan Hoa 63 68 10 13 37 50
Average 58 55 12 15 42 44
SOURCE: Household interviews