6 priority areas calling for funding for new rural areas

On May 14, in Hanoi, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the International Support Group (ISG) organized the Coordination Forum on financing for new rural construction in Vietnam.

At the Forum, 6 priority areas need to call for support from the international community, including supporting agricultural production to increase income for rural residents; activities to improve the cultural and spiritual life of rural people; measures to protect the environment, resources, and prevent climate change; supporting poverty reduction activities through solutions to create livelihoods and jobs; organizational innovation activities through mobilizing public-private partnerships, attracting business investment in rural areas; supporting activities to improve policy quality through research, analysis, and drawing experience from practical models.

Speaking at the Forum, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Cao Duc Phat said that over the period of implementing the National Target Program on New Rural Development, many localities have promoted their internal resources to achieve good results. For example, a poor province like Tuyen Quang has mobilized people to build more than 1,000km of rural roads in two years.

However, Minister Cao Duc Phat said that the Program still has many issues that need to be considered for adjustment in terms of policy mechanisms and implementation solutions, especially in terms of developing agricultural production and increasing income for rural residents.

Producing handicraft products from rattan and bamboo creates jobs and stable income for local workers. (Photo: Dinh Hue/VNA)

In 2013, localities nationwide strive to have 200 communes meeting all 19 criteria and 2,000 communes officially recognized as new rural communes by 2015. The Minister expressed that learning from international experience in rural development is very important.

Currently, Vietnam also creates opportunities for dialogue between partners participating in construction, supporting development, sharing difficulties and challenges as well as creating new motivation for new rural construction.

According to Mr. Nguyen Minh Tien, Deputy Director of the Department of Economic Cooperation, many new policies have been issued and amended to suit the process of building new rural areas in recent times.

With the special investment mechanism as in Decision 498, small-scale projects reduce many steps in design and project approval according to the current process of infrastructure, leading to savings in time and costs.

Currently, nearly 96% of communes have implemented new rural planning and nearly 84% of communes have approved general planning. The limitation is that the quality of planning projects is still low due to simultaneous implementation, lack of regional planning, connectivity, mainly focusing on infrastructure and not paying attention to production development, environment and culture.

Solutions in many projects are impractical and lack clear resources, such as projects costing up to 300-400 billion VND, which are very difficult to solve.

Representing bilateral donors, Mr. Jean-Marc Gravellini, Director of the French Development Agency (AFD) in Hanoi, shared that AFD's strategy for Vietnam's agriculture is to support a deep and reasonable growth model, create jobs and use resources effectively.

During the period 2013-2015, AFD supported the modernization of production sectors that have an impact on the environment and society; improved quality, productivity and integration of agricultural sectors; and promoted high-quality vocational training.

Mr. Henning Pedersen, Chief Representative of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) in Vietnam, assessed that the process of building new rural areas is still limited in improving people's livelihoods, and has little connection with large funding programs such as the World Bank and IFAD.

According to Mr. Henning Pedersen, the new rural initiative has been successful in mobilizing significant resources from localities for infrastructure. However, the program does not seem to address the issue of hunger eradication and poverty reduction, with mainly communes with good conditions being selected to achieve the goals in the province.

IFAD recommends that the Government of Vietnam strengthen local market-oriented approaches, encourage innovation in planning with private sector participation and apply value chains. Support poor people to access markets through infrastructure upgrading and market identification. Improve financial services and rural business development.../.

According to (TTXVN) - LT