Sustainable poverty reduction - awakening people's will to rise up

(Baonghean) - In recent years, with the drastic participation of the entire political system and society, the poverty rate in Nghe An has decreased rapidly, with an average decrease of 3% per year, equivalent to 20,000 households. However, poverty reduction is showing a lack of sustainability, because the rate of households falling back into poverty and newly poor households is still high.

Industrial sewing training creates conditions for youth in Quy Chau district to escape poverty. Photo: Tran Ngoc Lan

Rapid poverty reduction…

The entire Nghi Loc district currently has 6.1% of poor households, equivalent to 3,070 households, concentrated in communes with difficult economic conditions such as Nghi Van and the coastal communes of Nghi Tien, Nghi Yen, Nghi Quang, Nghi Thiet... To reduce the poverty rate to the current level, according to Vice Chairman of the District People's Committee Tran Huu Lam, along with implementing preferential credit programs for the poor, supporting the poor in housing, health care, learning conditions for children of the poor,... in recent years, the district has focused on supporting the poor in finding jobs. In addition to coordinating with local businesses to hire children, the district has increased coordination with businesses outside the province such as Lilama Corporation in Hai Phong to train and create stable jobs for more than 200 workers and in the near future, the district will also focus on directing in this direction.

Nghi Quang is a commune in the coastal area of ​​Nghi Loc district, with more difficult land and geographical conditions than other localities in the district. At the end of 2013, the commune had 14.1% of poor households, but up to now, after review, there are only 8.99% of poor households, a decrease of 5.11%. The number of poor households eliminated in the year is because those households have children of working age recruited to work in enterprises in Nam Cam Industrial Park, with a total of 575 people (in 2014), of which 250 workers work at BSE Electronics Company, Korea. The condition for further poverty reduction is that in 2014, the commune had 162 more people go abroad to work in some markets with low costs and quick capital recovery, thus contributing to reducing poor households in the whole commune.

Mr. Nguyen Dinh Thanh - Vice Chairman of Nghi Quang Commune People's Committee shared: "The commune creates conditions for poor households with labor to learn forging, welding, carpentry, electronics, and sewing. At the same time, the commune directly works with enterprises in Nam Cam Industrial Park to recruit their children; for those cases where workers are rejected by enterprises, the commune commits to work. The income of the poor after having a job, on average, each worker will earn 3 - 4 million VND/month, enough to eliminate poverty according to the State's poverty standards". Similarly, in Nghi Thiet Commune (Nghi Loc), according to Ms. Nguyen Thi Thuy - the officer in charge of the commune's policy work, from 14.6% of poor households in 2013, now the whole commune has 10.4% of poor households, a reduction of 4.2% of poor households...

In the highland districts, which have a very high poverty rate, the poverty reduction rate has also achieved many positive results, especially in the districts that benefit from the 30a policy such as Ky Son, Tuong Duong, and Que Phong, with an average poverty reduction rate of 6.7% per year. For example, in the highland district of Quy Chau, according to statistics, the poverty rate in 2011 was 57.1%, but by 2014, it had decreased to 45.02%. Currently, according to preliminary statistics, the poverty rate in the district is 41.06%. On a provincial scale, at the end of 2010 and the beginning of 2011, the poverty rate was 22.89%, equivalent to 164,290 poor households; by the end of 2013, the poverty rate was 13.4% with 102,723 households. It is expected that by the end of 2014, the whole province will strive to reduce the poverty rate to about 10 - 11%, reducing about 20,000 poor households compared to 2013. Thus, it can be seen that, despite the economic difficulties in recent years, on average, the whole province has reduced 3% of poor households each year. This is the result of the synchronous implementation of solutions and policies to eliminate hunger, reduce poverty, and create jobs, as well as many activities and movements to help, support, and create conditions for the poor to rise up, which have been widely deployed at every level, every sector, every locality, and the whole society.

Officials of Chau Phong commune (Quy Chau) and Lau village check poor households at the family of Ms. Lu Thi Tien (middle).

... but not sustainable

Although the poverty rate has decreased significantly every year, however, according to statistics from the Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs, on average each year the whole province has 20-25% of households falling back into poverty out of the total number of households escaping poverty due to natural disasters, floods, illness, disease, household separation, etc. Thus, it can be seen that the poverty reduction of the province is still not sustainable, the rate of new poor households is still high, the gap between rich and poor between regions and population groups has not been narrowed. In particular, the rate of poor households in mountainous areas and ethnic minorities is still high, with some districts having nearly 60% of poor households. During the process of fact-finding, we recorded some opinions from the grassroots that the poverty line being applied for the period 2011-2015 is too low. Therefore, some poor households, when they have escaped poverty and are at the border of near-poor or average, are likely to fall back into poverty. Or there are some average and near-poor households that, if they have another child or get sick or in trouble, immediately fall back into poverty! On the other hand, some sustainable and long-term policies such as supporting vocational training and creating jobs for poor households are not really effective.

Mr. Nguyen Dinh Thanh - Vice Chairman of Nghi Quang Commune People's Committee (Nghi Loc) said that to reduce poverty sustainably, it is necessary to create jobs and stable income for the poor. In the past, the commune has implemented a number of models and projects to eliminate hunger and reduce poverty such as: supporting training in rattan and bamboo weaving for export; net weaving; restoring seafood fishing; aquaculture, but in all 4 models above, only the aquaculture model is maintained with 30 households, the rest are "stillborn". Contacting a number of poor households in Nghi Quang and Nghi Thiet communes, it shows that the situation of poor households is very difficult due to lack of labor, lack of jobs, so there is no stable income.

The family of Mr. Nguyen Xuan Que and Ms. Nguyen Thi Thuy, in Thanh Vinh 1 hamlet, Nghi Quang commune, are in their 40s. The family has no land for production, the couple works as bricklayers, with irregular jobs, but they have to support an old mother and 4 school-age children. According to Hamlet Chief Pham Huy Hoang, the current conditions of Mr. Que and Ms. Thuy's family, if they want to escape poverty, they must find suitable jobs and have a more stable income, or when the children finish school, they must find jobs to escape poverty. Among the total of 125 poor households in Nghi Quang commune, there are poor households with members suffering from social evils, especially drug addiction; in particular, over 50% of poor households are elderly people, past working age (60 years old and above), this is a big challenge in the work of hunger eradication and poverty reduction in Nghi Quang commune and Nghi Loc district in general.

In Quy Chau district, Chau Phong commune is an inner-city locality with many difficulties, especially without national grid electricity. According to preliminary statistics, the poverty rate of the commune at the end of 2014 was 47.16%, among the highest in the district. Lau village, Chau Phong commune has 114 households, with 556 people. At the beginning of 2014, the village had 49 poor households. After a year, the recent preliminary review of poor households showed that the number of poor households in the village did not decrease, but increased to 6 households, including 3 newly poor households and 3 households that became poor again. Talking to us, Mr. Lo Van Chanh - Head of the village said: "The reason why the number of poor households did not decrease is because people mainly produce rice, but the total area is only 8.25 hectares, raising buffaloes and cows is also unstable due to the impact of the epidemic". We visited the family of Mr. Lu Van Bao and Ms. Lu Thi Tien, who are among the poorest households in the village. The family has only 4 members, the husband and wife are both of working age, but because they do not have rice fields, they only grow upland rice once a year, yielding 400 kg, and Mr. Bao is sick, so family life is extremely difficult.

In the house built with support from Program 167, Ms. Tien cannot speak or understand the common language, so she has to rely on the village chief to translate: “Every year, I only go to the market at most twice, including once during Tet. Without the support of the State, my two children cannot go to school.” However, poverty here does not simply belong to households with difficult circumstances like Ms. Tien’s family. According to the village chief Lau, a part of the people, although they have the ability to work, still have the mindset of waiting and relying on the State.

In the recent poor household review, there were households that still insisted on being classified as poor households. This was also shared by Mr. Luong Van Hiep, Vice Chairman of Chau Phong Commune: “In addition to the number of households that have fallen back into poverty due to illness, disease or natural disasters, there are still households that cannot escape poverty or fall back into poverty due to the mindset of waiting and relying on others. There are projects to support production development for people, however, after the project is completed, people do not maintain or expand it, so the economy cannot develop”. The reality in Chau Phong Commune, Quy Chau District can be said to be a common situation in mountainous localities. The mindset of waiting and relying on others of a part of the people is creating a major barrier to poverty reduction.

And the solution

Comrade Vi Van Tien - Vice Chairman of Quy Chau District People's Committee said: To sustainably reduce poverty, the district has been focusing on propaganda, mobilization, and raising awareness to eliminate the mindset of waiting and relying on people. However, in addition, policies to support production development need to be focused and synchronized, because currently they are still scattered, many sectors are in charge, so there are small, ineffective implementation models, leading to unsustainable poverty reduction. In particular, support should be focused on in the form of loans to raise the responsibility and awareness of the poor.

Discussing further about sustainable poverty reduction solutions, Mr. Nguyen Bang Toan - Director of the Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs, Deputy Head of the Standing Committee of the Provincial Steering Committee for Hunger Eradication and Poverty Reduction, also said: First of all, it is necessary to make the poor themselves feel responsible, aware of self-improvement in their thinking, working methods, and self-reliance to escape poverty, avoiding the mentality of waiting and relying on the support of the State and the community. Along with that, it is necessary to gradually reduce support policies of a subsidy nature, social assistance according to the "free" mechanism, and strengthen vocational training policies associated with job creation; support production, help the poor to develop production, business, have jobs, regular and stable income; invest in developing infrastructure systems in difficult areas and ethnic minority areas. At the same time, strictly implement the process of assessing poor and near-poor households accurately, on that basis to classify the poor, clearly identify the causes of poverty, thereby having appropriate impacts on each group. In implementing hunger eradication and poverty reduction, each locality needs to specify and be creative in order to effectively implement hunger eradication and poverty reduction mechanisms and policies that are reasonable and suitable to the customs, practices, psychological characteristics, and traditional culture of each region on the basis of respecting opinions and listening to people so that poverty reduction programs and models when applied to the locality are truly vital and highly sustainable.

MINH CHI - NHAT LE