Ready to apply multidimensional poverty standards

From the period 2016 - 2020, the multidimensional poverty standard has been officially applied. This is considered a major change that contributes to sustainable poverty reduction and opens a new turning point in awareness in poverty reduction work. Regarding this issue, the reporter had an interview with Deputy Minister of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs Nguyen Trong Dam.

PV: The multidimensional poverty reduction approach is considered a major change in the perspective on poverty reduction. However, there are opinions that the time for application is nearing completion and there are still difficulties in implementation?

Deputy Minister Nguyen Trong Dam. (Photo: Hoang Long)

Deputy Minister Nguyen Trong Dam:The Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs is not confused in implementing multidimensional poverty. Although the multidimensional poverty standard has not been officially applied since January 1, 2016, the Ministry has sent documents to the People's Committees of provinces and cities to guide the process of investigating poor and near-poor households.

Accordingly, provinces and localities will identify and compile a list of poor and near-poor households according to the criteria specified in Decision No. 59/2015/QD-Tg dated November 19, 2015 of the Prime Minister nationwide to implement poverty reduction and social security policies in the period 2016 - 2020. By December, the whole country will conduct a review and investigation. It is expected that by the end of the first quarter of 2016, the review of poor and near-poor households according to the new standards will be completed.

It can be seen that identifying poor and near-poor households according to the new criteria is not simple. So what method will the Ministry use to limit the "ask for and give" mechanism when evaluating, Deputy Minister?

- If in the past we conducted policy reviews and poor household reviews by finding poor households, now we will apply the method of letting people register themselves. From the available criteria and forms, people can read and compare them to register themselves to see what threshold their household is at.

However, I emphasize that allowing people to register themselves does not mean that registration will be reviewed as it is, but must go through a public review and evaluation process. The list of poor and near-poor households must be publicly posted in places where people can easily access such as: Community activity houses, village chief's houses, etc.

Within 7 working days, if there are no complaints from the people, the Chairman of the Commune People's Committee will compile a list of poor and near-poor households in the commune for each village.

In particular, to avoid the situation of "asking - giving", if there are complaints from people about the investigation results not reflecting reality, the higher-level Investigation Steering Committee must re-examine the investigation results of poor and near-poor households in necessary areas, and publicly announce them to the people before the Commune People's Committee carries out procedures to recognize poor and near-poor households in the area.

Furthermore, I would also like to emphasize that the identification of poor and near-poor households is not only through self-registration by the people but also involves the participation of the investigation force. This is a force with experience in investigation and survey, understanding of household characteristics, familiar with the survey area and familiar with the language of ethnic minorities.

By combining these two methods, I believe that we will limit the situation where the truly poor cannot enter while the non-poor receive support and preferential loans.

Free medical examination and medicine for the poor. (Illustration photo).

This means that resources and human resources will increase when applying the multidimensional poverty standard. So in the current budget context, will the application of the new multidimensional poverty standard cause a budget burden for the state?

- In recent years, we have implemented synchronous and drastic solutions, thanks to which the poverty rate decreased from 14.2% in 2011 to below 4.5% in 2015, and the poverty rate in poor districts decreased from 58.3% to about 28%. Looking back over the past 20 years, our country has had about 30 million people escape poverty. This is an outstanding achievement of the renovation process, highly appreciated by the whole society and the international community.

However, the current practice of determining a single-dimensional poverty line based solely on income has revealed limitations, failing to fully reflect the status of access to basic social services; the classification, assessment, identification of poor people and the development of poverty reduction policies lack comprehensiveness. Therefore, the shift to a multidimensional poverty approach is an inevitable requirement.

According to initial calculations, with the multidimensional poverty standard, in which the income criterion is 700 thousand VND/person/month in rural areas and 900 thousand VND/person/month in urban areas, the current poverty rate is about 12%, the near-poor rate is about 6% and the budget for implementing policies to support the poor and near-poor in 2016 is expected to increase by about 15 thousand billion VND compared to 2015.

However, regarding the implementation human resources, I affirm that there is no increase. We still use the same steering committee, the old team does not create additional apparatus, staff and no administrative issues. Although the process of surveying and investigating poor households has added investigators and monitoring teams, this force includes commune, village, hamlet level cadres, village chiefs, union cadres...

Leaders of the Department of Transport give breeding goats to the poor in Keng Du commune, Ky Son district.

However, there are still opinions that the approach to multidimensional poverty at this stage is still early. What is the Deputy Minister's opinion on this issue?

- Applying multidimensional poverty criteria to Vietnam in the period of 2016 - 2020 is appropriate, not too early and not too late. In fact, we already have multidimensional impact policies affecting the people. In previous periods, we only measured income but all those below the income standard enjoyed other policies.

The only difference now is that we measure so as not to miss out. Because there are people who are above the income standard but in reality lack basic social services. With the new concept, they are considered poor.

Previously, we had implemented other national target programs such as health insurance, clean water... Now we integrate it into the development of a set of indicators. This is a very scientific method and suitable for the goals we set.

Thank you very much, Deputy Minister!

According to Vntinnhanh.vn