Reviewing policies to support the poor

Chairing the Standing Committee meeting of the Central Steering Committee on rapid and sustainable poverty reduction on the afternoon of October 13, Deputy Prime Minister Vu Van Ninh emphasized that changing the approach of measuring poverty from one-dimensional to multidimensional requires a review of policies to support poor households in the most general way, because policies for poor households and poor people are currently in almost all areas such as health, education, and agriculture.

Currently, the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs is coordinating with the Ministry of Planning and Investment and related ministries and branches to develop criteria such as minimum living standards, policy poverty standards, average living standards (in terms of income); standards for poor households, near-poor households, households with insufficient access to basic social services... to submit to the Prime Minister for promulgation, as a basis for implementing poverty reduction and social security policies for the period 2016 - 2020.

Deputy Prime Minister Vu Van Ninh emphasized that changing the approach of measuring poverty from one dimension to a multidimensional one requires a review of policies to support poor households in the most general way, because policies for poor households and poor people are currently in almost all areas such as health, education, agriculture, etc.

Poor households in Tam Quang commune received breeding cows for livestock development donated by the Viettel Military Telecommunications Group in Nghe An. Photo: PV.

After the review, there will be comparisons to find out the shortcomings or “gaps” in the policies that have not fully supported the poor. Deputy Prime Minister Vu Van Ninh requested relevant ministries to promptly complete some contents on financial balance and social impact assessments of the plans to submit to the Government for consideration.

To determine the poverty line and methods of supporting poor households in the coming period according to the project "Converting poverty measurement approach from unidimensional to multidimensional applied for the period 2016-2020" which has just been approved by the Prime Minister, requires a thorough overall review of policies but must keep up with the reality of life to soon implement policies for the poor.

Develop a poverty line for the 2016-2020 period in the direction of combining both income poverty lines and the level of lack of access to basic social services; develop a minimum living standard to gradually ensure social security for all people, initially applying the policy poverty line to classify poor households, in accordance with the ability to balance the budget./.

According to VOV