"Increase lending, decrease giving."

The Committee for Ethnic Minorities Affairs is developing a specific policy plan to support socio-economic development in ethnic minority and mountainous regions for the period 2016-2020, aiming to address pressing socio-economic difficulties for poor households in these areas.

According to Deputy Minister and Vice Chairman of the Committee for Ethnic Minorities Affairs, Son Phuoc Hoan, the mountainous and ethnic minority regions have great potential in agriculture, forestry, and mining, and are strategic areas for national defense and security. However, they also face many difficulties, with the highest poverty rate in the country; they are directly affected by climate change and frequently experience natural disasters and epidemics. These areas are also often directly impacted by the construction of hydroelectric, irrigation, and mining projects. Without specific support policies, it will be difficult for the people to stabilize and develop.

Providing water tanks to impoverished people in Nghia Dan. Photo: Minh Thai.

The Committee for Ethnic Minorities Affairs proposed developing a specific policy by integrating policies that expired in 2015 but whose objectives were not fully achieved into a single decision by the Prime Minister, hoping that this program will be an important component of ethnic affairs work in the 2016-2020 period.

Ethnic policies in the new phase will be developed in a long-term direction, clearly distinguishing between strategic policies and policies addressing pressing, situational issues; and approaching poverty reduction from a multi-dimensional perspective. Accordingly, on the one hand, the plan focuses on resolving the most difficult and pressing problems of ethnic minorities and mountainous communities; on the other hand, it creates momentum for poor households to develop economically and socially, encourages people to participate in commodity production to achieve sustainable poverty reduction, improves education and the quality of human resources, and ensures national defense, security, and social order.

Providing support for rattan cultivation for the project "Expanding the rattan value chain development for poor women and ethnic minorities in Nghe An".

The policy focuses on supporting housing and production land, vocational training, job creation, access to clean water; resettlement and stabilization of the population; and credit support... The policy will be integrated to reduce the number of documents from 7-8 to just one, allowing for more proactive implementation and greater resource allocation. Emphasis will be placed on increasing loans and reducing grants, while strongly decentralizing power to local authorities for more effective implementation.

The policy aims to contribute to reducing the poverty rate in ethnic minority and mountainous areas by 3.5-4% annually; provide employment and production land for 80% of ethnic minority households lacking production land; address the shortage of clean water for daily use; resettle and relocate households still practicing nomadic or spontaneous migration; and help ethnic minorities better access preferential credit... Therefore, although there is overlap in content, because the programs have not yet covered all areas and still miss some target groups, this policy targets poor people and particularly disadvantaged areas not yet targeted by other programs and policies. For example, a review revealed that more than 500,000 households still need clean water, and more than 300,000 households lack housing and production land and need training and vocational retraining.

According to danviet.vn