Thanks to the joint determination and effort of the entire political system, business community and people from all ethnic groups in the province, the rate of poor households in Yen Bai province has been reduced to 7.04% following the five-year implementation of the National Target Programme for Sustainable Poverty Reduction, ranking the province 12th nationwide.
During the 2016 – 2020 period, the annual average rate of poverty reduction reached 5.03% in the province and 7.66% in the areas of ethnic minority groups.
Yen Bai province has drawn several lessons learnt from the implementation of the National Target Programme for Sustainable Poverty Reduction in the 2016-2020 period, including:
First, Party committees and authorities at all level must pay attention to directing the work of poverty reduction, identifying the work as an important, regular and long-term political task as well as the responsibility of the political system and entire society.
Second, the poor and poor households must be placed at the centre of poverty reduction activities. Measures must be taken to fundamentally change the thinking, perception and actions of cadres, party members and the entire society so that people can promote their self-reliance and capacity and actively make their every effort to escape poverty.
Third, we must clearly identify the subjective and objective reasons of poverty, regularly review, evaluate and analyse the current situation of poor and near-poor households in the province in order to build a poverty reduction plan, which includes fundamental, methodical, and synchronous solutions and creative and flexible methods to address problems and bottlenecks in a timely fashion and comprehensively support people to escape poverty.
Fourth, the poverty reduction programme must be implemented synchronously with the new-style rural building programme and other support programmes with a focus on improving livelihoods, developing production, increasing incomes, and facilitating access to basic and essential social services for the poor. Supportive policies must be designed scientifically and reasonably so that they can be easily deployed among poor and near-poor households.
Fifth, in addition to working out solutions to support production, development and increasing incomes for the poor, priority should be given to developing infrastructure, particularly in healthcare, education, vocational training, and job creation for rural workers in poor districts, disadvantaged and ethnic minority areas.
Sixth, in a mountainous province with a high rate of poor households and difficult local socio-economic conditions, it is necessary to mobilise and effectively use resources for poverty reduction, including both State and non-State resources.
The Resolution of the 19th Provincial Party Congress for the 2020-2025 period targets rapid and sustainable development and an annual rate of poverty reduction of over 4% per year. The provincial People’s Committee has made several proposals for successful poverty reduction:
First, proposing the Government soon submit the National Target Programme for Sustainable Poverty Reduction for the 2021-2025 period to the National Assembly for approval. The Government, Prime Minister, ministries and sectors must devise detailed directions to implement the programme.
Second, proposing the Party Central Committee continue its care of and spending in mountainous areas, with priority given to transport networks, electricity systems, and projects on forecasting, warning, preventing and combating natural disasters and responding to climate change.
Third, the northern mountainous region is home to a large population of ethnic minority groups with a high rate of forest coverage and of poor households at the same time. As people’s livelihoods are mostly based on forestry, the Party Central Committee should work out specific policies to support the localities to integrate the goals of poverty reduction and forest protection.
Fourth, proposing the Party Central Committee promulgate a new resolution on orientations for socio-economic development, ensuring national defence and security in the northern midland and mountainous regions for the coming period so that localities in the region can soon implement it, thus narrowing any developmental gap with other regions in the country.
