STRENGTHENING RESULT-ORIENTED FOCUS

THROUGH PARTICIPATORY POVERTY REDUCTION

Dr. Duong Duc Ung

Director General

Foreign Economic Relations Department

Ministry of Planning and Investment

Vietnam

Dear Mr. Chairman,

Distinguished delegates,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I would like to express our sincere thanks to the Organizers for their kind invitation to Vietnamese delegation to this significant round-table conference.

Following up the Monterey Conference in Mexico and the first round-table conference in Washington DC. in 2002, the conference today once again demostrates the common interests in and the concerted efforts of the international community to sharing experiences in management of development results for the sake of the poor in the global context full of changes with a lot of difficulties and challenges.

Vietnam is a developing country that is situated in the Southeast Asia with its back resting on Truong Son Mountain Range and its outlook over the Pacific Ocean in the East. Vietnam shares its border with China in the North, Laos PRD in the West and Cambodia in the Northwest. The population of the year 2002 was around 79 million, 70% of which were living in the rural areas.

As affected by a 30-year long-lasting war and by the centralized management mechanism, Vietnamese economy had been in a serious crisis and Vietnamese people had led a very hard life. Over the past 20 years, thanks to the peaceful and stable setting and to the strongly public-supported reform policy (doimoi policy) of the Government, Vietnamese economy has been gradually recovered and strongly developed with increasing GDP growth rates year by year of 7% in 2002 and 7.24% in 2003 respectively.

From a country of chronic shortage of food, Vietnam nowadays can ensure food security for its population of nearly 80 million and becomes the second largest rice exporter in the world.

Currently Vietnam is in the list of the countries of relatively developed foreign trade with its annual export value of USD 210 per capita in 2002.

The Vietnamese macro-economy has been maintained stable over many years, even in context of the international and regional financial crisis in 1997, reflected by a low inflation rate of approximately 4% in 2002, that has provided a favorable environment for attracting foreign direct investment (FDI).

The international donor community have made their continuous and active support to the course of Vietnamese development. In 1993 – 2003 period, the total commitment value of Official Development Assistance (ODA) of the donor community reaches nearly US $ 25 billion.

Thanks to its economic development and the Government development policies for the sake of the poor, Vietnam has recorded the following remarkable social development achievements:

The proportion of poor households by international standard decreased from 60% in 1990 to 32% in 2002. The in-aged enrolment rate for primary school was 91% in 2002. The ratio of mal-nutrition children under five years old fell from 51% in 1990 to 29% in 2002. 52% of rural households were accessible to clean water in 2002.

Though having recorded such significant socio-economic development achievements, Vietnam is yet a poor country with annual GDP per capita of about US $ 440.

In its 10-year Socio-Economic Development Strategy 2001 – 2010, Vietnam’s overall objective is the wealthy people, a strong nation, an equal, democratic and civilized society. This overall objective includes 8 millennium development goals (MDGs) that Vietnam has committed to the international community for its acomplishment.

To achieve the above-mentioned development goals, the Government of Vietnam has conducted its extensive consultation with all of the social strata and international friends for development of the Comprehensive Poverty Reduction and Growth Strategy (CPRGS). This is a uniform and comprehensive literature that concretizes the objectives, mechanisms, policies and measures for the economic growth and poverty reduction of the country in the 10-year period of 2001 – 2010.

Distinguished delegates!

Poverty is regarded as an urgent and burning issue to every country in the world. Poverty reduction is a process that requires the participation of all nations, both developed and developing countries, and of all social strata, both the rich and the poor.

As mentioned above Vietnam has a CPRGS on its own. This CPRGS has been implemented through various targeted national programmes of the country such as:

-  Programme No. 135: This programme concentrates on provision of assistance to the poor communes (over 2,000 poor communes) by making investment for construction of essential infrastructure works like rural transport roads, small-scale irrigation works, clean water supply, rural power distribution networks, schools, heath care services and highland markets, etc.

-  Poverty Reduction and Job Creation Programme: This programme consists of measures for ago-forestry extension, providing guidance to the poor the way of doing business through transfer of technology sharing of experience in production and providing credits.

-  5 million hectares Afforestation Programme: This programme provides credits and financial support to the farmers for afforestration combined with provision of land and forests to the farmers for their management.

-  Education Programme: This programme aims to provide physical and technical basis to schools, to eliminate illiteracy, to popularize lower secondary education and to develop human resources with strong emphasis given to assistance to education in the disadvantage, mountainous and ethnic minority areas.

-  Programme on eliminating some dangerous social diseases and epidemics such as malaria, tuberculosis, HIV-AIDS, open vaccination and mal-nutrition prevention for children.

-  Population and Family Planning Programme: This programme aims to supply medical equipment for hospitals, to provide population and development education and to build capacity for reproductive heath care and management.

A number of additional programmes and specific measures have also been carried out to support the implementation of CPRGS.

Besides, the donors in Vietnam like WB, ADB, Japan, EU and its member countries, other donors and various international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) have been actively supporting Vietnam to implement CPRGS.

It is from Vietnamese experience that the participation of community in process of development in general and of the poverty reduction in particular is pre-requisite conditions to ensure the achievement of development successes.

In process of implementing the targeted national programmes and the projects funded by donors, the Government of Vietnam always places an emphasis on ownership and participation of beneficiaries. For instance, under the Programme No.135 each selected poor commune receives the funding of some US $ 30,000 from the State Budget. The commune government consults with local community when selecting the investment works (transport or irrigation systems, etc.) and self-manages implementation process with supervision of the local community. Besides, the local community also contributes their supplementary resources to the implementation of the programmes/ projects.

The central and local government at all levels and the donors should facilitate the beneficiaries to exercise the ownership and encourage their participation by adopting following specific measures:

-  Delegating more authority to grassroots level from identification to monitoring and evaluation and operation and maintenance of the programmes/projects.

-  Making publicity and transparency of regulations and procedures, especially in financial aspects.

-  Building capacity for all levels.

-  Ensuring democracy and accountability at all levels.

Dear Mr. Chairman

Ladies and Gentlemen

To manage the development results, Vietnam pays great attention to monitoring and evaluation of programmes/projects. At present, with the technical assistance from Australian Government, Vietnam is developing a monitoring and evaluation system for ODA-funded programmes/projects with an expectation that this will be a basis for harmonization between Vietnam and donors in this area.

Vietnam highly appreciates the Marrakesh Roundtable Conference and regards this event as a significant contribution to management capacity building for development result for the sake of the poor.

Thank you for your attention!

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