World Bank Funds $75M to Help Vietnam Improve Social Welfare Management

The World Bank has funded $75 million to help Vietnam improve its capacity for managing social welfare in the 2013-2015 period, state media reported. The information was released at a conference held by the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs (MoLISA) in Hanoi on May 28 to discuss a project on renovating the social assistance system. The project is to build a management system and conduct social assistance in favour of effective poverty reduction. It will support poor households with children aged 1-15 or above 15 in the four pilot provinces of Ha Giang, Quang Nam, Lam Dong and Tra Vinh. The project aims to narrow assistance policies by offering a package of aid and separating social welfare support for minimum living standards and provision of social security services. It targets to end the overlapping of social policies which have led to losses in human resources and irregular support for the beneficiaries. Up to 2.65 million people have so far got access to regular social assistance policies, 5.5 times higher than the figure of 2006. Social welfare spending averaged VND95 trillion per year, or 6.6% of gross domestic product (GDP), from 2003 to 2011. Vietnam is home to 432 social sponsor centers, which are taking care of 42,000 disadvantaged and homeless people. (Thanh Nien –Young People May 29 p2, baodientu.chinhphu.vn May 28)