Senior ASEAN officials are gathering at a meeting in Vietnam’s central city of Danang from June 13-14 to seek solutions to sustainable rural development and poverty reduction. During the ninth event, participants discussed ways to achieve rural development and poverty mitigation through food security, livelihood and climate change response strategies in the region. Addressing the meeting, Vietnam’s Deputy Minister for Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Dang Khoa said that rural development, hunger and poverty have always been major concerns for the bloc, adding that they have become more important amid climate change. Though most ASEAN member countries have gained positive achievements in these fields, they still face many challenges, including the global economic downturn, climate change and epidemics, in fulfilling the UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Khoa added. Delegates agreed to further boost cooperation in the future and call for more international support in sustainable rural development and poverty reduction among the ASEAN nations. Vietnam, with a population nearly 90 million people, 80% of whom live in rural areas, has set rural development and poverty reduction as its target areas in the national sustainable development, he elaborated.
Thanks the government’s ceaseless efforts, the average annual income in Vietnam’s rural areas reached $660 per person in 2011, while the rate of poor households dropped to 15.5% last year from 58% in 1993.
In fact, poverty reduction in Vietnam remains an urgent priority as new forms of poverty are emerging, which require new approaches and ideas, experts said. (Vietnamplus.vn June 13, Tien Phong – Pioneer June 14 p2, Cong An Nhan Dan – People’s Police June 14 p4)