The provincial 5-year plan on the national goal program of poverty reduction was 2 times higher than central poverty line. Accordingly, poor households in line with the provincial new poverty line had income from VND800,000 and below per capita per month in rural areas and VND1mil in urban areas. Through an inspection held in early 2011, the entire province had 10,882 poor households and 7,773 sub-poor families. As of Nov. 2011, the whole province had existed 6,549 poor families and 7,580 sub-poor households.
To reach the mentioned results, in the past year the provincial steering board of the national goal program of poverty reduction set out many measures and supportive policies to help needy households and sub-poor families overcome difficulties. Ninh Quoc Binh, vice director of the provincial department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs, said “Implementing the program, we reached some remarkable results. As an industrial province, Binh Duong has strongly lured local and foreign investment capital sources. Possibly speaking, the provincial economic development has greatly impacted on social welfare and the program. In the past year, the province excelled program on job generation and vocational training for rural laborers, offered supportive policies on healthcare, education, culture and accommodation for needy households”.
The program on job generation and vocational training for rural laborers is considered as basic solution to help the poor escape poverty sustainably. In 2011 alone, expense for the program was at VND4.9bil. Vocational training centers across the province held 56 vocational classes for rural laborers. In addition, the province launched a preferential credit program for disadvantaged families to help them develop household business.
A poor household enjoys a hi-unity house.
In the past year, the provincial Bank for Social Policies disbursed an over VND23,200bil loan for 6,854 poor households. From the “Fund for the poor”, additional 149 hi-unity houses were built newly.
Along with the program, the local administration implemented many supportive policies on healthcare, education and culture for the poor. In 2011, the province granted 53,783 health insurance cards worth VND16.919bil to the poor and 2,864 cards worth 132.500mil to sub-poor households. In addition, poor and sub-poor families’ children enjoyed school fee reduction and exemption with the total value of over VND17bil…
Possibly speaking, the provincial goal program on poverty reduction won positive changes by models and measures in conformity with socio-economic development in every locality. The program’s activities focused on job generation, improvement on intellectual standards of the people, launch effective production models to ensure its efficiency.
From these solutions and supportive policies, authorities, mass bodies and local poor people’s efforts declined poverty rate at 2.58% in 2011-end. With the results, it is believed that the national goal program on poverty reduction for the 2011-2015 period in the province will be completed soon.
Reported by H.Thuan – Translated by A.C
