Ha Noi, 28 February 2022 – The launch of the Joint UNDP-MOLISA-DFAT project: “Programme development and policy advising on multidimensional and sustainable poverty reduction, 2021 – 2023”; and signing the memorandum of understanding between UNDP and National Coordination Office for Poverty Reduction, Ministry of Labour – Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA), took place in Ha Noi this afternoon.

Witnessing the signing ceremony, Vice Minister of MOLISA Lê Văn Thanh highly appreciated in the field of poverty reduction of UNDP, the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), and the National Office on Poverty Reduction. Vice Minister Le Van Thanh noted: “In implementation of the Prime Minister’s Decision No. 90/QD-TTg approving the National Target Program on Sustainable Poverty Reduction in the 2021-2025 period, MOLISA look forward to strengthening bilateral and multilateral cooperation with international partners to successfully implement the objective of reducing multidimensional poverty in a inclusive and sustainable manner, toward reducing poverty in all dimensions, for all people, everywhere, at all time”.

The Program has many more innovative core points in relative to the 2016-2020 period. The new Program applies a strategy to focus investment in people, with direct investment in developing capacity for the poor. It clearly identifies the causes of poverty in order to radically and thoroughly solve the problems of the poor and the extremely poor areas.

The Program deploys investment with focus and sustainability, focusing on poor districts and communes with special difficulties in coastal areas and islands. Priority is given to supporting poor ethnic minority households, poor households with members providing meritorious services to the Revolution, and children and women from poor households.

In addition, the method of supporting the poor has also changed, moving from fragmented livelihoods support to each household to focusing on supporting poor households by connecting with the models of arranging production that are suitable to the situation of the local areas, needs of poor households by developing and replicating models and projects for poverty reduction to support the development of production, business, service, tourism, start-up, and entrepreneurship to create jobs, sustainable livelihoods, good incomes, improve life quality and adapt to climate change and epidemics for the poor; contributing to realizing the goals of economic restructuring, labor restructuring, promotion of the nation's cultural values, environmental protection, economic growth and sustainable poverty reduction goals.

The Program also focuses on supporting the poor to solve the most critical issues such as livelihoods, vocational training, employment, and stable income. It adds a number of projects, sub-projects, new components such as developing vocational education, decent work, housing, improving nutrition, communicating and replicating poverty reduction initiatives and arousing the will of poor people and poor communities to get out of poverty; applying information technology in reviewing, monitoring and managing poor and near-poor households.

“Australia is committed to supporting sustainable and inclusive growth in Vietnam. The UNDP-MOLISA partnership that is officially launched today is part of Australia’s commitment.  We value this partnership as it has led to innovative solutions for poverty reduction to be embedded in government programs and policies,” said Australian Ambassador to Viet Nam Robyn Mudie.

The Joint UNDP-MOLISA-DFAT project: “Programme development and policy advising on multidimensional and sustainable poverty reduction, 2021 – 2023” has provided technical support for MOLISA in:

• researching and developing the Poverty Reduction Program for the period 2021-2025 with many innovative contents and context relevance; studying mechanisms to support the community to promote their internal strength in a more efficient way; applying innovative solutions that have been successfully tested to help reduce poverty in a fast and sustainable manner with different projects under the Program which support livelihood development and income generation; engaging businesses in developing value chains and working with people to improve livelihoods;
• studying and finalizing the poverty line and instruments for multi-dimensional poverty measurement for the period 2021 - 2025 which are relevant to Vietnam; and
• researching and proposing solutions to support the poor affected by the Covid-19 pandemic; digital transformation in the field of poverty reduction, piloting software application to support the poor to self-identify the poverty status of their households.

“This project demonstrates the commitment from UNDP to support MOLISA in their vision to deliver the National Targeted Programme on Sustainable Poverty Reduction. Our tried and tested innovative solutions will be applied more widely to help meet the NTP’s objective of reducing the number of poor and near-poor households by half by 2025,” said UNDP Resident Representative in Viet Nam Caitlin Wiesen.

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Media Contact:

Nguyen Viet Lan, UNDP Communication Lead

Email: nguyen.viet.lan@undp.org | Tel: 0914436769