Viet Nam has led the way for low-income developing countries committed to rapid and sustained poverty reduction. However, Viet Nam has now achieved lower middle-income status, and has ambitions to achieve upper middle-income status before the end of the decade. In this context, it is worth asking if Viet Nam could learn lessons from the experiences of other middle- and high-income countries that have combined rapid income growth with low levels of inequality and sustained reductions in absolute and relative poverty.

This paper considers some of these lessons and their relevance to the development context in Viet Nam. The paper is structured as follows. After a brief review of the context of poverty reduction in Viet Nam, the paper summarizes lessons from international experience that could be of interest to policy makers in Viet Nam. The final section offers some policy recommendations and concludes.

(As published in the National Assembly’s Bulletin, issue No. 02/2023, titled “Reference information on the implementation of the National Target Programme on Sustainable Poverty Reduction for the 2021-2025 period”.)