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| Two ethnic minority women mill rice – PHOTO: VNA |
With support from the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the project is expected to help Vietnam establish an ecosystem that incentivizes the faster scale up of successful models for poverty reduction among the ethnic minorities in upcoming governmental programs and investments.
Particularly, the project will provide policy advice and technical assistance to CEMA and the participating provinces to realize the objective of the National Target Program in reducing the number of communes going through extreme hardships by 50% by 2025 and bring the number to zero by 2030.
According to UNDP, the high level and persistence of poverty among the ethnic minority groups presented a key challenge for the country to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
Ambassador of Australia to Vietnam Robyn Mudie said Australia is committed to working with partners to support the sustainable and inclusive growth of Vietnam.
“The partnership that we support and kick-off today is part of this long term commitment to make sure that new and innovative solutions in poverty reduction are embedded into and scaled up by the Government’s programs and policies for the benefit of the poor and the disadvantaged, including women and men from ethnic minority groups,” she said.
As part of the project, Son La and Lao Cai provinces will support ethnic minority women and men, local governments and private enterprises in identifying and experimenting innovative solutions and implementing successfully tested solutions to accelerate multidimensional poverty reduction.
The project will also build on the success of the UNDP’s work in Bac Kan and Dak Nong provinces through which ethnic minority women-led cooperatives successfully applied the e-commerce, e-marketing and e-payment tools and advantages of local traditional and organic products to expand their businesses.
“I strongly believe that the shared development vision, the committed and innovation-nurturing government and innovative ethnic minority people will make the national target program a powerful tool for accelerating the socio-economic development of the ethnic minority areas and communities, leaving no one behind,” said Caitlin Wiesen, UNDP resident representative in Vietnam.
