Strengthening poverty reduction work in Thai Nguyen

Thai Nguyen has identified production linkage as a driving force to help poor households escape poverty sustainably. (In photo: Chestnut garden linkage model of ethnic minorities in Ngan Son commune). (Photo: TUAN SON)

Phong Quang is a new commune formed on the basis of merging Duong Quang commune (old Bac Kan city) and Don Phong commune (old Bach Thong district). Immediately after the merger, Phong Quang urgently reviewed and set a poverty reduction target for 2025.

Accordingly, Phong Quang strives to reduce from 117 households to 52 poor households to bring the poverty rate to 3.51%; reduce from 100 to 45 near-poor households to bring the near-poor household rate down to 3.04%.

According to Vice Chairman of the Commune People's Committee Nguyen Duc Thinh, to achieve this goal, Phong Quang will mobilize people to register to implement value chain linkage projects and community projects in cultivation and livestock farming. Strive to support each poor and near-poor household to have at least one member of working age with the ability to work and have a sustainable job.

Phong Quang's approach and motto is to reduce poverty sustainably and substantially, not chasing after achievements; focusing resources on supporting households that have registered to escape poverty and households that have the ability to escape poverty sustainably.

Thuong Quan is one of the communes that remain unchanged and are not merged in the implementation of administrative unit arrangement at commune and ward levels of Thai Nguyen province. This commune is located in the northern region of the province, with very difficult conditions, so the poverty rate is still high, up to more than 50%.

Currently, the whole commune still has 497 multidimensional poor households, accounting for more than 64% of the total number of households, of which the number of ethnic minority households is 417.

According to Chairman of the People's Committee of Phan Van To commune, the biggest difficulty is the unsynchronized infrastructure, many villages and hamlets still have inadequate transportation, electricity and water, affecting investment and production. Currently, the commune still has 4 villages without national grid electricity. The economic scale is small and fragmented, most of the households are small-scale producers, and have not formed a value chain.

With the highest political determination to help sustainably reduce poverty, the Party Committee of Thuong Quan commune has identified specific goals for the 2025-2030 period, such as: increasing budget revenue by an average of over 10%/year; by 2030, per capita income will be 1.6 times higher than in 2025; maintaining an area of 45 hectares of Khau Nua Lech sticky rice each year; having at least two more OCOP products...

By 2025, Thuong Quan aims to reduce the poverty rate by 5%. To realize this goal, Thuong Quan will promote career guidance; support households in connecting with suitable jobs and exporting labor. Focus on implementing support for production development; ensure access to policy credit capital...

Production activities at Duong Quang Cooperative, Phong Quang commune. (Photo: TUAN SON)

According to the Department of Agriculture and Environment of Thai Nguyen province, implementing the National Target Program on Sustainable Poverty Reduction, the central and local budgets have invested more than 1,167 billion VND in localities.

From this resource, units and localities have built 55 infrastructure projects, benefiting 13,000 households, including more than 8,300 poor households. A total of 391 livelihood projects have been implemented, creating jobs and stable income for more than 8,800 households, of which more than half are poor and near-poor households.

Integrating resources and implementing many solutions has helped Thai Nguyen province reduce the multidimensional poverty rate from 10.29% to 5.46% by the end of 2024. In particular, the ethnic minority area alone reduced by nearly 8.7%.

However, the challenge in poverty reduction for Thai Nguyen is not small, especially when the province has many particularly difficult communes, remote areas, and ethnic minority areas.

These conditions and circumstances cause Thai Nguyen to have many communes with a high rate of poor and near-poor households of over 50%, such as: Thuong Quang, Hiep Luc, Xuan Duong, Nghien Loan, Cao Minh, Na Phac...

The disbursement progress of capital sources of the national target program is still slow, while a part of the rural population still waits and relies on the State's support, lacking the spirit of self-reliance to escape poverty.

According to the Department of Economic Cooperation and Rural Development of Thai Nguyen, the advantage is that capital has been invested in the core poor areas; the locality is proactive in the implementation process. The support objects include newly escaped poverty households to ensure the goal of sustainable poverty reduction.

Overcoming difficulties, Thai Nguyen will effectively implement programs, projects and policies to reduce poverty. In particular, focusing on improving infrastructure in poor and disadvantaged communes, creating a foundation to promote economic development.

The province also focuses on replicating poverty reduction models, considering this the core principle of developing production linkage models between poor and near-poor households and enterprises through cooperatives and cooperatives.

Thai Nguyen strives to reduce the poverty rate to 4.65% by the end of 2025. From 2026 to 2030, the province will reduce the poverty rate by 1-1.5%; reduce at least 3% of poor households in disadvantaged communes and 3-4% of poor households belonging to ethnic minorities.

TUAN SON

Source: https://nhandan.vn/day-manh-cong-tac-giam-ngheo-o-thai-nguyen-post915520.html