The UN’s Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) representative in Vietnam Yuriko Shoji has affirmed that the FAO will continue to assist Vietnam in building and developing rural areas.

At the International Support Group (ISG) meeting in Hanoi on Nov. 10, the official said FAO will regulate international assistance to help Vietnam implement its new goals for agricultural and rural development.

She referred to FAO’s support for Vietnam ’s implementation of many pilot projects in land management, forestry, environmental initiatives, adaptation to climate change, food security and nutrition as “valuable experiences for the country to realise its new rural development goals”.

Providing the fact that up to 70 percent of Vietnam ’s population lives in rural areas, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Cao Duc Phat said the national rural development target programme for the 2011-2020 period aims to promote multifaceted development in rural areas.

The programme also aims to help rural people raise their income by 1.5 times higher than the current rate by 2015 and 2.5 times by 2020, and will engage various ministries and sectors, the Minister said.

It looks to reduce the number of poverty-stricken households to below 8 percent in 2015 and 3 percent in 2020.

In addition, the programme sets an annual growth rate of 3.5-4 percent for the agriculture, forestry and fishery sector in the 2015-2020 period.

The workforce in agriculture will account for 30 percent of the country’s total workforce and the number of trained labourers in rural areas will reach 50 percent, according to the programme.

To reach these goals, the Vietnamese Government is focusing on planning in rural areas, restructuring communal economies, developing rural infrastructure, training human resources and investing in areas with extreme disadvantages.

According to Dr. Dang Kim Son, Head of the Institute on Agriculture and Rural Policy and Strategy, giving more power to villages and hamlets and increasing contributions by the people, businesses and organisations inside and outside the country are important solutions to aid the implementation of the new rural development programme.

The annual ISG meeting is a policy dialogue forum for the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and other ministries and sectors, the donor community, international and non-governmental organisations, researchers and local and foreign investors.

At this meeting, the participants discussed proposals for a cooperative framework and international assistance for the national rural development target programme as well as coordination and cooperation mechanisms for the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and One-UN in implementing the programme./.