Illustrative image (Source: Internet) Lam Dong (VNA) – The Central Highlands province of Lam Dong is set to reduce its poverty rate to less than 1.9 percent, in particular the rate of poor households in ethnic minority areas to under 4.8 percent by 2020.
It will also strive to facilitate the poor’s access to fundamental social services such as health care, education, housing, clean water and sanitation.
Over the last five years, the local authorities have taken specific measures and implemented a series of projects to rapidly realise the province’s goal of sustainable poverty reduction.
Projects funded by the Government also contributed to increasing investment for the effort, thus reducing the rate of poor households.
The implementation of a sustainable poverty reduction programme in the period helped the local people escape from poverty, significantly contributing to the locality’s socio-economic development.
According to Deputy Director of the provincial Department of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs Ngo Huu Hay, the number of local poor households reduced from 34, 578 in 2011 to only 5,236 in 2015, down 2.17 percent per year on average.
To date, a total of 1.3 million local poor and near-poor households, including those from ethnic minority groups, have been provided with medical insurance, while over 16,270 poor families were supported to build houses.
Along with poverty reduction projects, the locality also paid special attention to new-style rural development programmes, with over 33 trillion VND (1.48 billion USD) being mobilised to build infrastructure facilities and develop production.
With over 511 billion VND invested for upgrading and developing infrastructure in poor districts, communes and villages across the locality; many projects for education, transport and healthcare have become operational, helping improve living conditions for local people.
By the end of 2015, the province had 43 communes recognised as new-style rural areas, and Don Duong district was recognised as a new-style rural district.-VNA
