According to the Committee for Ethnic Minorities Affairs (CEMA), the percentage of popularly-elected ethnic officials at grassroots level has increased considerably while the tangible and intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minority groups has been restored and preserved. Their languages have been commonly used in schools, the press and in cultural festivals and programmes. 

The government has decided to carry out the second phase of programme 135 to build infrastructure in 1,946 disadvantaged communes across the country.

According to CEMA Chairman and Minister Giang Seo Phu, after three years the programme’s second phase has met local people’s expectations with money being invested in key areas and the positive results affirmed by donors.

By the end of 2008, about 110 communes completed their targets, 93.7 percent of the communes built basic infrastructural projects, 61 percent had small scale irrigation works for agricultural production, 80 percent built concrete schools and more than 50 percent completed the universalisation of secondary school education, while 100 percent of the population in the designated communes received free legal aid.

These significant results have brought a facelift to the disadvantaged communes, helping to promote poverty reduction and socio-economic development.

To preserve and promote the traditional cultures of ethnic minority groups, the State has introduced incentives to encourage local people to use their languages in their daily lives and community activities. Currently, about 30 ethnic groups in Vietnam have their own script. By late 2007, nearly 300 schools in 30 provinces ran courses using ethnic languages, attracting 900 teachers and 75,000 students. The State also compiled 30 syllabuses in 12 ethnic languages for all primary and secondary schools in ethnic-inhabited areas.

However, there are difficulties in implementing the programme in disadvantaged communes due to their perilous topography and harsh weather conditions. The living standards of local people remain low, the rate of poor households is high, and economic restructuring is slow going. Moreover, many households which have benefited from the programme face a high risk of relapsing into poverty. Many remote areas are still inaccessible to social services.

Under the second phase of Programme 135, the State aims to build basic infrastructure facilities, and supply power and water to all disadvantaged communes by 2015. To meet the target, localities that are benefiting from the programme should increase the quality of poverty reduction, pour more investment into the most disadvantaged areas, boost production and services, develop the processing industry and seek outlets for products.

According to CEMA, the rural economy should focus on developing crafts by fully tapping its potential and using local labour, raising animals and planting cash crops of high economic value, developing forests and the processing industry, and expanding outlets for farm products.

The State should encourage businesses and foreign donors to invest in ethnic-inhabited areas while creating favourable conditions for poor households to take out bank loans for production. In addition, provinces should better carry out a policy of providing land for house building and production to ethnic people, help them stabilise their lives in the new resettlement areas and pay due attention to personnel training as well.

To meet its MDGs in 2015, Vietnam needs further support and assistance from the United Nations agencies and member countries, especially from developing countries and international financial organisations. Government agencies and localities should integrate MDGs into their socio-economic development goals with broader participation from the population. At the same time, the government should build a mechanism for providing further financial support to remote areas which are unlikely to complete the MDGs while encouraging wealthy provinces and cities to help the disadvantaged communes fulfil their MDGs.