Localizing MDGs for Poverty Reduction in Viet Nam: Promoting Ethnic Minority Development

Localizing MDGs for Poverty Reduction in Viet Nam: Promoting Ethnic Minority Development

June 20, 2013

This series of papers on the Viet Nam Development Goals (VDGs) reflects a collective effort by the Poverty Task Force to propose a set of goals and intermediate indicators, which represent both the core developmental vision of Viet Nam as well as the Government’s efforts to meet international goals. This analytical work was carried out during 2001 and early 2002 as the Government of Viet Nam drafted a Comprehensive Poverty Reduction and Growth Strategy (CPRGS) and was trying to establish a clear accountability framework for monitoring future progress.

The main aim of this paper is to assist the government of Viet Nam in developing targets and indicators to promote and monitor the socio-economic development of ethnic minoritiy groups. The paper seeks to link these targets to international development goals, which do not include specific targets for groups of people according to ethnicity, and to development priorities for Viet Nam. Principally, this paper argues that setting targets specific to ethnic minority groups provides a useful tool to improve the effectiveness of development strategies for these groups and reduce the widening poverty gap. Within this, the diversity and variation in dvelopment needs that exists between different minority groups requires explicit recognition to ensure equity.

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