Challenges for poverty reduction programs start in a new dimension since the concept of "poor households" changed when the poverty line was increased. In addition to a pre-existing hard core poor group (which remains) there are now a large number of low-income people falling under the poverty line. These ‘new poor’ include retirees, the ailing and weak local officials with many dependents and without supplementary income, small traders, suburban farmers whose agricultural lands have been confiscated, and those lacking the ability to change their livelihoods. Hai Phong City still applies the Government’s general poverty line, which makes its poverty rates seem very low and unlikely to reduce further.

This urban poverty report of the second round of poverty monitoring summarizes results of the surveys at different monitoring sites in July, 2009 and highlights the changed status of urban poverty over the last 12 months since the last survey and in the context of the on-going global financial crisis. In addition to a thorough analysis of focus issues, this report provides a general overview of changes in poverty and examines specific vulnerable groups as an autonomous report on urban poverty. Those groups are migrant workers, small street vendors, motorbike taxi drivers and cyclo.

In view of the significant and rapid changes that Vietnam will have to face in next years, several international non-governmental organizations (INGO) collaboratively proposed the need to monitor these changes and their related impacts. These INGOs, including ActionAid Vietnam (AAV), Oxfam Great Britain (OGB), and Oxfam Hong Kong (OHK) have coordinated with local partners in provinces and cities such as: Kim Chung commune (Đông Anh province), Lãm Hà commune (Kiến An district, Hải phòng city), 6 commune (Gò Vấp district, Hồ Chí Minh city) - where are their development areas - to build a network of poverty monitoring based on the participatory method:

“Monitoring the poverty status of vulnerable people in typical communities within the context of Vietnam’s integration into the WTO and the Government’s 2006-2010 reform policies is critical to provide a sound analysis in order to propose policy recommendations and to ensure the effective implementation of Oxfam, AAV and their partners’ programs and projects.”

As the report released, “the proportion of poor households nationwide under government’s poverty standard is continuing to gradually fall with slowly decline”. For example, in the first two years (2006-2007), the proportion of poor households, on average, declined 3.6% each year. But at the end of 2008, the proportion of poor households in the whole country had reduced to 13%, only a 1.8% in decrease compared to that of the late 2007[1].

The proportion of poverty reduction has slowly declined in some places, while in the other places, this proportion has even increased. There are several reasons that have impacted the rate of poverty reduction, but price shocks, natural disasters, and the global financial crisis are the main factors. The urban poor have been seriously affected as they face uncertainty in their job security and lowering incomes but prices of food, groceries, and other basic expenses remain high.

According to the 2009 monitoring results, a migrant worker, even an enterprise worker or worker in the informal sector, has a monthly average income of 1.5 – 2 million dong – far beyond the monthly average income under the current poverty line. However, after subtracting the expenses associated with rent, electricity, water, and money remitted home, migrants have very limited budgets for food, groceries, and other basic items. Moreover, the poverty status of migrants is more serious when considered within the context of “social inclusion”, i.e. the hardships they face in terms of loss of social relations and support networks, compared to poverty in terms of “income” or “expenditure”.

The 2009 report noted the challenges of inadequate infrastructure in areas where poor people live, the issues with local poor people and poor migrants in accessing social services and support, and the challenges of local governance in alleviating urban poverty. Further more, the 2009 report updates the aforementioned challenges at monitoring sites with a specific analytical focus on the limitations in the access to public services and social protection policies for poor people, such as: infrastructure, livelihood conversion, social capital, etc.

Some recommendations toward the “Sustainable Urban Poverty Reduction” are also be expressed concretely in this 2009 Synthesis Urban Poverty Report (read here Synthesis_report-URBAN-English-round_2-Nov09.pdf).

Notes to editors:  

ActionAid Vietnam has been working in the country for nearly 20 years with long-term development programmes in 19 provinces. Focused on rights-based and partnership approaches, ActionAid Vietnam works with poor and excluded groups to help them claim their rights to food, education, just and democratic governance, rights of people living with HIV/AIDS, rights of women and girls. For more information, please visit: www.actionaid.org/vn.