UN official lauds Viet Nam for reducing poverty by 40% since mid-1980s

Marking the 25th anniversary of the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) presence in Viet Nam, a senior agency official today praised the country for reducing poverty by 40 per cent and transforming itself “from a food-hungry nation to the second largest rice exporter in the world.”

UNDP Associate Administrator Zéphirin Diabré, who is in Viet Nam this week, said land and price reforms helped reduce poverty from well over 70 per cent in the mid-1980s to about 29 per cent. Mr. Diabré is meeting with government officials and development partners to discuss UNDP’s programme in the country and the challenges faced.

The UNDP and Vietnamese Government partnership in developing a new enterprise law contributed to the creation of more than one million new jobs, the agency said in a news release. Public administration reform has also radically simplified a wide range of bureaucratic transactions.

Viet Nam is also largely on track to meet the 2015 deadlines for the Millennium Development Goals, which were ratified by 189 nations at the UN Millennium Summit in 2000, UNDP said. The country is likely to become the first to publish its third report tracking the progress made in achieving the goals.