Page 1 of 25

MSc. In RURAL RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY 1999

A STUDY OF THE RURAL POVERTY IN DAK LAK PROVINCE-VIETNAM CONSTRAINTS AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR ALLEVIATION

Tran Ngoc Thanh

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the MSc in Rural Resources and Environmental Policy, Wye College, University of London, 1999

The views, opinions and recommendations in this Dissertation are those of the Author and do not necessarily represent those of Wye College nor any its staff

This Report contains 11,746 words of main text

Acknowledgements

The author would like to express his grateful appreciation to his teachers at Wye College, University of London for their advice and assistance during the study time. He also would like to thank Dr. Hans Helmrich and Mr. Michael Glueck, leaders of The Sustainable Management of Resources in the Lower Mekong Basin Project provided him with financial and administrative support for the valuable course.

Especially, he would like to thank Dr. Graham Woodgate, his supervisor, who has spent a lot of efforts for the study as well as the dissertation.

Finally, I also would like to thank my colleagues, classmates, related organizations and the villagers at the pilot sites of the MRC/GTZ project have contributed their knowledge to the study.

Abbreviations

DLPC The People Committee of Dak Lak Province

DARD Department of Agriculture and Rural Development Page 2 of 25

VLSS The Vietnam Living Standard Survey

MOLISA Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs

GSO Government Statistic Organisation

MPI Ministry Of Planning and Investment

VND Vietnam Dong (Vietnamese Currency)

CEMMA The Committee For Ethnic Minority and Mountainous Areas

DOLISA Department Of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements 2 Abbreviation 3 Table of contents 4 Introduction 8

Chapter one: Introduction to the physical and socio-economic condition of Dak Lak 10 Province, Vietnam 1. The physical environment of Dak Lak 10 2. The socio-economic conditions 16 3. Poverty situation in Dak Lak 19 How many households are identified as poor families? 19 What is the poverty line to be used for identifying the poor in Dak Lak? 22 What are the Characteristics of the poor in Dak Lak province? 26

Chapter Two: The origins leading to poverty and the antipoverty programmes of 28 the government in Dak Lak 1. What are the phenomena and the essence of the poor in Dak Lak? 28 2. How many poor groups are there? 28 3. What are the reasons leading to the poor in Dak Lak? 29 (a) Isolation 29 (b) Risks 31 (c) Productive Resources for Income Generation 32 (i) Land resources 32 (ii) Labour 33 (iii) Capital 34 (d) Sustainability 34 (e) Participation 35 4. The past efforts of governments and its imperfection 35 (a) Institutions 35 Page 3 of 25

(b) The initial results of 3 years implemented poverty alleviation in Dak Lak 36 (c) Imperfections and the reasons 40

Chapter three: Some Recommendations for Implementing Hunger Eradication and 44 Poverty Alleviation Program in Dak Lak 1. Foundation for defining criteria of poverty situation 44 2. Framework to determine the solutions for eradicating hunger and reducing poverty 46 3. Proposals for eradicating hunger and alleviating poverty 48 a) An investment in rural infrastructure helps to reduce isolation of rural areas 48 b) In support to the poor on access to natural resources, credit, scientific and 49 technical c) Strengthening people’s participation – a decisive factor 51 d) Enhancing the ability of risk limitation for the poor 52 e) Preserving ecosystem environment 52 Conclusions 54 References 55

List of Figures

Figure 1: Dak Lak Map 10 Figure 3: Population of Dak Lak 13 Figure 4: Land Use in Dak Lak 15 Figure 5: Investment Sources in 1999 of Dak Lak 18 Figure 6: Distribution of the Poor and Poverty Households in Dak Lak 20 Figure 7 Agricultural Productive Revenue in Dak Lak 21 Figure 8 Poverty incidence by Education Level of Head of Household 27 Figure 9: Poverty Incidence in Dak Lak (1996-1998) 38 Figure 10: Framework to determine the solutions for poverty alleviation 47

List of Tables

Table 1: Population of Dak Lak 12 Table 2: The Status of Land Use in Dak Lak 14 Table 3: Estimated Sources For Development Need To Be supported In 1999 18 Table 4: Classification of poverty families in Dak Lak 19 Table 5: The outcomes from surveying households’ expenses in Dak Phoi commune 45

List of Boxes

Box 1: Comparing the Rice Poverty Line to the 2,100 Calories Poverty Line 23 Box 2: Poverty Level and Distribution in Vietnam 24 Page 4 of 25

Box 3: The Poverty Situation in Yang Mao, an Example of Poverty Derived By 29 Isolation Box 4: The Status of Agriculture in the Rural and Solutions 46

Introduction

Alleviation of rural poverty is an important concern of the Vietnamese government. It has been pursued since it was first announced in 1989 and continues to be a major concern in the efforts of the government towards achieving a balanced development characterized by rapid and sustainable growth, stability, and equity to date.

"Poverty reduction has been a central goal of the Vietnamese government since unification and a driving force behind the economic reforms initiated in 1989. The year 1993 marked an important milestone in Vietnam’s transition to a market economy as the country once again obtained access to concessionaire international finance"

For that reason, the government has introduced poverty alleviation policies and associated programmes to reduce the incidence of poverty. However, their efforts have not yet borne much fruit due to the numerous problems. It would therefore be very useful to explore the main reasons for the ineffectiveness of current programmes and to discuss recommendations for more promising options and approaches.

Dak Lak is a mountainous province located in the highland territory of Vietnam. Its socio-economic characteristics can be considered as representative of rural areas in Vietnam, such that result of studies carried out in Dak Lak could prove useful for addressing rural poverty in general. The lessons learnt in reducing poverty in Dak Lak may also provide insights that could be useful for adaptation in other central highlands provinces concerned with rural development. This can also be seen as the author’s main reason for deciding to conduct the study in Dak Lak Province.

As explained above, the aims of the study are

Understanding the realities of the rural poor in Dak Lak

Finding out the origins which lead to the poverty situation

Considering the constraints of existing poverty alleviation programmes, and

Recommending direction for improvement

The report begins with an introduction of the physical socio-economic conditions of Dak Lak province, then moves on to a brief description of the poverty situation and a set of criteria to classify different groups of the rural poor. Chapter two explores the main reasons that lead to poverty in Dak Lak, as well as the efforts of the local government in reducing it. In combination with this, an analysis of the constraints to find out why the people still become poor is presented. And the last part of the report is devoted to recommendations for improvement using the theories learnt from the academic courses, as well as experiences of the writer.

The methodology used to conduct this study includes collecting information from relevant government organizations in order to understand the strategies of poverty alleviation presented in the national programme for hunger eradication and poverty reduction in Vietnam as well as annual reports from the local authority. Using PRA tools to survey and identify the poverty situation in two selected areas can be seen as examples showing the difficult realities that the poor are facing as well as give insights of peasant societies in rural areas of Dak Lak. Exchange of information among the government staff, professionals and peasant societies in Dak Lak province-Vietnam concerning perceptions of poverty and effective measure organised by round table discussions have contributed to this report.

This report does not claim to make a comprehensive assessment of the poverty programme in Dak Lak Province. However, since it was written carefully with the assistance of many professionals, it can be used as a reference related to the poverty eradication programme in Dak Lak. Page 5 of 25

Chapter one:

Introduction to the physical and socio-economic condition of Dak Lak Province, Vietnam

1. The physical environment of Dak Lak

Dak Lak is one of the 4 highland provinces located in the middle of Vietnam, 1,500 km south of Hanoi, the capital city of Vietnam. It is bordered by Gia Lai Province in the North, Song Be Province in the South, Nha Trang Province in the East and Cambodia in the West. Its elevation is between 400-800 meters above the sea level.

Administratively, the province is divided into districts. Each district is divided into communes and each commune has a number of villages within it.

The province consists of 17 districts and a capital city with a total population of 1.515 million persons of which 497,000 persons (30,3%) belong to ethnic minority groups who mostly live in the rural areas in the uplands. The vast majority of households are Kinh (70,3%), Ede (15,52%), Mnong (3,98%), Tay (2,54%) and other groups (7,66%)

Table 1: Population of Dak Lak

Name of Districts No of communes Population (person) Density (person/km 2) Total 168 1,515,367 77,57 Buon Ma Thuot City 18 217,613 830,58 Ea Hleo District 9 69,348 51,90 Ea Sup District 5 24,150 13,80 Krong Nang District 8 78,689 128,36 Krong Buk District 11 115,405 178,36 Buon Don District 6 44,484 31,45 Cu Mgar District 14 116,182 141,68 Ea Kar District 12 110,613 109,84 Ma Drak District 12 41,771 32,18 Krong Pak District 16 174,285 279,75 Cu Jut District 9 87,786 106,40 Krong Ana District 12 160,370 248,63 Krong Bong District 12 63,652 50,92 Dak Mil District 9 68,642 62,97 Krong No District 11 35,589 35,98 Lak District 9 41,041 38,10 Dak Rlap District 9 39,653 22,55 Dak Nong District 10 26,094 12,24

Source: Statistical Year Book (1997) Department of Statistic in Dak Lak Province Page 6 of 25

Table 2: The Status of Land Use in Dak Lak

No Land Use Types Ha Natural area 1,953,546 1 Agricultural land 373,138 A Annual crop land 150,871 B Perennial crop land 219,730 C Pasture 1,962 D Fishpond 575 2 Forest land 1,215,205 A Natural forest land 1,190,906 B Plantation land 24,299 3 Special used land 52,092 A Construction areas 3,428 B Roads 27,500 C Hydraulic dams 7,932 3 Unused land 302,110 A Unused flat land 26,152 B Unused hill land 259,469 C Unused water land 1,010 D Other unused land 15,479

Source : Land use types, (1997), Land Management Department in Dak Lak

Dak Lak is the largest province of Vietnam with the natural area of 19,535 Km 2 in which forestland area occupies 12,000 Km 2; agricultural land area is about 4,000 Km 2. As a result, forestry and agricultural production are major sources of employment and income

Most of the land resources lie in the western Truong Son mountain range, which slope gradually from the East to the Northwest, distributed in the complex topography.

The high mountains in the South and the Southeast of the territory occupy about 35% of the natural area, with an average elevation of 1,000 - 1,200 m. There is much forest area left in this areas.

The plateau, on which Buon Ma Thuot, the capital of Dak Lak, and its surrounding areas lie, occupies 53.5% of the total area and has a mean elevation of 450m above sea level. The soil is good for development of perennial crops, cattle raising and integrated forestry business.

The central districts of the province, occupying approximately 12% of the land area, are suitable for growing rice, short - term cash crops, perennial industrial crops, forest trees and animal husbandry.

Due to its location, both the tropical climate and monsoon and the cool climate of the highlands influence Dak Lak Province.

Sunshine in this province is abundant and the annual average rainfall is between 1,700 mm and 2,000 mm. Dak Lak has two distinct seasons. During the dry season which begins in December and ends in the following April, the violent Northeast winds blow and the high evaporation creates serious dryness and drought. This Page 7 of 25

causes constraints on the development of goods production. Therefore, the task of hydraulic conservancy, storing water for the dry season, plays an important role in the economic development and in the livelihood of the residents in Dak Lak Province.

The climate varies according the topography elevation: the area below 300m is hot all year round, the area between 400m and 800m is hot and humid and the area over 800m has a fresh climate. This characteristic can create favourable condition for crops and animal husbandry in each climate area.

The soil resources are divided into 27 groups, basalt is the most important soil occupying 713,508 ha distributed in the two plateau of Buon Ma Thuot and Dak Nong, and suitable for perennial industrial crops and forest. About 30% of the existing land resources are of denuded hills and mountains, of which 8% are seriously eroded.

Alluvial soils occupy 60,000 hectares mainly in the districts Lak, Krong Ana, the low land of Dak Mil and Ea Soup. The soil in these areas is suitable for short-term cash crops.

In general, Dak Lak can be seen as a potentially developed province although its natural conditions are complex. However, by building a suitable strategy, its development in the near future is anticipated.

2. The socio-economic conditions

Dak Lak is classified as a poor province of Vietnam (GDP is equivalent to US$ 350). Forestry and agricultural production are the major sources of income and employment of the province. The revenue of the local government is mainly created from agro-forestry actions (70,82%). Revenue from construction and industrial activities (9,45%) and services (19,72%) are inconsiderable.

In recent years, due to adverse effects from the regional economic crisis, along with natural disasters (especially droughts) the revenue of the local government was only 364,8 billion Vietnam dong (equivalent to US$ 26.150 million). It therefore cannot satisfy the official expenditure, which is estimated of about 661,450 billion Vietnam dong (equivalent to US$ 47.415 million).

The area used for producing food is 170,000 ha. Annually, it can produce about 330,000 tons of rice (equivalent to 206 Kg of rice per capita per year). It is clear that food security for the upland population is a problem of Dak Lak Province, although Vietnam is recently the second biggest rice exporter in the world.

Generally, infrastructure in Dak Lak is very poor. The main roads to districts have been upgraded and can be used in both seasons. However, transportation is quite difficult due to the lack of public transportation facilities. In the rainy season, most communes are not accessible. This makes it even more difficult for remote communes located in the border and mountainous areas of the province.

Recently, the government has been being expanding the electricity system to all districts in the province. There are 111 communes (58%) which have been connected to the national electricity system. However, utilization of the electricity system is an issue which needs to be considered and discussed because the poor often do not have enough food for their survival, and as a result do not have enough money to pay for their electricity use.

Communes typically have health care stations, and primary schools. However, the qualities of these services need to be improved. Districts normally have hospitals, high schools, bank offices, and post offices with primary services.

An estimated budget sources for development invested into Dak Lak in 1999 is VND 1,320 billion (equivalents to $ 94,623 million), while it needs to have an amount of VND 1,500 billion (equivalents to $ 107,526 million) for development objectives

Table 3: Estimated Sources for Development Need to be supported in 1999

No Items Billion VND Page 8 of 25

1 From the central government 46.5 2 From the local budget 160 3 From Ministries at the national level 190 4 From the loan schemes 300 5 From ODA and NGO sources 150 6 Foreign Development Investment sources 30 7 From the people 390 Total 1,320

3. Poverty situation in Dak Lak

How many households are identified as poor families?

According to the information presented in the report No 01/BC-UB dated 5 February 1999 of the Dak Lak people committee, the whole province has 58,987 households (occupying 18,1% of total households of province) classified as poor and poverty households living in 18 districts. Its distribution is presented below.

Table 4: classification of poverty families in Dak Lak

No Name of Districts Total Poor & Hunger HHs % Poor HHs % hunger HHs 1) Buon Ma Thuot 2,924 75 3% 2,849 97% 2) Krong Pak 4,362 92 2% 4,270 98% 3) Krong Bong 3,555 206 6% 3,349 94% 4) Krong Buk 3,535 205 6% 3,330 94% 5) Krong Nang 3,855 317 8% 3,538 92% 6) Ea Hleo 2,389 109 5% 2,280 95% 7) Ea Kar 8,048 1,714 21% 6,334 79% 8) Ma Drak 2,228 115 5% 2,113 95% 9) Dak Nong 1,320 78 6% 1,242 94% 10) Dak Rlap 1,737 0 0% 1,737 100% 11) Krong Na 5,221 423 8% 4,798 92% 12) Krong No 2,918 100 3% 2,818 97% 13) Cu Jut 3,067 206 7% 2,861 93% 14) Cu Mga 3,485 207 6% 3,278 94% 15) Ea Sup 2,494 360 14% 2,134 86% 16) Buon Don 3,161 69 2% 3,092 98% 17) Dak Mil 2,308 310 13% 1,998 87% 18) Lak 2,380 85 4% 2,295 96% Total 58,987 4,671 8% 54,316 92%

Source : Report No 1 dated 5 January 1999 of the DL PC on evaluation of results of 3 years implementation of poverty Page 9 of 25

alleviation and new strategy

According to the information presented in the above tables some issues need to be considered. There are some districts such as Krong Pak and Buon Ma Thuot City, which have vast potential in terms of land as well as other facilities supported by the government, recorded the lowest number of poor families. While other districts like Easup, Krong no, Buon Don, Lak, Dak Nong and Ma Drak where the infrastructure conditions have not developed yet, the population is mostly ethnic minority groups, and have infertile soil resources, are classified as the areas with the highest poor households. This characteristic will be further discussed in the following sections to explain the causes leading to the poverty situation of upland people in Dak Lak.

Distribution of the poor households has a close relationship with the agricultural productive income per districts. With a province where the income mainly created from agricultural activities, this is understandable. The chart below can show this situation.

Both surveys conducted by The Vietnam Living Standard Survey (VLSS) and The Survey on Wealth and Poverty found that 51% of Vietnamese population live in poverty through out the country, 90% of them in rural areas, in which the poorest region is the central highland provinces including Dak Lak Province.

What is the poverty line to be used for identifying the poor in Dak Lak?

In order to identify which households are poor and poverty families, there are three different poverty lines currently being used in Vietnam:

The rice-equivalent poverty line established by MOLISA according to which households with a monthly per capita income equivalent to less than 13 kg of rice are classified as starving

The 2,100 calorie poverty line applied by GSO which sets a minimum daily calorie intake of 2,100 cal./day/head as the hunger-poverty line, and

The 2,100 calorie plus poverty line employed by The World Bank which accounts for essential non-food expenditures, including education, health care, culture and travel

The above three approaches are mutually consistent, but drawn at different levels.

A definition of poverty presented in the national programme for hunger eradication and poverty reduction in Vietnam is also used as a reference. It shows that " Poverty is the situation where a part of the population cannot satisfy the bare necessities of life (absolute poverty) and has a lower living standard than average living standard of the community in all aspects (relative poverty). Hunger is the state where they cannot ensure material needs to maintain their life. The prevalence of poverty in Vietnam depends on the level of basic needs assumed for sustaining a decent life".

In order to focus the aid scheme to the poor people as a target group, the local government has issued an introductory procedure, dividing the poor areas into three territories N1, N2 and N3 distributed over the whole Dak Lak Province. These aims to clarify different priority areas for investment that are suitable to the conditions of each area. The more difficult the areas are, the government will support the more aid scheme. However, the poor of Dak Lak are not a homogenous group, and different groups have different problems with their livelihood.

The above division could advise the government in investing its efforts to the priority areas in the different poor areas. However, it does not help to see clearly who are the poor because even in the poorest area better-off families can access the land resources easily as well as other services provided by the government, but they are not target groups. It therefore is very useful if we focus on determining who the poor are and how they can be identified. This will help the government to concentrate their efforts on the target groups instead on target areas.

There are some proposals being discussed recently presented below.

Rice poverty line

Usually, Vietnam experts use the terms of insufficient monthly rice consumption to identify the poor. A report conducted by Nguyen Thi Hang and Nguyen Van Thieu (1993) set the poverty threshold at an income equivalent to 16.2 kilograms of rice per month. This showed that 13 kilograms of rice used for food Page 10 of 25

consumption (which implies an average intake of 1,500 calories per day), 2,1 kg of rice is exchanged for clothing and shelter, and 1,1 kg is used for cultural, health, educational and other demands. This rice poverty line does not capture the poverty threshold because the calorie number derived per day of 1,500 calories is very low in comparison with standard in the regional countries of East Asia.

Moreover, recent results of the government renovation strategy have created a new requirement of living standard for Vietnamese upland people. Similarly, it requires that a minimum standard of living must be higher than 1,500 calories per day. Actually, along with rice consumption, the poor people have to spend about 25- 30% more for other activities that is excluded and not presented in the above results of survey. It therefore the rice poverty line is not a desirable indicator for further discussion.

2100 calories poverty line

Different from above idea, the GSO (Government Statistic Organization) produced an indicator of 2,100 calories poverty line. It seems to be suitable for clarifying the poor and capturing their situation. The starting point for developing an appropriate poverty line is the basic notion that food is the most fundamental need of human beings. Due to lack of food poor people can be died, lack of food leads to physical weakness. This suggests that any method for calculating a poverty line should be closely concerned with sufficient food intake. A large biomedical literature exists which attempts to calculate the amounts of food needed for normal daily activities and long term health. While nutritional needs encompass a large range of requirements (protein, energy, and many micronutrients), for purposes of assessing the extent of poverty, it is best to focus on energy intake, which is probably the single most important indicator of adequate food consumption. Measuring energy intake in terms of calories, it is possible to estimate a poverty line by considering how much money is enough to permit a household to meet their daily calories needs as estimated by biomedical studies. Following recent academic literature, as well as common practice in other East Asian countries, the GSO has been using the 2,100 calories poverty line for government statistics.

For the poverty line to be realistic, it needs to allow households to consume a typical basket of food reflecting local tastes, rather than requiring a household to spend all their money on the single food. The report takes the composition of food consumption on average consumes nearly 2,100 calories as the reference consumption of an appropriate food bundle

Box 1: Comparing the Rice Poverty to the 2,100 Calories Poverty Line

The rice poverty line is much higher than the 2,1000-calories poverty line and consequently identifies very few Vietnamese households as poor. There are two reasons why this poverty line is much smaller than the benchmark 2,100 calories poverty line.

First, the number of calories deemed adequate in the rice poverty line is much smaller, only 1,500 per day as opposed to 2,100 per day. Second, and more importantly, the rice poverty line assumes that all calories are obtained from rice, instead of allowing at least some calories to be obtained from other goods. The requirement to obtain all calories from rice implies a price per calorie of 0.51 VND (1,784 VND per kg of rice divided by 3,530 calories per kg of rice). In contrast, the food basket derived for the 2,100 calorie poverty line (typical basket of goods) consumed by the poor has a price per calorie of 0.95 VND (729,000 VND per year divided by 365 days/year and 2,100 calories per day). A price per calorie that is twice as high as that calculated by the Vietnamese researchers. If the rice poverty line is applied. There will be only 1.1 percent of Vietnamese are found to be poor.

Source: Nicholas Presto, 1995, Vietnam Poverty Assessment and Strategy, The World Bank Report, Page 6

As presented above, the number of poor and poverty households of Dak Lak province are identified based on the rice poverty line, according to the threshold of 13 kg of rice per person per month. Consequently, it does not describe the real situation of its poverty. In fact, the number of poor households is bigger than the recorded number if we use the indicator of the 2,100 calories poverty line for calculation. The estimated amount could be over 70,000 households. It is worth noting that any solution or strategy of the government for alleviation must be planned with more thoroughly, otherwise, many poor households will be ignored because they are listed as better-off families instead of poor. Page 11 of 25

The identification of the poor in Dak Lak has also a difficulty of information selection due to the poor being mostly ethnic minority groups. Using Vietnamese language, the national language, is not easy for them to give a correct information about their existing living standards.

The problem in identification of poverty levels and its distribution is not only a problem occurring in Dak Lak. The national programme is facing similar circumstances. It should be emphasized that within a region, province, district or even commune there may be a great deal of variation in living standards. This is especially true where differences in ethnic groups of physical access to villages may mean marked differences within a district or commune. Thus, targeting of anti-poverty funds may not be a simple exercise.

Box 2: Poverty Levels and Distribution in Vietnam

Poverty as measured by consumption levels has been reported by The Vietnamese Standard Survey (VLSS) and The Survey on Wealth and Poverty. The VLSS was funded by the UNDP and Swedish International Development Authority and was conducted by the State Planning Committee (SPC) and the General Statistic Office (GSO) in 1992/1993, with the World Bank advice. The sample size of survey was 4,800 households. The World Bank published an analysis in early 1995 based on VLSS data. The survey on Wealth and Poverty carried out by the GSO in 1993, had a sample survey size of 91,732 households.

The general conclusions are similar throughout, through different poverty line produce different estimates of how many are "poor". The World Bank's higher poverty line, which is an expenditure-based poverty line (about 1.1 million VND or $100 per person per year) Produced an estimated that half of the entire population was poor. While the GSO drew a lower income-based poverty line (600,000 VND per year in rural areas) and found only a fifth to be in poverty.

Source: Poverty Elimination in Vietnam, October 1995, United Nation Report, Page 9

What are the Characteristics of the poor in Dak Lak province?

In order to have an overview of the poor; the author has conducted a survey. The result showed that poor households in Dak Lak are generally characterized by an average income of about $300-350/year/household (it is estimated about $100/person/year). The average agricultural land per poor households is less than 0.5 ha mostly distributed in the upland without irrigation systems. Moreover, due to lack of knowledge of new cultivation technique, productive yield per hectare is still very low (less than 1 ton of rice per ha). Yearly, the poor people suffer an annual food shortage for 3-5 months.

The measurement of poverty using consumption-based indicators has been used commonly in Dak Lak, while they do not fully capture other characteristics of the poor such as literacy, health, or access to clean water as well as other social services. Data on distribution of social indicators by income group in Dak Lak have not been available before due to the lack of a multipurpose household survey showing indicators of household welfare. It has created difficulties in seeing the reality of the poor people. However, it can be seen generally that poor families have about 5-6 members per household due to lack of knowledge on family planning.

The relationship between poverty and education is particularly important because of the key role played by education in raising economic growth and reducing poverty. The better-educated households who have higher incomes are much less likely to be poor.

A survey conducted by the World Bank’s expert group can be seen as evidence of poverty by education level of head of household

Chapter 2: The origins leading to poverty and the antipoverty programmes of the government in Dak Lak Page 12 of 25

1. What are the phenomena and the essence of the poor in Dak Lak?

There are differing reports presented in the workshops or the annual reports of the government that the major causes leading to the poverty situation are:

Lack of money for buying seeds, fertilizer, pesticide (100% of poor families interviewed)

Lack of land for cultivation (45% poor families)

Lack of production experiences, scientific and technical knowledge or the poor are not trained with a proper occupation for the market economy (65% of poor families)

Labour available but there are not enough jobs to provide employment due to insufficient land for cultivation as well as undeveloped non-farming sector (30% of poor families)

Numerous children because of birth without planning (70% of poor families)

Laziness, gambling and drinking occurs in 2% of the total number of hungry and poor households

The above information presented a description the phenomenon of the poor rather than the origins creating the poverty situation. This can leads to drawing a real picture about the poor with the problem they are facing and suffering but it cannot help proposing suitable options, which aim to help the poor escaped from their bad circumstances. A promising solution for antipoverty programme would be effective if it is derived based on understanding the real underlying reasons of the poor rather than their exterior format.

2. How many poor groups are there?

There are two target groups usefully distinguished from famine societies in Dak Lak province.

The first group is Kinh people, who belong to the majority group of Vietnamese population, and of course they can speak Vietnamese easily. They therefore have advantages to participate in the economic development strategies of the government. This group can care for themselves and improve their own living by access to credit schemes or other non-agricultural production activities. However, this group needs to be supported in removing the constraints that prevent them from fully participating in the general economic development to escape the poverty.

The second group is the poor who are classified as ethnic minority group. They are basically unable or unlikely to participate in a growing market economy and therefore they cannot care for themselves and have to grapple for their existence. The disadvantages of this group can be seen as:

Communication problem due to the fact that they cannot speak national language fluently

Isolation because of living in remote areas or in mountainous regions

Inability to access services provision due to lacking of information and so on.

While there are various detailed reasons underlying the poverty situation of different households, villages and groups, there appear to be five broad recurring and inter-related underlying causes of the much of remaining poverty in Dak Lak, Vietnam. (i) Isolation (physical, social, communication); (ii) excessive exposure to risk (disasters, health, investment); inadequate access to productive resources (land, credit, skills); (iv) a lack of sustainability; and (v) inadequate participation (in economy, planning, decision-making)

3. What are the reasons leading to the poor in Dak Lak?

(a) Isolation

The poor people in Dak Lak become poor for one of several reasons. The most frequently observed is one of Page 13 of 25

physical or social isolation. This isolation often intensifies the effects of shocks or bad luck with weather, sickness and other problems, which creates risks that are hard for the poor families to manage.

In terms of physical isolation, large numbers of families live far from roads and thus have restricted access to markets, public services and information. Most of communes are not accessible by vehicle in the rainy seasons. There are only 23 communes/192 communes of the province (11%) where people can access the central positions of communes by good roads (asphalt roads) and remainders are bad roads (path roads).

Without good roads, transport costs are often very high. Inputs for agricultural cultivation are very hard to obtain and farm products can effectively be sold only at the local markets at poor prices and traffickers fleece the local poor people. Therefore self-sufficiency in food may be the only safe survival strategy of the poor. It is similarly difficult to provide, or take advantage of services such as extension, education, loan schemes, health care and so on.

Infrastructure can be seen as an important determinant of agricultural productivity and is also associated with the development of off-farm income opportunity and greater participation in the market economy. There are many indications that people who live near existing infrastructure have higher living standards and have been better able to take advantage of the market reform than those who do not. For example, people living in Buon Ma Thuot City, Krong Pak district located near two-season roads have significantly higher average per capita expenditures. They are significantly more likely to have a permanent market located in their neighbourhoods.

Box 3: The poverty situation of the Yang Mao people, an example of poverty derived by isolation

Yang Mao is a commune under Krong Bong District, located in the Southeastern of the Dak Lak province. Its natural area is 34,200 ha in which 29,441 ha (86%) classified as forestland, agricultural land resources only occupied less than 1,000 ha (2,9%).

The Socio-economic of Yang Mao is generally is very poor, infrastructure is not development yet, transportation is very poor. The public services such as health care, schooling have not supplied yet with facilities to serve.

Yang Mao's population has 3,400 people, living in 550 households. They consists of different ethnic minority groups such as Mnong (2,400 persons), E De (50 persons) and 950 persons belong to Kinh group.

Yang Mao is located 35 km far from the district center of Krong Bong. Due to difficulty of transportation, the local people cannot access to public services as education, health care, loan scheme, extension and cultural exchange with other groups in the region. This conditions lead to illiteracy is very high (over 50%). It is enable to local people participate in operations of the social organizations. They therefore cannot attend the decision making process as well.

Every year, the Yang Mao people cannot produce enough food for their consumption, other food resources have to be collected from the forest for their survival.

Lacking of land resources, labour forces as well as inadequate in decision making process can be seen as the reasons leading to the famine situation of the Yang Mao people.

Source: Y Wel Ksor, 1996, The poverty situation of the ethnic minority group in Yang Mao, Krong Bong District, Dak Lak Province, Vietnam. Vietnam Agricultural Publisher, Page 61-63

(b) Risks

Isolation and risk have a close interaction. The isolation due to living in the remote areas makes the poor more at risk than other places. If the roads are good enough to allow marketing of higher value crops, incomes that the poor obtain from the production are not only higher but also more secure. In order to assist the poor farmers in producing more food products, new crops have been introduced such as hybrid maize, cotton and Page 14 of 25

so on. After obtaining high yields, the poor farmers are very happy about their productivity. However, due to transport problem, their products cannot access the markets while the local people do not know how to consume it. Finally, what they can see to be a risk is a failure rather than benefit they are waiting for.

Thus the droughts, floods, wind damage or pest attacks can be avoided or dealt with if farmers have good access to markets and obtain knowledge, and ability of how to respond to opportunity. One of the largest benefits noted of the reforms is the freer movement of goods as well as people, by allowing food to move to where it is needed, and workers to find jobs wherever available. This can help to improve the life of the poor and self-sufficiency is no longer forced on the farmers. (Further discussion is presented in the following parts).

Another element of risk is illness that the poor usually have to face. Living in bad environmental conditions, lack of clean water, and health care services lead to higher incidences of disease in remote areas than urban areas. Illness often comes with medical costs, which can cost a lot of money of the poor to treat. Isolated families often delay treatment until it becomes very expensive or too late. Also when the poor get ill, they have to pay for treatment and lose their incomes, therefore the combined effects could be devastating.

Other risks are derived from livestock disease. Many poor families earn incomes from livestock; some households even borrowed capital from the banks. Distance from veterinary services, ignorance of proper methods of animal care, and lack of resources often lead to losses when disease hits their animals. The adverse affects sometimes leave the poor severely in debt.

It is worth noting that the market economy can bring another risk to the poor in price fluctuation. Rural farmers are usually unable to predict whether prices of their products will go up or go down. Even some better off farmers, who isolated from market information have to clear their rubber plantation due to its serious price decrease below invested expenditure. Farmers with access to market; knowledge and credit usually manage to deal more effectively with the adverse effects of price fluctuation derived from the market economy.

(c) Productive Resources for Income Generation

Bad crops or illness are not the only risks creating the poverty situation in Dak Lak. Additionally, lack of productive resources (land resources, capital and labour force) for income generation can be seen as additional causes leading to the famine of the poor.

(i) Land resources

Land resource is a vital productive material of the upland poor people. Since 1993, the results derived from the economic reformation and the new land law means that generally many poor farm households can directly manage their land resources. The upland people have rights to decide what crops they want to cultivate most effectively. This reformation can be seen as an important agent motivating rural development and contributing to poverty eradication.

However, while the new policies of government create opportunities for rural progress, it also constrains the poor. Lack of land use planning creates inequity in the agricultural allocation process among better off, rich families and the poor, consequently, without advantages because of various reasons, the poor are often landless.

As ethnic minority poor groups usually concentrate in the hill areas, their livelihood is closely related to land resources including agricultural and forestry land. In the past, under favorable conditions, shifting cultivation, a main productive means of the ethnic minority groups, is sustainable and can be seen as a productive form of natural resource management. However, at present, under pressure of population increase, land resource has become a scarcity and the shifting cultivation method is no longer suitable. The reason is that production cycle is reduced due to not enough time for the soil to recover its fertility. As a result, productiveness is gradually lowered.

Recently, because of the sudden increases in the price of coffee in the market with the potential to become rich from cash crops, the poor have been persuaded by the better off to transfer their land resources to coffee expansion. After selling land areas, the poor continue to go further to the forest seeking a piece of new forestland for their illegal cultivation. Under pressure of the market economy, land resources for the poor need to be discussed further

(ii) Labour

Labour is the second important sector for production for the poor people. Annual reports on the poverty Page 15 of 25

situation of the district authorities, such as Ea Sup, Buon Don, Ea Kar, Ma Drak, Krong Bong and Lak, presented one of the reasons leading to hunger of the poor is lack of labour forces. The results observed from the peasant societies of Dak Lak show that the poor families often have from 5-6 members per household, but there are only 2-3 members seen as major laborers and the rest are unable to work or children. With developed regions or where mechanization has been implemented, labor is not the most important component of production. On the contrary, it has necessary become a vital sector for the poor. A lack of labour, especially healthy labour capable of doing heavy work, keeps many families in poverty.

Many government aid programmes supported to the poor by subsidizing inputs to promote agricultural production, nevertheless many of them failed because of lack of labor forces in applying the granted schemes.

The poor families usually lack labour in the rural areas, while some are redundant but there are not enough opportunities for employment. Others become employees of rich persons in the district centers or move to the city seeking a job.

The poor people are usually very busy in the farming seasons, mostly focusing on the rainy seasons then becoming unemployed in the dry seasons. Using labor capital effectively is not easy for the poor; it needs to be supported by the government’s antipoverty programmes, which will be mentioned further in the following sections.

(iii) Capital

As producers, the poor need capital for their cultivation. It is worth noting that after having land resources as well as labour forces but without capital, the poor can still not produce commercially. Without capital support, the poor usually apply small productive means; consequently, they can produce only a small quantity that is suitable only for self-consumption. Households with too little or poor quality land can still have sufficient income if they know how to invest in diversification or intensification of production; often, what is needed is credit or a saving mechanism to allow them to accumulate enough resources to invest. An example from the observation in 5 poorest districts in Dak Lak show that the main concern of most of the poor interviewed about support against poverty is capital help.

However, capital is a big challenge to the poor in Dak Lak, especially to ethnic minority groups who are living in the mountainous areas and not familiar with money. Their products are often exchanged in kind or for labour without trading.

Recognizing that the problem of capital is a necessity for the poor, the government has issued many aid programmes such as credit schemes, loan schemes, banks for the poor with low interest rates or without interest rates. These aim to subsidize the poor, overcoming the adverse affects of lack of capital for production. However, this support does not easily reach to the poor due to the complicated procedures from the lenders.

(d) Sustainability

Living in the remote areas where the environment is changing rapidly due to different reasons, the poor often face with unsustainable conditions of production; this brings them additional adverse affects. Under pressure of population increase both by natural development and by uncontrolled immigration, the natural resources of Dak Lak province have been seriously destroyed. Environmental degradation leads to droughts, floods and natural disasters. Production of the poor is unsustainable

Under the renovation strategies of the government on market economies, the poor have rights to choose production of products that the markets need. However, due to lack of information on market price or up to date information, the poor have often failed in their businesses.

Undeveloped infrastructure and lack of productive services like irrigation systems also create non-sustainability for the poor.

(e) Participation

Participation of the poor can be seen as a prerequisite for the success of the government’s antipoverty programmes. However, in the past years, participation has been a big challenge while implementing the programmes of support to the poor.

Communication problems derived from difference of language. Most of the poor are ethnic minority groups who Page 16 of 25

cannot speak the national language fluently; consequently, they are unable to understand the development policies. In addition, infrastructures are undeveloped leading to the isolation of rural poor in Dak Lak; they often lack information on the directions of rural development from the government policies that affect their life. Many significant programmes in the field of land use planning or reforestation, which aim to create jobs for the poor, cannot touch the poor because they rarely have opportunities to contribute opinions to the plans, which affect to improvement of their living standards.

Lack of participation therefore creates unreality and unfeasibility of the aid schemes. As a result, their effectiveness is very low.

4. The past efforts of governments and its imperfection

(a) Institutions

The national programme of poverty eradication started in Vietnam in the year 1990, on the basis of establishing funds for poverty eradication. Initially, this scheme aimed to provide loans to the poor; it was also used for support to vocational training, decentralization and promoting employment to poor households. It has become a national programme since 1992.

Similarly, the poverty alleviation programme in Dak Lak province began in 1996 as an important objective of the provincial rural development strategies. It was presented clearly in the local authority’s paper: "continuing implementation the renovation strategies and rural development to achieve the provincial socio-economic objectives from now to the year 2000. In which, the most significant one was elimination of famine situation to improve livelihood of the local people and at the same time reduce the gaps between the poor and rich households".

In doing this, an implementation unit has been established at provincial level by decision No 112/QD dated 14.9.1996 of the PC DL involving 15 members of key organizations related to poverty alleviation activities. Its mandates are to advise the DL PC as well as assist and monitor the poor districts carrying out anti-poverty programmes.

At district level, each of them has a district poverty alleviation board. It plays the role as advisor to the district authority, the poor, and keeps contact with the province. DOLISA is permanent organization working closely with the Dak Lak PC and being in charge of implementing the programmes.

(b) The initial results of 3 years implemented poverty alleviation programme in Dak Lak province

Establishing institutions throughout the country distributed at different level show that the government’s concern for poverty eradication. Annually, the local government spends approximately 100 billion VND (equivalent to $ 7,400 million) of its budget on antipoverty activities.

There are different projects related to poverty alleviation being implemented in Dak Lak such as:

Infrastructure development projects (estimated investment budget is $ 1,290 million)

Projects for fixed cultivation, settlement and development of new economic zones (estimated investment $ 1,218 million)

Projects for support to families with special difficulties (estimated budget is $215,000)

Projects for support to agricultural production and handicraft development (estimated budget is $831,000)

Project for support to education for the poor (estimated budget is $ 418,900)

Projects for support of health care for the poor (estimated budget is $ 400,000)

Project for creating employment for the poor (estimated budget is $ 71,684) Page 17 of 25

Strengthening capacity of staff for poverty alleviation programmes (estimated budget is $ 71,684)

Credit schemes (estimated budget is $ 4,152,759)

Along with the above projects, the national programmes implemented in the upland provinces as Dak Lak also benefit the poor. Some of them can be listed as:

The national programme for rehabilitation of 5 million ha of forest

The agricultural extension programme

The banks for the poor

Hunger identification certificates, and etc.

Due to vast investment by the government, the initial results of 3 years implementation of the poverty alleviation programme can be evaluated as considerable progress. Accordingly, the survey’s result in 1996 classified 70,616 poor households (occupied 26.44% of total households) in Dak Lak; three years later, It remains 58,987 households (18.1% of total households) classified as poor families. It means that the poverty incidence has reduced 8.3% in 3 years.

From the above results, it is worth noting that the government with support from many international donors has invested a lot of its budget and efforts to the programme.

Information from the government’s report show that the following symptoms are encountered in the poor households

Lack of capital for production
Lack of land resources for production
Lack of new knowledge to apply hybrid crops with high yield
Lack of knowledge on family planning leading to too many children
Laziness, gambling or excessive drinking (percentage of this is small)

Understanding the above situations, the government in Dak Lak has supported a subsidy programme to the poor; there were various kinds of aid as follows:

Loan scheme and subsidy programme

15 billion Vietnamese dong (equivalent to $1.2 million) was used for this programme in which 46,100 poor households were lent money for their production. In addition, the local authority also subsidized inputs as follow:

Various species for different crops 44,556 kg

Seedlings 98,229 trees

Fertilizer 13,507 tons

Insecticide 20,252 kg

Cattle 5,748 cattle

Other subsidy in cash 1,045 million VND

Hunger certificates

This programme aims to identify the hunger families, which are facing with significant difficulties and inaccessibility to public services in the community. 2,000 families were issued hunger certificates so those identified poor hunger households can get hospital services without payment. Moreover, their children can go to schools without paying the school fee. In order to subsidize for the above programme, the government has spent about 3.9 billion Vietnamese dong (equivalent to $280,000) of its budget in three years. The certificates Page 18 of 25

can also be seen as a base for reducing agricultural tax or other taxes to the poor.

Sponsorship

This action aims to involve business companies in supporting poor communes. However, it has not proved very successful due to unclear understanding. Under pressure of competition of market economies, business companies have to find ways of strengthening enforce their firms rather than helping the poor.

Agricultural land allocation

Land resources are vital conditions of the rural poor. In order to help the poor to have productive material, the local authority has launched a programme to allocate agricultural land to poor families with each household having a minimum area of 0.5-1 ha per household. In fact, there are only 4 districts, which have implemented this action, while the other districts have not yet carried out the programme.

(c) Imperfections and the reasons

The concept of the poor, the matter needs to be defined.

Since 1996, local authority in Dak Lak province had launched a concrete program with the object of eradicating hunger and alleviating poverty. Many programs funded by the government had been done. However, it is not easy to realize who are the poor and to clarify this target group.

As required by Decision N. 59/DOLISA, 6.11.98, a household in the mountainous areas of the Central Highlands is considered to be poor with less than 13 kg of rice/ person/month. This neither described nor classified what the criteria for the poor were. Moreover, it also did not deal with various requirements in life such as: education, health care, birth and death rate, illiteracy rates...

The poor in rural area, especially ethnic minority people, use rice as means of exchange to satisfy all their requirements in daily life, therefore, rice can be regarded as their monetary unit. Many families’ incomes are higher than 13 kg of rice/ person/month. So these households can not be classified as poor according to the government criteria. Still, after spending their earnings on health care, education, clothes, and traditional ceremonies... they finally become poor since their incomes are much less than 13 kg of rice/ person/month.

The criteria for the poor is 13 kg of rice/person/month, which is too low compared with the basic requirement to recreate people’s labor (due to 13 kg of rice corresponding with 1.500 calorie/person/day). If we compare our criteria with neighbouring Asian countries we can see that our criteria for medium or better-off households is now below the poor level given by regional countries. From these criteria, we can calculate the number of poor households. Criteria which is lower than real income create problems for the hunger eradication and poverty alleviation program since we are not sure how many households need helping to eradicate their poverty.

Because concept and criteria for poor households have not been defined, the government data referring to the quantity of poor households as stated above has caused difficulties such as:

Not defining target groups.
Not having a foundation to determine exactly support programs.
Facing the problems of issuing necessary decisions.

Land for the poor.

Since Vietnam had escaped from colonial rule, the advocate of government has been to allocate land to farmers particularly to poor families. These households' typical problem is that they have not had enough land to cultivate. The local authority has realized that land is a vital element, but the land allocation program still has not achieved desired outcomes in past years.

To solve this problem, land use planning needs implementing. It can be considered a national plan, which aims to help manage land resources and allocate land to poor people. But owing to the shortage of budget and staff, the program progresses slowly. Many communes have developed this plan but they are without rural people's participation. This leads to invaluable or not highly feasible land use planning. According to Dak Lak Department of Land Management, the only district carrying out land use planning up to now is Krong Buk district. Page 19 of 25

The top-down land allocation, which involves the lack of farmers' participation, causes unsuitable land use plans while the poor does not have enough land for cultivating.

Due to the increasing population, both natural state and immigrant phenomena cause land requirement in Dak Lak to become an urgent necessity. In 1975, Dak Lak was a province with a population of 300.000, in 1999 the number is 1,8 m (multiplying 60 times during 24 years). In addition, although government has given prior policies over the poor in the field of land allocation, many poor families still could not cultivate the additional land area because of lack of reclaiming ability (lacking labor), investment (not having capital), techniques. As a result, the poor continue to reclaim new land because this way suits their present situation (less labor while enjoying rich land).

In spite of not having enough land for cultivation, poor people are likely to transfer their land, aiming to solve their urgent personal difficulties. In recent years, the government issued land regulation 1993 in which the right of transfer or exchange land was recognized and poor persons can make over their land even though it is their vital property. A lot of land area for cultivating food crops has been ceded to better households so that they can grow coffee trees.

Certificate for land use rights is considered a means of managing land, however, it is still not used commonly in the poor rural area. Efforts for land use permit happens mainly in the Buon Ma Thuot City, district centres or suburban town. Remote rural areas have not enjoyed profit from this program.

Capital for the poor' s production.

Capital is one of the three necessary factors for production (the two remaining are land and labor). Most poor households do not have capital or capital shortages. To help them, the government has promulgated the Bank for the Poor with the aim to help them have access to credit. From this kind of bank, poor people pay low or even no interest rates. However, complex administrative procedures cause difficulties for them when they need money. Lacking or not having collateral is also a barrier, which prevents the poor from borrowing money from the bank.

With the help of public organizations (Women’s Union, Farmers' Association), the other families can borrow money more easily. But their problem is how they can use their loans efficiently and repay the loan at the right term (short term for the poor since the bank is afraid of risks).

As stated above, poor people usually meet mishaps (not enough input, irrigating system depending on the natural conditions, shortage of market information...), in which is beyond the farmers' forecast, therefore, they cannot repay their loan as expected.

Agricultural extension

This program is considered to be practical for the poor. Extension officers not only transfer technological and scientific industry but also communicate government's information and policies to people in distant rural areas. Agricultural extension team also helps the poor give their opinions and aspirations to the government. However, the expectation from this program has not achieved much because it lacks human resources to implement it. Each district presently has 2-3 agricultural extension officers operating in the region of 9-12 communes/districts. These offices are short of essential facilities such as transport, information and retraining. In subsidy economy times, agricultural extension personnel are testers but in the time of market economy, they are the ones who provide services.

Beside effective agricultural extension programs, many have not gained expected results since indigenous knowledge and modern scientific technology have not been combined yet. Lots of testing programmes is successful at research stations but fail when applied on a large scale.

Coordinating and inserting programme eradicate hunger and alleviate poverty.

Hunger eradication and poverty alleviation is one of the important government programmes. Besides the government is investing in other programs relating to the above objective. The following programs can be included as follows:

Projects of infrastructure development.

Projects of permanent cultivation and building new economic zones. Page 20 of 25

5 million ha forest land program.

Different units manage the mentioned programs so the combination is not very good. This creates limits in carrying out the program because of overlapping which leads to ineffectiveness. The objective of hunger eradication and poverty alleviation is difficult to obtain if there is no close coordination of components managed by various partners.

Programs supporting the poor receive considerable annual budget from the government. However, it is noticed to manage these capitals effectively in order to avoid loss.

Human resources.

One of reasons which lessons the effect of hunger eradication and poverty alleviation program, is the human resource managing it. In the time of subsidy economy, the method of working government staffs concentrates much on controlling. In market economy regime with renovated policies, they need to transfer operating methodology to become services providers. New working methodology with farmers' participation is a great challenge of hunger eradication and poverty alleviation program. To overcome the above situation, training and re-training staff who implements this program needs initiating and carrying out a reasonable way.

Chapter 3: Some Recommendations for Implementing Hunger Eradication and Poverty Alleviation Program in Dak Lak Province

1. Foundation for defining criteria of poverty situation.

The objective of identification is to clearly classify the target groups of the hunger eradication and poverty alleviation programme (in other words the beneficiaries from the program). Giving more exact definition of the target groups and knowing reasons that cause poverty, given solutions may achieve better results.

The poor in Dak Lak province are typed by various criteria as stated in the above part. They live in rural areas and most of them are ethnic minority people. Therefore, the aim of these proposals is used for the rural poor in Dak Lak.

For the hunger eradication and poverty alleviation program, Department of Planning and Investment defines hungry and poverty households as follows:

"Poor households are a part of the population who can not satisfy their essential demands for their life. The living standard of them is lower than other persons in the community. Conversely, hungry households are the ones that do not have enough minimum amount of food to maintain their families."

As required by Decision No. 59/DOLISA, 6.11.96 in Dak Lak province, a household is considered to be poor when its total income is less than 13 kg of rice/person/day. This amount of rice means that every day a person consumes less than 1.500 calories (not including the fact that the poor have to use rice as means of exchange to meet other requirements such as: health care, clothing, etc…). Thus, the mentioned criteria is so low, that it does not satisfying a person’s minimum calories.

Having references from many authors’ studies about criteria for poor or poverty household of regional countries added to surveying the present conditions of these families in some communes in Dak Lak province, a suggestion of criteria for poor and poverty households is 2.100 calories/person/day plus other requisite things.

Based on the above criteria, a poverty family should be classified, as one that has livelihood lower than 18 kg of rice/person/month (a person needs 63.000 calories/month corresponding with 17,8 kg of rice/person/month).

Table 5 The outcomes from surveying households’ expenses in Dak Phoi commune

Other expenditures Poverty % Poor % besides rice household household Page 21 of 25

Clothes 37.000 0.04 315.000 0.14 Health care 0 0 120.000 5.46 Funeral, Wedding 8.500 0.01 170.000 0.07 Total 45.500 0.05 605.000 5.67 Poverty household’s income: 793.500 VND/year/household Poor household’s income: 2.194.000 VND/year/household

Source: Ute Bartels, 1999, The contribution of incomes towards Land Allocation/Forest Assignment

As presented in the above box, the poor and poverty households’ also have other needs besides rice such as clothing, health care, funerals, and weddings. These occupy about 1-1.6% of their expenditure (depending on the number of persons in a family).

It is necessary to know exactly target groups’ quantity. Consequently, a re-survey programme to determine the figures of the poor is needed. The government should also keep issuing certificates for poor and poverty households.

Table 6: GNP/person and social figures of some countries

Country GNP/person Infant mortality Life Calories/day/person (US$, 1988) (‰) expectation China 330 31 70 2,630 Other countries have low income Bangladesh 170 144 51 1,927 India 340 97 58 2,238 Pakistan 350 107 55 2,315 Indonesia 440 68 61 2,597 Countries have average income Egypt 660 83 63 3,342 Guatemala 900 57 62 2,307 Thailand 1000 30 65 2,331 Turkey 1280 75 64 3,229 Peru 1300 86 62 2,246 Brazil 2160 61 65 2,656 Source: Data from World Bank (1990) Report on development in the world, Oxford University, New York, page 178-9

2. Framework to determine the solutions for eradicating hunger and reducing poverty.

Through major reports dealing with this subject in Vietnam in October 1995 by The UNDP, we can apply the following model to this program:

The economic growth of the whole province will have impacts upon economic components in the society, including the poor in rural. Consequently, hunger eradication and poverty alleviation will have difficulties to be successful if the economy has not developed. Page 22 of 25

In recent years, though affected by Asian countries’ economy crisis, Dak Lak province has kept pace with its firm economic development. This not only created a material basic and capital for investment, but also had positive effects on the hunger eradication and poverty alleviation program. During the last three years, the number of poor households has been reduced considerably.

However, poor people in rural areas are facing new and complicated problems. Thus, more feasible measures are necessary.

Box 4: The status of agriculture in the rural and solutions

The rural areas presently is the place where developing new and complicated problems. Production force of agricultural sector is remaining a lot of disadvantages compared with demand for commercial production on a large scale both at vast areas and sub-region...

In general, technological and material and infrastructure in rural areas among the North, Center and South are low and distributed unequally, particularly in remote or coastal areas. Such demands as building roads, electricity, schools, clinics, services for production and social life...have not met people's needs in the commune level.

Source: Dr Cao Sy Khiem, Deputy of Economic Board of the central Communist Party, 1998, The real situation of agriculture in the rural and some methods of investment capital in industrialization, modernization. Page 18-22

3. Proposals for eradicating hunger and alleviating poverty

(a) An investment in rural infrastructure helps to reduce isolation of rural areas

As mentioned in chart show that the poor are often isolated due to physical conditions. They live in remote and inaccessible areas with bad rural inter-roads (poor infrastructure). This causes a shortage of information about markets as well as about policies of the government. As a result, they cannot enjoy public services of society equally as people in developed areas.

Owing to these disadvantages, the poor have to purchase raw materials, fertilizers for their production at a higher price compared with the normal one when products are on the market. In addition, their products are sold at a lower price since they have to pay the transportation cost.

In the future, the investment in infrastructure, particularly rural inter-roads and communication system will certainly assist rural people in receiving the same treatment which farmers in favorable areas have. This is essential for helping the poor decrease their difficulties and attain equality in the market economy.

In previous years, rural infrastructure program invested by the government has expended a large portion of its budget in facilitating the poor in the process of access to the market, as well as to the inputs and outputs services. But the implementation and monitoring of the process need to be improved.

The basic construction projects like roads should have local authority’s presence (district or commune level) and particularly people’s participation in management. This aims developing maximal effect of investment hence people have to know how to invest so that they cost lowest expenses but get highest results. Because of the government’s limitation of budget, people’ s participation also means that they can propose prior orders that help carrying out the projects effectively.

Rural persons are themselves beneficiaries. They feel that they must have the responsibility for the use and maintenance of basic construction project later if they are allowed to participate in these activities. This matter is very important, since although it is hard to build a work, managing it efficiently is much more difficulty. People will get advantages from managing and monitoring such public projects if they are the owners of them.

(b) In support to the poor on access to natural resources, credit, scientific and technological achievements Page 23 of 25

The main obstacle of poor people is the shortage of cultivating land particularly for food production. In the coming years, the State needs to have a concrete programme to allocate land for farmers because it is their vital productive material. A household with 5-6 persons should be allocated 1.5-2 ha for food production. Since food security is the biggest concern of the poor, land allocation for the poor should be considered as an important objective of the yearly government plan. It must be settled as soon as possible.

At the moment, Vietnam is the second largest rice exporter rice in the world (after Thailand). However, production is only concentrated on Mekong delta and the transfer of food to the Highlands is not easy due to high transport costs. In addition, the transfer of food from central Dak Lak to the remote areas on the undeveloped road system, which has not been upgraded, causes the price of rice rise even. Moreover, the poor rarely have spare cash used for buying rice. Therefore, the best solution for poor residents in rural areas is to produce locally.

Land requirements are increasing due to population pressure. Land Use Planning is regarded as a useful instrument for solving people’s need on land. The government should invest immediately its budget in implementing LUP for communes especially poor ones. In doing this, people's participation should be considered.

Land Use planning which has not been settled will lead to unsafe situation of food to the poor. If so, other government's impacts on them such as education, health care, family planning, etc. are difficulty to carry out since food security is their leading concern.

Capital is also an important element to the poor (after labor and land). Due to the scarcity of land resources, poor people cannot raise their yield by expanding land area but have to apply intensive farming techniques to achieve higher capacity. To implement this objective, the poor need supporting for capital and technology.

The Bank for the Poor can be considered as an active help to the poor which lessens their difficulty of capital but effective solutions are required. Certificates for poor families and land use rights can be used as collateral, which allows the poor to borrow money from the Bank. The government should encourage the poor in forming interests groups or user groups which can be considered intermediaries to help the poor with basic procedures when borrowing money. Illiteracy is one of major problems causing the poor not access to the bank. Therefore, bank staff should pay more attention to them.

Besides capital requirement, an increase in agricultural extension groups, including quantity and quality is also necessary. Issued extension programs need people’s participation. New cultivating models have to rely on indigenous knowledge and cash crops (which require high investment) are only provided for them when they understand them completely.

From failures, we have learnt lessons in which the combination of indigenous knowledge and progress in science and technology play an important role in the implementing process. This helps us avoid the consequence, that a new cultivating model which succeeds in testing stations but cannot be applied on a large scale.

Agricultural extension teams need retraining. In addition, they should change their awareness and re-orientate their activities to become service providers. Experiences from some countries, such as in Taiwan, show that extension groups need to be equipped of transport and should become services providers to farmers. Their incomes are associated with farmers’ revenue which result from service activities.

(c) Strengthening people’s participation – a decisive factor

The word "participatory" is widely used in development theory of various schools and has as many meanings as there are users. To the extent of this program, participation means that the poor can contribute their opinions, as well as show a sense of responsibility for relative programs.

In past years, in order to orientate the process of developing a social economy, the government at different levels has formed scenarios for expanding the social economy. However, the scenarios’ feasibility is not as high as expected since they lack people’s participation.

Participation should be done in the first step of the process of forming scenarios for hunger eradication and poverty alleviation program which are often called Participatory Rural Appraisal. This helps poor people realise both their advantages and difficulties in the future. The poor often meet difficulties rather than advantages but participating in this program means that they can see both of them. It can be implemented in the phase of planning community development to help farmers to join in the decision -making process. Besides, it is also Page 24 of 25

indicated in the process of monitoring and evaluating. People need to know why this program has not brought a desired result and how they deal with this problem.

Participation manifests decentralization from the government to residents. Thanks to this, poor people can set up effective solutions for the above program. The poor can receive aids from outside supporters. However, they can not have a better life unless they make great effort to devise measures for themselves. Outside agents just aid the poor in financial or technological aspects but cannot be replacements for the poor in their activities.

Participation also creates impartiality in the society. This means that all citizens in the community have the same right to take part in the programme and are responsible for the objectives of it.

While carrying out this participatory process, gender issues and ethnic women’s role in social activities should be concentrated on (for example, in Land Use Planning and natural resource management).

(d) Enhancing the ability of risk limitation for the poor

Poor persons often meet risks, but do not have the capacity to control them (cultivation but lack of irrigation system) or they do not have enough conditions to predict natural disasters (drought, flood, epidemic). This can be considered one of the reasons making the poor poorer and poverty situation is certainly hard to solve if it does not receive support from the government and community.

In order to surmount these problems, the government’s help is necessary. Projects serving for production as irrigation system, services for crop protection, veterinary stations, forecast need support from the state so that they can be disseminated to communes, particularly poor ones. Poor people’s investment in production definitely faces risks if it is not aided.

Presently, rural areas of Dak Lak, in particularly, and Vietnam in general, face a lack of information about the market economy. The poor always meet risks since they have a shortage of information about market prices and do not have competence to predict market. Many poor households have invested in growing cash crops with the hope of gaining a higher income. If in fact, there is no market for the harvested products, the poor cannot retrieve the invested capital (or turnover is low). Most of them show great concern for the market (Who will their customers be?) when agricultural extension groups introduce them new crops and livestock.

(e) Preserving the environment

Nowadays, the degradation of the ecosystem is also one of the poor’s major concerns. The devastated environment has a direct impact on their production and lives. The government should decentralize natural resource management downwards. Those who influence ecosystem daily should be environmental protectioners rather than the government agencies.

The three kinds of resources which directly effect on the poor are forest, land and water sources. The State issued Decision 245/1998/QD-TT, 21.12.1998, give local authorities the rights to manage forest. This is a lucid and meaningful one. Nevertheless, the development of the process is still slow. Therefore, the process needs to be promoted faster. Regulations for land and water resources are necessary to share the power between the government and the local authorities and people.

Forest allocation programme for local families is also an important one of the State, which aims to decentralise and assign management rights to these families. This can be regarded as a good lesson that ought to be disseminated to the whole province.

The poor people in the Dak Lak rural areas are mostly ethnic minority. Their knowledge about forest is immense. Therefore, we should learn from them and choose aspects which can be added to the management policy of the government.

Conclusions

The poor in the rural areas gain their livelihoods in a variety of ways from different types of income and employment. They do so with varying degrees of success according to their access to resources and employment and how they deal with pressure arising from social, economic and environmental change. Page 25 of 25

Since unification, poverty alleviation has been a key objective of the Vietnamese government as well as the Dak Lak authority. It must be solved as soon as possible in order to create a new agent for development of the nation and Dak Lak Province. In The last years, the People Committee of Dak Lak has invested a lot of its efforts for poverty alleviation, the initial results are considerable proved that the poverty alleviation strategies has been going on the right way. However, it is far from achievement due to the poor society is complicated and it requires effective solutions as above presentation.

This paper have explored an overview of poverty society in Dak Lak province with mostly focus in the rural areas, the realities of the poor as well as their difficult conditions have been presented aims to help readers understanding about the poor. In addition, the study also pointed out the constraints of existing poverty alleviation programmes as well as recommendations for improvement. However, poverty alleviation is not straightforward, as a result, limitation of this paper is understandable. In order to supplement to this study, the author would like to propose the local government should have another programme for further study. Finally, the author hopes that the study could contribute a small effort to the poverty alleviation of Dak Lak province based on this study.

References

A.W. Van den Ban & H.S. Hawkins, (1998), Agriculture Extension, Blackwell Science Publisher

Cao Sy Khiem, (1998), The Real Situation of Agriculture in The Rural Area and Some Methods of Investment Capital For Industrialization and Modernization, The Vietnam Economic Magazine

Diana Carney, (1998), Sustainable Rural Livelihood, Department for International Development

Henry Bernstein, Ben Crow, Hazel Johnson, (1995), Rural Livelihoods Crises and Responses, Oxford University Press

Ministry of Planning and Investment, (1996), The National programme For Hunger Eradication and Poverty Reduction In Vietnam

Nguyen Thi Hang and Nguyen Van Thieu, (1993), Identifying Poverty and Hunger In Vietnam, Vietnam Economic Review, No 4.

Nicholas Prescott, (1995), Vietnam Poverty Assessment and Strategy , The World Bank Report

The World Bank, in collaboration with the Government of Vietnam, ADB, UNDP, FAO and CIDA, and in consultation with international donors and NGOs, (1998), Vietnam Advancing Rural Development From Vision To Action, The Report for the consultative Group Meeting for Vietnam

Tim Allen, Alan Thomas, (1997), Poverty and Development In The 1990s, Oxford University Press

Ute Bartels, (1999), The Contribution of Incomes Towards Land Allocation/Forest Land Assignment, The Case Study Report of The MRC/GTZ project

Y Wel Ksor, (1996), The Poverty Situation Of The Ethnic Minority Group In Yang Mao, The Vietnam Agricultural Publisher