Before this study away project I had never even spoken to anyone about the actual state that Vietnam is currently in. I had preconceived ideas that it would be a place with some well developed areas with good economic standing, but mainly a country whose people were rather poor. The more we discuss our project in Vietnam and the study away trip itself, during class periods, the more of an idea I have gained about the actual state of Vietnam. However, I saw an article from The World Bank, “Poverty Reductions in Vietnam: Remarkable Progress, Emerging problems” and it was interesting to read through the article and discover some interesting facts about Vietnam.
20 years ago, Vietnam’s poverty level was at a staggering high of nearly 60%. Amazingly, that figure has dropped to 20.7% (in 2013). This has been achieved through nation wide initiatives to improve education and funding to farmers so that they can get improve their harvest rates. However, the article from the World Bank also stressed that a lot of the economic development projects have been based in certain areas only, meaning that city life is improving but people in rural areas are still struggling. This makes me more appreciative of the work the Project Vietnam is doing by trying to help those people in the rural areas of Vietnam, seeing as it seems that these are the people that still really need help.
The World Bank even states in its article that “it is critical to make growth more inclusive, by expanding investments in rural areas, in manufacturing and small and medium enterprises”. It is easy to say that Vietnam should broaden its funding to help rural citizens but finding resources or financial aids is hard enough as it is so it may be some time before Vietnam can work out a plan to support people all over the country. In the mean time, and I will repeat myself here: it makes the work that foundations like Project Vietnam even more critical to the livelihoods of those people living in rural areas of Vietnam.
Kristina Lor says
I’m happy to see you researching types of information like this. Poverty is something that did stick out a lot in my mind when we were in Vietnam before. The advancement for that improvement of the livelihood of everyone’s life is hard to achieve. I can’t wait to hear your perspective after reaching the ground and experiencing it directly 🙂