POLICY BRIEF 2010

How to incorporate
poverty reduction
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to achieve sustainable livelihood
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in Ha Giang Province of Viet Nam
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This Policy Brief presents findings and recommendations from a study examining the
POLICY BRIEF 2010

Hà Giang is a province in north-eastern of Vietnam. It is located in the far north of the

country, and contains Vietnam’s northernmost point. It shares a 270 km long border with
Yunnan province of southern China. Hence it is known as the final frontier of Vietnam. The
province covers an area of 7,945.8 square kilometres and as of 2008 it had a population of
705,100 people. Ha Giang province is composed of one town municipality and ten districts,
six of which are included in the list of program for sixty-two poorest districts with over 50%
of households living under the national poverty line.

Following the Comprehensive Poverty Reduction and Growth Strategy (CPRGS) of Vietnam
2005 - 2015, in a northern mountainous province of Ha Giang, the Province’s People
Committee (PPC) has been currently implementing numerous programs targeted at poverty
alleviation including the Program for 62 poorest districts, Program of socio-economic
development for extremely difficult communes in ethnic minority and mountainous areas
(P135-II), Program of granting housing and cultivating land, houses, clean water for poor
ethnic minority households (P134).

Although knowledge and lessons gained from both researches and real world examples
suggest that pro-poor growth and environmental management should be treated as
complementary development targets to best achieve the ultimate goal of sustainable
livelihood, the environment has not been withdrawn adequate attention in such programs. In
other words, poverty reduction programs in one hand bring about benefits but in other hand it
also causes risks to the environment if they are implemented without notion. The
environment is a public asset for everybody to benefit from and also to conserve. Therefore,
the planning and implementation of comprehensive poverty reduction programs should take
into account environmental factors in order to achieve sustainable livelihood.

A key message is how to maximize benefits and reduce risks of poverty reduction
intervention effect to the environment? The Policy Brief recommends that Ha Giang’ PPC as
well as other stakeholders such as donors, lower – level local authorities and the poor people
themselves should pay more attention to environmental protection in the process of planning
and implementing poverty reduction programs, it also suggests a variety of policy
recommendations based on 5 sources of capital including Human, Social, Financial, Physical
and Natural in achieving the sustainable livelihood for the poor in Ha Giang.
POLICY BRIEF 2010

BACKGROUND OF THE PROBLEM:

According to what have been

implementing with poverty
reduction programmes in Ha Giang,
about two-thirds (2/3) of activities
are relating directly to agriculture
production (see Table 1). It could be
stated that the poor’s livelihoods in
Ha Giang are almost depending on
agricultural production activities
while those activities rely mainly on
natural resources. This linkage
shows the fact that poverty
reduction programmes in one hand
support to livelihood but in the other hand they also make them particularly vulnerable to
environmental degradation (PEP, 2008).

Besides, agricultural intensification has also generated environmental problems ranging from
reduced on-farm biodiversity to mismanaged irrigation water to groundwater depletion and
agrochemical pollution (see Table 2). Similarly, a recent research (John et al, 2009) have
demonstrated that, Poverty Reduction schemes improve the living standard for poor people
but may also result negatively to the environment, the benefit of next generation. For
example, construction of transportation road may lead to deforestation; over-cropped
cultivation, inorganic fertilizers and pesticides cause degraded soil…

Table 1 - Overview of poverty reduction programmes in Ha Giang

Relating to
agricultural
Programme activity production
Direc indire
none
t ct
Programme 134
+ Ensure each poor ethnic minority household has at least 0.5 hectare of X
terraced field or 0.25 hectare of one-crop rice field or two-crop rice field
for cultivation
+ Ensure each poor ethnic minority household has minimum 200 square X
meters of housing land.
+ Provincial authority is responsible for funding poor ethnic minority X
households without stable housing to build their own houses;
+ Central Government shall subsidize each poor ethnic minority X
POLICY BRIEF 2010

household with 0.5 tons of cement or grant VND 300,000 to build their
own water tanks or to dig a well

Programme 135
+ Improve production knowledge of ethnic minority peoples, accelerate X
agricultural economic structural shift toward combination of production
and marketing, promote agricultural advantages of each individual
region X
+ Ensure basic communal infrastructure facilities that are sustainable
and adequate for residential life and agricultural production activities
and which contribute to improvement of living conditions, production
development and income generation X
+ Improve the cultural and social activities for ethnic minority people in
extremely difficult communes; X
+ Ensure poor ethnic minority households have access to clean water,
electricity, healthcare and sanitation, education, and legal support. X
+ Capacity building for people to be able to effectively participate into
the monitoring process of investment activities within the area.
+ Agricultural and forestry extension X

Programme of rapid and sustainable poverty eradication for

62 poorest districts
+ Production support and job creation for poor people; X
+ Vocational training and background knowledge improvement for X
villagers in 6 poorest districts;
+ Officers supplement at all administration levels within the area; X
+ Infrastructure investment for poor villages, communes and districts X

Table 2: Effects of agriculture to environment

Onsite Effects Offsite Effects Global Effects

(externalities) (externalities)
Intensive agriculture Soil degradation Groundwater Greenhouse gas
(high-potential (salinization, loss of depletion emissions
areas) organic matter) Agrochemical Animal diseases
pollution Loss of in situ crop
Loss of local and animal genetic
biodiversity (natural diversity
and agricultural)
Extensive Nutrient depletion Soil erosion Reduced carbon
agriculture (less- Soil erosion onsite downstream effects sequestration 
favored areas) effects (reservoir siltation) (storage) from
Hydrological change deforestation and
(e.g., loss of water carbon dioxide
retention in upstream emissions from forest
areas) fires
Pasture degradation in Loss of biodiversity
common property
areas
POLICY BRIEF 2010

None of such mentioned poverty reduction programs take the environment as a core issue for
consideration although there appears to be broad awareness of environmental benefits and
risks amongst stakeholders. Therefore, measures to formalise exploitation of benefits and
reduce risks to the environment are the key motivator for enhancing the sustainability in
poverty reduction programs. At present, without such formal mechanisms, environmental
benefits randomly occur by chance or on an ad-hoc basis.

The small scale of poverty reduction

activities within the province’s area
Poverty is the cause that makes local
means that the environmental risks are people over-exploit natural resources for
generally localized and most importantly, their subsistence. But as natural resources
manageable. However, without become exhausted and cannot well serve
peoples’ livelihoods, the poor only become
recognition and implementation of
poorer
suitable management measures, there
exists the potential for environmental risks to cause adverse impacts both at a local and
regional/cumulative level. For example, if a number of small water extraction systems are
constructed on a particular river and the combined effect is that downstream flows are
reduced to levels that impact on other water users, an adverse cumulative effect can be said
to have occurred. Such cumulative effects typically occur when a large number of relatively
small activities are carried out in a certain area, but are rarely identified through standard
environmental assessment practices.

The potential for environmental risks occurs primarily during the preparation and
implementation stages of poverty reduction activities. For example, construction of a road
that improves access to a protected area for forest product collection. Construction of
infrastructure facilities also has the potential to generate adverse impacts, albeit localized and
minor. Examples include erosion and sedimentation, water quality deterioration or noise
generation.

Once procedures are incorporated into poverty Poverty is the

reduction to identify such potential adverse cause that
effects, standard management measures can be makes local
people over-
identified to adequately ameliorate exploit natural
environmental risks. resources for
their
subsistence. But
as natural
resources
become
exhausted and
cannot well
 livelihoods, the
poor only
become poorer
POLICY BRIEF (PEP, 2008).
2010

WHY RECOMMENDED POLICIES SHOULD BE PROPOSED TO THE

Only when GovernmentPROVINCE’S PEOPLE COMMITTEE OF HA GIANG?
policy-making and
planning processes
recognize that the The Province’s People Committee of Ha Giang is the executive
livelihoods of the poorest arm of a provincial government to be responsible for all
critically depend upon
investment activities including planning and managing all
access to common natural
resources, will issues of socio-economic plans and poverty reduction schemes within
environmental protection its areas.
be no longer be settled
separately from issues of
hunger eradication and
poverty reduction

FINDINGS:
1. The poor in Ha Giang is lacking access to, and governance of natural
resources which are essential to their livelihoods.

2. The Ha Giang poor has low productivity on natural resource base with less
access to take advantage of existing or emerging economic opportunities and
technology which is likely to enable them to adapt to climate change.

3. Existing poverty reduction programs haven’t involved the community in

promoting proper environmental management through economic incentives, by
compensating the poor to conserve or manage resources important to others and
by employing the poor to improve public natural resources.

4. There haven’t been adequate, officially recognised assessment and

incorporation of environmental - poverty impacts and costs of environmental
degradation in the decision - making process relating to land and resource use
projects.

5. Social and environmental safeguards or standards haven’t been in place to

guide development and investment activities; and sufficient resources available
for effective monitoring.
POLICY BRIEF 2010

RECOMMENDED POLICIES

To achieve sustainable livelihood in the line of incorporating environmental factor in poverty

reduction, it should be based on 5 sources of capital in an approach that promote benefits
from and reduce risks to environment as follows:

1. Human:
+ Reduce reliance on natural resources as a livelihood source with the development of
alternative livelihoods through providing vocational education and training to diversify
income generation from agricultural production to other industries, employment creation for
the poor from activities of environmental management and infrastructure construction,
improved access to markets, higher agricultural production;
+ Participation Promotion and local Knowledge Appreciation: incorporate poverty -
environment linkages as a thematic issue in the participatory planning manual to facilitate
local inputs and priorities
for development at the
district, communal and
village levels. Local
perspectives of
environmental conditions
and the poverty -
environment impacts reflect
the specific geographical
context of these interactions,
highlight development needs
that are critical for building
resilience and adaptive
capacity to environmental
change, and identify appropriate resource allocation;
+ Improve environmental awareness and develop capacity in use of environmental support
tools such as manual, toolkit and indicators that will enable the assessment of real costs of
environmental degradation relative to poverty reduction goals in the decision - making
process on land use and land allocation since land evaluation and allocation are considered as
among the most fundamental activities in effective resource development and management.
POLICY BRIEF 2010

2. Social
+ Define clearly roles and responsibilities of all stakeholders including provincial, district,
commune levels and villagers involved in the investment management and planning
processes to ensure coordination in the application of pro-poor and environment criteria;
+ Institutionalize environmental guidelines, regulations in planning and implementation of
poverty reduction programs for such activities like construction of infrastructure facilities
like irrigation works, transportation roads;
+ Design and implement an applied research project that examines spatial interaction
between poverty and environment, and the study of distribution and equity in development
activities. The spatial dimension is critical for enabling effective targeting of resource
allocation to poverty reduction program appropriate to the province, as most poverty -
environmental problems are inherently geographical;
+ Provide technical information on land use, suitability, land ownership and protection status,
and propose ecological-based activities, investment identified in consultation with
communities;
+ Promote non-agricultural industries such as eco-tourism, handicraft, services …
+ Attract investment to poor districts and with an eco-friendly manner.

3. Financial
+ Create development - oriented financing mechanisms that provide incentives to include the
poor in environmental management activities, such as payment for environmental service
schemes; environment tax, and reduce their vulnerability to environmental hazards and
support adaptation to climate change, such as risk insurance credits.
+ Allocate fund for new mechanisms to obtain as a portion of the provincial budget of
poverty reduction programs, or through the mobilization from donor funds that are targeted
for biodiversity conservation and green development.
POLICY BRIEF 2010

4. Physical
+ Apply improved agricultural practices including integrated pest management, use of
organic fertilisers, suitable crop selection, mechanism and bio-technology in agricultural
production for high-yield crops and risk reduction to the environment, avoiding impoverished
soil;
+ Roads and infrastructure facilities to be built with careful notion to environment.
+ Irrigation works;

5. Natural:
+ Grant land to poor households for cultivation based on land suitability and conditions with
the focus on environmental problems and the use of limited land resources.
+ Carry out planning on water resource management, and management of watersheds at all
levels (provincial, district and commune).
+ Give effect to the judicious regulation on use of pesticides and antibiotics, and mechanism
to reduce pollutants from water resources.
+ Undertake and implement planning on development of craft villages and environmental
infrastructure, including proper waste disposal.
POLICY BRIEF 2010
POLICY BRIEF 2010

Further reading:

Wroe, M. and Doney, M., (2006) Viet Nam Special report: Revved up development,
Development Magazine, Issue 36, pp. 15-19.

Government of Vietnam (2002) The Comprehensive Poverty Reduction and Growth

Strategy (CPRGS) - Approved by the Prime Minister at Document No. 2685/VPCP-QHQT,
dated 21 May 2002, Vietnam Government Gazette Volume 203, pp. 18 – 256, Hanoi

Jones, R., Hanh, T., Phong, N., Trang, T. (2009) A mapping exercise poverty reduction
programmes and policies in Viet Nam, UNDP Vietnam Publication, Hanoi

PEP (2008), Policy Brief - On Poverty and Environment linkages in Viet Nam, [Online].
Available from: <http://www.un.org.vn/index.php?
option=com_content&task=view&id=168&Itemid=219> [10 January, 2007].