Deputy Director of the Central Coordination Office for New-Style Rural Area Development Phương Đình Anh. — VNA/VNS Photo

The integration of three national target programmes — New-Style Rural Area Development, Sustainable Poverty Reduction and Socio-economic Development in Ethnic Minority and Mountainous Areas — is expected to streamline implementation and deliver support to citizens more swiftly and effectively. Deputy Director of the Central Coordination Office for New-Style Rural Area Development Phương Đình Anh told VietnamPlus that the combined programme will provide stronger leverage for ethnic communities to expand opportunities and achieve sustainable poverty reduction.

How does the Central Coordination Office for New-Style Rural Area Development view the importance of integrating the three existing national target programmes into a single overarching programme?

In its submission to the National Assembly, the Government emphasised that merging the three national target programmes holds significant meaning. The integration aims to advance the Party and State’s overarching goal of building a prosperous people, a strong country and a happy, fulfilling life for all. This is the highest shared objective and requires unified understanding.

Consolidating the three programmes will not reduce policy benefits; instead, it will allow stronger, more targeted investment in ethnic and mountain communities in the years ahead.

Mông residents in the northern moutainous province of Tuyên Quang. — VNA/VNS Photo

Current assessments show that poverty remains concentrated in areas where ethnic groups reside. Whereas past poverty reduction programmes were implemented nationwide, the new combined programme will prioritise these communities to help ensure sustainable improvements and long-term poverty eradication.

While new-style rural area development has been implemented nationwide for over a decade, yielding strong results in regions with numerous advantages already, other areas — especially those with large ethnic populations and disadvantaged regions — require more focused investment to improve people’s living standards.

Integrating the three programmes will enable stronger, more concentrated resources for these vulnerable areas until 2035, instead of only until 2030, as previously planned for the ethnic community programme alone.

This consolidation is also expected to enhance implementation efficiency, minimise overlaps, streamline administration, and deliver support to beneficiaries more promptly and substantively.

New-style rural area development has achieved remarkable results over the past 15 years. Could you highlight some of the most notable achievements?

After more than 15 years of implementation, the programme has achieved massive, comprehensive, historic progress, with deep socio-economic impacts across rural areas.

As of June, 6,084 out of 7,669 (or 79.3 per cent) of communes nationwide had met new-style rural area standards. Of these, 2,567 communes (42.2 per cent) had met advanced standards and 743 communes (12.2 per cent) had achieved model new-style rural area status.

The pace of poverty reduction has accelerated, and multidimensional poverty in rural areas has dropped by about 1.93 per cent. In 2024, average per capita income in rural areas reached approximately VNĐ54 million (US$2,046).

Rural infrastructure has seen a breakthrough, with over 90 per cent of villages now connected to their centres by paved or concrete roads.

The programme has also contributed significantly to the country’s overall socio-economic development. Agricultural production models have evolved, with co-operatives playing a central role. Supply chain links have been modernised to align with market demand, support large-scale production and develop safe, high-quality agricultural value chains.

As the programme enters a new phase, one key requirement is to create sustainable economic drivers and raise people’s real incomes. The OCOP programme, combined with rural tourism initiatives, has unlocked local potential and elevated the value of Vietnamese agricultural products.

This combination has also led to the emergence of attractive rural tourism villages, creating non-farm jobs and drawing large numbers of visitors. As a result, local incomes have improved, and communities have become more engaged in landscape, environmental and cultural preservation.

Based on your experience implementing the New-Style Rural Development Programme, what recommendations do you have to ensure the effective rollout of the upcoming unified national target programme?

Once the three national target programmes are merged, it will be essential for relevant authorities to issue a clear management and implementation framework to ensure smooth execution.

It is also important to apply a lump-sum budget mechanism. This means the central Government allocates a total fund, including both recurrent and capital expenditure, to each province based on output targets.

Provinces would then have the autonomy to distribute these resources across localities and tasks.

Relevant authorities should also review, improve and issue specialised mechanisms for small-scale production and development projects and low-complexity infrastructure investments. Under these arrangements, the State would fund part of the cost, with communities contributing the remainder and participating in oversight. — VNS