HÀ NỘI — Six million people in Việt Nam managed to climb up the poverty ladder according to statistics released on Wednesday.

The figures, recorded between 2012 and 2016, were revealed during a briefing on Việt Nam’s human development indices and indicators, held by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Hà Nội to mark the International Day for Eradication of Poverty.

It shows a good progress in the country’s efforts in human development and multidimensional poverty reduction, experts said at the briefing.  

The country’s Human Development Index (HDI) has risen continuously over the past 27 years. With the HDI value of 0.694 in 2017, Việt Nam ranked 116th out of 189 countries and mostly reached the threshold (0.700) of the High Human Development group.

Statistics show the country is doing well in health and education dimensions but lagging on the income component of the HDI.

Its life expectancy at birth is 76.5 years – second in the Asia and the Pacific region, after the Republic of Korea. Its mean years of schooling (a calculation of the average number of years of education received by people ages 25 and older) is 8.2 – higher than the average of East Asia and Pacific region.

The country’s Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) value is 0.0197, ranking it 31st out of 105 countries. Its multidimensional poverty incidence of 5.0 per cent is better than most of the countries in East Asia and Pacific region, just below Thailand (0.79 per cent) and China (4.02 per cent).

Speaking at the briefing, Caitlin Wiesen, UNDP Country Director in Việt Nam, said: “Việt Nam can be proud of its remarkable progress in reducing multi-dimensional poverty, lifting six million people out of poverty in only four years between 2012 and 2016. The challenge now is addressing persistent poverty concentrated among ethnic minorities in geographically challenging environments.

“Việt Nam’s HDI growth rate of 1.41 per cent since 1990 is just four spaces shy of the High Human Development group.

“With accelerated efforts to reduce disparities at subnational levels and among population groups, we believe that Việt Nam could enter the High Human Development group very soon.”

The decision of the Vietnamese Government to shift the country poverty measurement from one-dimensional to multidimensional approaches has a significant meaning, said Nguyễn Tiên Phong, head of UNDP Việt Nam’s inclusive growth unit.

“We have turned Việt Nam into one of the pioneering countries in multidimensional poverty reduction, and we did it even before the Sustainable Development Goals, including one on poverty, were ratified at the United Nations’ General Assembly in 2015,” he said.

“And because we are one of the pioneers, we have got certain experiences that others country don’t have. And we should be proactive in sharing them to others.”

The briefing also provided statistics in the areas of forest coverage, carbon dioxide emission and related mortality rates and biodiversity in different countries. — VNS