Forest sector development project (FSDP) WB3: contribution to poverty reduction and environment

The forest development project funded by WB in the third phase has brought about important achievements that contribute to poverty reduction and forest coverage.

Over 10 years, VBSP has rolled out the project in 6 provinces in the central region of Vietnam. So far, it has contributed to more than 70,000 hectare coverage of commercial forest land in the project area. The loan portfolio achieved over VND 500 billion serving more than 18,000 active borrowers. VBSP has held training courses for around 4,650 turns of beneficiaries.

The project has brought about great benefits in terms of economy, society and environment. It contributed to improving production and business, income generation for poor households and sustainable poverty reduction. Thousands of forestation hectares has helped wasteland, barren hills greening, erosion prevention, water source harmonization, ecological rehabilitation, biodiversity conservation and contribute to limit the status of climate change in recent years.

To assess the success of the project, we visited the transaction office of Phu Loc district in Thua Thien Hue province. After over 10 years of project roll-out in 6 communes of Phu Loc as Loc An, Loc Bon, Loc Dien, Loc Hoa, Loc Son and Xuan Loc, the project disbursed VND 16,222 million, helping 1,144 households to plant 1,526 hectare with the right loan use purpose.

Ho Da The – one of households participating in the project told happily “Thanks to the project, residents are trained on know-how of planting, caring and exploiting, and granted with forest land use rights”.  

Nguyen Tien – borrower of the project estimated: “My family planted over 1 forest hectare following the international standard which has brought about an income of VND 300 million, helping us to repay debt, repair house and give our children schooling”.

Le Quang Thang – Director of the transaction office of Phu Loc district assessed that a lot of households who engaged the project earned an average annual income of VND 200 - 400 million from forestation. They have been raised awareness and planted forest for environment protection and found out how to apply measures on planting and caring forest effectively and efficiently.