Helping ethnic minorities get loans for sustainable poverty reduction

(VBSP) VBSP’s capital have helped ethnic minority households escape from poverty; have stable jobs and income to improve living conditions; repair and build new houses without the support of the State.

Thanks to preferential capital, Ms. Tran Thi Gai's family in Van Thanh commune, Van Ninh district can buy fishing nets to raise fish, bringing high efficiency

Report on the effectiveness of the State's credit policies of Khanh Hoa Provincial People's Council shows that, up to now, total outstanding loans from 11 credit programs for ethnic minority households are VND 243 billion dong, of which provincial budget is nearly VND 33 billion dong.

11,250 turns of ethnic minority households have accessed to the credit policy capital. Overdue debt is only VND 492 million, accounting for 0.2% of total outstanding loans. From 2016 until now, there is nearly VND 3.5 billion of write-offs for 249 ethnic minority households in Khanh Hoa province.

According to the assessment of Khanh Hoa Provincial People's Council, the capital from VBSP helped ethnic minority households escape from poverty; have stable jobs and income to improve living conditions; repair and build new houses without the support of the State. The concentration of resources and the integration of capital resources for credit programs and policies have contributed to improving the material and spiritual life for ethnic minority households.

In addition, Khanh Hoa Provincial People's Council asked the Provincial People's Committee to review, check and handle the transfer of capital for job creation program to meet needs for business development and job creation for workers in rural areas who are ethnic minority laborers, laborers with land acquisition, and youths who want to start up in the locality. The relevant professional agencies and mass organizations, savings and credit groups need to coordinate well to guide the ethnic minorities how to choose plant and animal breeds, do business, develop household economy, use loans effectively and repay debt responsibly. Khanh Hoa province also needs to supplement other target borrowers such as ethnic minority households with average living standard, the loan size is up to VND 100 million/household and the loan term is up to 10 years in order to match the production and business projects, creating a strong driving force in ethnic minority areas, aiming at sustainable poverty reduction in Khanh Hoa province.

Khanh Hoa currently has over 16,680 households with over 71,000 ethnic minorities, of which poor households account for more than 48%, the number of near poor households accounts for nearly 20%. Most of them live in the two mountainous districts of Khanh Son and Khanh Vinh. Khanh Hoa province strives to reduce the poverty rate of ethnic minority households by 6 - 7% every year.