Illustrated photo: Internet

The northern province of Yen Bai has issued a project on sustainable poverty reduction for 2012-2015, in which the province strives to reduce the poverty rate by 4% per year, lowering the rate to 17.5% by 2015, or pulling 24,960 families out of poverty in the next four years.

The provincial newspaper reported that to realize this target, the province will focus on assisting production, vocational training and job creation, raising incomes for poor and low-income people, and assisting the poor in accessing social services like healthcare, education, electricity, legal counsel and housing.

The capital, funded by the World Bank, will be disbursed in 40 communes of five districts who benefit from the project, while land and forests will be assigned to poor families who lack production land.

The province is expected to mobilize VND 5.8 trillion, giving 21,000 poor families loans for production, providing medical insurance cards for nearly 2 million poor people, lifting or reducing schooling fees for 38,000 poor pupils and students, and giving vocational training to 11,000 poor labourers.