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As Ministers and representatives of Development Partners meet in Quang Tri province for their bi-annual Consultative Group meeting, “achieving breakthroughs in poverty reduction” will be high on the agenda. Vietnam has indeed made great progress in the past two decades, culminating in it attaining low middleincome-country status in early 2011. Progress and achievements notwithstanding, today, a core of chronic poverty remains with an estimated 5-6 million people still food insecure. One in five people still live in poverty, according to the Oxfam/ActionAid most recent poverty monitoring survey. Rural poverty is increasingly concentrated amongst ethnic minorities. In addition, the number of near and transient poor, who easily fall back into poverty because of economic or natural shocks, is significant, maybe up to 15% of the population. Meanwhile, new forms of injustices and vulnerabilities are emerging as Vietnam is becoming a more integrated and diverse economy and society. Causes and drivers of poverty and injustices are diverse, but often link with people’s inability to access and take advantage of opportunities, and to shape and benefit from public policy. Addressing forms of exclusion and promoting better (re-)distribution of opportunities and wealth, while strengthening poor people’s voice and agency, will contribute to lasting solutions to poverty and a more just society. This is Vietnam’s development challenge. Breakthroughs are possible, and indeed needed. Making productive use of land has enabled record numbers of small-scale farmers to lift themselves out of poverty. It turned Vietnam from a food deficit country into a major exporter of agricultural commodities. Vietnam has competitive advantages in many agriculture products. If supported by sound public policies, the agriculture sector has a bright future ahead, although many challenges need to be overcome, including a review of key agricultural policies. As Vietnam’s economy modernizes and in the context of increasing resource constraints, farmers are essential to growing a better future! Formulating a vision where the current small-scale women and men farmers and fisher folk, agricultural laborers and migrant workers can secure better and sustainable livelihoods, in or outside agriculture, is critical to Vietnam’s development and transformation process. Expanding choices is essential. Vietnam’s farmers have demonstrated in the past two decades that they can take advantage of new opportunities. Government policies should enable this by strengthening and diversifying farmers’ capabilities and promoting a more quality, resilient and people-centered rural economy and better links with other economic growth strategies. In the process of development and poverty reduction, land is a crucial asset. Access to, use and control of land are central to the culture, history, livelihoods and identity of Vietnamese people. After all, “an inch of land is worth an inch of gold” (Tấc đất tấc vàng). Yet, land is also increasingly contested. Making optimal use of land is critical in the economic transformation process towards a modern and prosperous society. It is an invaluable asset that can make farmers secure better livelihoods and expand their choices, including moving away from a land-based livelihood. This transformation is hugely complex and often contested, with strong and economically powerful interests at play. Yet, guaranteeing land rights for poor, vulnerable and marginalized people and communities is central to promoting development and social justice, and ultimately maintaining social and political cohesion. Equally, at the macro-level, the management of land use is critical for Vietnam’s socio-economic development. The promotion of pro-poor growth in rural and remote areas will be critical for further poverty reduction. Access to land, changes in land-use and changes in land-use rights can expand and constrain people’s choices and opportunities, contribute to development or result in injustices, poverty and even destitution. As land becomes scarcer because of increases in the population and as the economy develops allocation of land for urbanization and industrialization, access to, use and control of land becomes a critical issue for development and social stability. Land recovery for urbanization and industrialization has recently received a lot of attention and initiated an important debate amongst policy makers and the wider society. Last month, land policies and reform were also discussed during the fifth meeting of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee. 3 In addition to the many incidence of land recovery for industrial purposes and urbanization, a key, yet rarely reported, driver of changes in land-use in rural areas is agribusiness expansion. The expansion of agribusiness and promotion of public-private partnerships (PPP) are a central tenet of Vietnam’s New Rural Areas Development strategy. In search for more investment and support from central government, local authorities are often encouraging and actively supporting such agribusiness expansion. Oxfam and our partners have observed cases in our project areas where agribusiness expansion is resulting in dramatic reduction of wellbeing for small-scale women and men farmers and local communities because of a loss of livelihoods, lack of alternative (on and off-farm) opportunities, negative environmental impacts, inadequate compensation, and lack of or delays in organizing resettlement and other mitigation policies. In some instances the current regulation regarding change of land-use, transfer of land-use rights and compensation is not respected or has demonstrated important inadequacies. In a few instances, it appears there was a failure to comply with the regulations – intentionally or because of lack of capacities of local government to manage the processes and operations required by large-scale agribusiness expansion. The issues identified below in many ways are similar to those that are emerging in the context of land-use change for urbanization and industrialization in urban and peri-urban areas. The development process involves, indeed requires, structural transformation of the agricultural sector. This change creates opportunities and challenges alike. In a country where the overwhelming majority of poor people live in rural areas and depend on agriculture, the development strategy must encompass the current situation and future aspirations of farmers. Within this, land is a critical asset – for development, social justice and stability. Historical and international experiences have shown that in order for growth to be pro-poor, farmers must be at the core of development processes. Indeed, the agricultural sector in Vietnam has been an engine of economic success and source of poverty reduction. Government policies must therefore ensure farmers effective participation. As Ministers and Ambassadors meet in central Vietnam, Oxfam wants to share the community experiences in the nearby provinces of Quang Tri, Quang Binh and Nghe An.
