Synchronized development

The Strategy's broad objective is to prioritize comprehensive, rapid, and sustainable development of ethnic minority and mountainous areas; to maximize potential and effectively promote the region's comparative advantages; to protect the region's environment and living sphere for ethnic minorities, and to close the income gap between ethnic minorities and developed areas.

Reduce the number of poor communes and villages gradually, significantly improving people's lives and livelihoods by attracting resources to invest in the development of synchronous socioeconomic infrastructure system linking to prosperous areas.

Promoting synchronous growth of education, training, and culture; maintaining social security and rapidly and sustainably reducing poverty; increasing the effectiveness of state administration and the quality of cadres, civil officials, public workers, and ethnic minority employees.

The Strategy establishes objectives for eradicating obsolete customs and practices while preserving and promoting the ethnic groups' fine traditional cultural and typical identities; focusing on the establishment of a strong political system, ensuring political security, social order, and safety, and contributing to the maintenance of territorial sovereignty and national border security; and enhancing the great unity of the entire nation in pursuit of the goal of a prosperous people, a strong country, and democracy.

By 2045, ethnic minority people's average income will have increased to more than half that of the national average; there will be almost no poor families, and individuals will have full access to basic social services.

In ethnic minority and mountainous locations, communes and villages have enough infrastructure to support socio-economic growth and daily life.

Concentrated effort on collective economic development

The Strategy established objectives to concentrate all investment resources to strengthen the multi-component commodity economy; to focus on developing collective economies, cooperatives, and the private sector; to connect production and processing; to connect markets; to create value chains; and to add value to promote the potentials, advantages, and suitability of indigenous ethnic minorities and mountainous areas.

On education and training development, it is the responsibility of relevant agencies to examine and organize networks of ethnic minorities and mountainous educational facilities in an orderly manner, ensuring students' rights to education and responding to the needs of local socio-economic development; concentrate on consolidating and rationally expanding the quantity, quality, and scale of boarding general schools for ethnic minorities, semi-boarding schools for ethnic minorities, and university practitioners for ethnic minorities.

In terms of health care and population, the Strategy places a premium on addressing ethnic minorities' health concerns; increasing ethnic people's access to and distribution of high-quality health and population services; lowering the cost burden of health care for the poor and ethnic minorities; strengthening guidance and communication on gender equality, the harmful effects of child marriage, and consanguineous marriage; piloting models, and proceeding to replicate medical facilities combining military-civilian medicine to provide medical examination and treatment to people.

Along with that, there is the preservation and promotion of physical and intangible cultural assets to infuse Vietnamese culture with variety.

Ethnic works and the implementation of ethnic minority policies in the locality are concerned.  Apart from the central government's policies, local governments have enacted their own ethnic policies, such as supporting medical examination and treatment for the poor and ethnic minorities living in difficult areas; tuition assistance and social allowance for students; and a treatment regime for doctors working at ethnic minority and mountainous health stations.

The ethnic minority and mountainous territories are primarily characterized by high mountains, a border, split terrain, a severe environment, the country's least developed socio-economic infrastructure, and a low starting point. Climate change, environmental disasters, and other natural disasters are significant and unpredictable... Due to the high cost of manufacturing and distribution, it is very difficult to attract social resources to invest in socio-economic growth.

The ethnic minorities and mountainous areas of Vietnam are located in 51 provinces, cities, 548 districts with more than 5,266 commune-level administrative units, including 382 border communes.

The region is mostly concentrated in the Northwest, the Central Highlands, the Southwest, and the Central Coast, and encompasses about three-quarters of the nation. This is a critical territory for national defense, security, and international affairs; it is rich in natural resources and home to a vast range of flora and fauna habitats. There are nearly 14 million hectares of forest involved with national hydroelectric dams that generate energy as well as water for production and everyday living in downstream and delta regions.

Translated by Linh Linh