Poverty Social Services And Safety Nets In Vietnam

World Bank Discussion Paper No. 374. China's far-ranging program of macroeconomic reform affects monetary, financial, fiscal, and exchange rate policies as well as institution building. This book contains papers produced from 1992 to 1994 by China's Department of Macroeconomic Regulation Studies (DMRS), under the direction of the System Restructuring Commission. These include reports and essays on Chinese macroeconomic policy and reforms carried out or led by the DMRS, reflecting the key issues and debates of this period. The papers provide a history of the departments work, corrects some misunderstandings, and constitutes a record of experiences that may be useful for future studies on economic reform and policy initiatives.

How does Vietnam's public safety net affect outcomes for the poor? Although social welfare programs in Vietnam are centrally mandated, they are locally implemented according to local norms and local poverty standards and often rely heavily on local financing. The author examines the coverage, incidence, and horizontal equity of the programs that can be identified in the data from the Vietnam Living Standards Survey. She looks at the role of location in determining whether the poor are assisted nationally. And she explores dynamic incidence between 1993 and 1998 and the degree to which programs performed a safety net function. The author's analysis shows that coverage and payments to households are low and have had a negligible impact on poverty. In principle, better targeting could improve the impact of current outlays. The analysis also shows that the system was ineffective in protecting households that were vulnerable to shocks. Finally, the results suggest that although there is a greater concentration of poverty-related programs and greater household participation in poorer communes, the system spends more (absolutely and relatively) on the poor in richer communes.

Abstract: Vietnam's social welfare programs do not adequately protect and promote the poor. Increased spending, with better coverage and targeting, could help poor and vulnerable households. How does Vietnam's public safety net affect outcomes for the poor? Although social welfare programs in Vietnam are centrally mandated, they are locally implemented according to local norms and local poverty standards and often rely heavily on local financing. Van de Walle examines the coverage, incidence, and horizontal equity of the programs that can be identified in the data from the Vietnam Living Standards Survey. She looks at the role of location in determining whether the poor are assisted nationally. And she explores dynamic incidence between 1993 and 1998 and the degree to which programs performed a safety net function. The author's analysis shows that coverage and payments to households are low and have had a negligible impact on poverty. In principle, better targeting could improve the impact of current outlays. The analysis also shows that the system was ineffective in protecting households that were vulnerable to shocks. Finally, the results suggest that although there is a greater concentration of poverty-related programs and greater household participation in poorer communes, the system spends more (absolutely and relatively) on the poor in richer communes. This paper"a product of Public Services, Development Research Group"is part of a larger effort in the group to improve the delivery and effectiveness of social protection programs. The author may be contacted at [email protected].

September 1998 The very principles on which Vietnam's highly decentralized, community-based assistance and safety net system is built are threatened by the country's emerging market economy. Increasing household mobility, without which the market system cannot function, especially dictates a rethinking of the foundation of Vietnam's community-based safety net. Under Vietnam's former command economy, lack of household mobility ensured close community and family solidarity, and households belonged to local cooperatives that provided for the welfare of their members. Developing a reliable, effective system of redistributive transfers and safety nets to replace such faltering local institutions will be important if Vietnam is to make a successful transition to a market economy. Van de Walle uses Vietnam as a case study in rapidly assessing the strengths and weaknesses of an existing safety net when data and ex post evaluations are weak. She provides a broad qualitative assessment, identifying key issues on which knowledge must improve. Vietnam's poverty reduction program and safety net would improve, she concludes, through a strengthening of institutional structures and policies, including: * National norms for identifying the poor consistently across regions. * Survey and other instruments with which to consistently measure and monitor local needs and program performance. * Integration and coordination between subprograms, with well-defined and universal rules for local implementation. * Welfare-maximizing redistribution of resources across space so that everyone is treated equally, regardless of where they live. * More resources and attention to helping households and communities deal with covariate risk. The government's new Hunger Eradication and Poverty Reduction Program-primarily an effort to coordinate policy efforts and resources to improve the safety net's performance and cost-effectiveness-could help improve social protection by focusing on these five areas. Increasing household mobility, without which the market system cannot function, especially dictates a rethinking of the foundation of Vietnam's community-based assistance and safety net system. Household mobility makes it difficult to target the poor and mobilize community resources to help them. Heavy decentralization inhibits Vietnam's ability to provide adequate protection from covariate risks that are rising because of environmental destruction. Addressing this problem will require more national risk pooling and overcoming likely political hurdles to a reallocation of resources to Vietnam's poor and vulnerable. This paper-a product of Public Economics, Development Research Group-is part of a larger effort in the group to improve social protection policies. The author may be contacted at [email protected].

With the adoption of new market-oriented policies, Vietnam has transformed itself from one of the world's poorest countries during the 1980s, into an economy with one of the highest growth rates during the 1990s. Using macroeconomic and household survey data, this publication examines a range of issues including: the causes of Vietnam's economic growth and future prospects; the impact on household welfare and poverty levels, school enrolment, child health and other socioeconomic outcomes; and the nature of poverty in Vietnam and the effectiveness of government policies for poverty reduction, drawing lessons for Vietnam and for other low-income developing countries.

Vietnam's rapid growth has transformed the country, reducing poverty from about 75 percent of the population to about 50 percent. At the same time, its transition from a planned to a market economy has created new challenges for public policy in a wide range of areas. This volume explores issues such as which macroeconomic and structural reforms led to growth, what effect reform has had on the household economy, and how the transition has affected education, health, fertility, and child nutrition. It provides an analysis of economic and social policies and shows how micro-level data can be used to analyze the likely effect of different government expenditures and activities. It also focuses on the effect different policies have on the poor and challenges stereotypes about poverty-focused expenditures.