Dac Nong Moves to Improve Ethnic Minorities’ Material, Spiritual Lives

The Central Highlands province of Dak Nong is building an action program to improve the material and spiritual lives of ethnic minority groups in the 2021-2025 period so as to boost socio-economic development among the community. The program’s targets are per-capita income of ethnic minorities to increase by at least 1.5 times; provision of essential demands such as residential land, housing, water for daily activities, cultivation land and electricity; 100% of ethnic minorities participating in health insurance; at least 60% of households living in disaster-risk areas resettled; and at least 95% of ethnic minorities accessed clean water. To that end, the Central Highlands province will focus on providing cultivation land, stabilizing the life of unplanned migrants, expanding investment in building basic infrastructure to serve production and daily activities of locals, developing agro-forestry production models that conform to local customs, and stepping up the organization of vocational training and healthcare programs. According to the provincial Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs, Dak Nong is home to 40 ethnic groups, including nearly 213,000 ethnic minorities, or 31% of the locality’s population. The proportion of poor ethnic minority households is 17.18%. Average income of ethnic minority households in many localities is equal to 40%-50% of the country’s average. (VietnamPlus)