Do Nguyen Phuong^*

Science and technology play a very important role in poverty reduction and sustainable development. This was confirmed by our Party as early as in the Political Bureau’s Resolution No. 37-NQ/TW issued in 1981 on policies relating to science and technology. This statement has been repeated in all Party Congresses’ documents, as well as Party Central Committee resolutions and directives. Following Party guidelines, relevant sectors have effectively applied and transferred scientific and technological advances in national socio-economic development, particularly, poverty reduction efforts.

- Science and technology have been effectively applied to national and local socio-economic development programmes and projects. They play a key role in the National Programme 135 on poverty reduction and employment, and national programmes on safe water and rural environment sanitation and population and family planning. Scientific and technological advances have been used in infrastructure development and support for livestock breeding and cultivation in rural and mountainous areas.

- A national programme on a technology application and transfer model for rural socio-economic development has been implemented. More than 100 projects under this programme were evaluated, accepted and replicated in the first phase from 2000 to 2004. The Government has allowed the second phase of implementation from 2006 to 2010. The national science budget allocated 5.3 per cent in 2003, and 6.7 per cent in 2004 for scientific and technological models for rural and mountainous development. In addition to this, the Programme on Science and Technology for Industrialization and Modernization in Agriculture and Rural Development", coded KC.07, developed many projects for poverty reductions in rural and mountainous areas.

- Research institutes, universities and science and technology organisations belonging to the Vietnam Union of Scientific and Technical Associations have implemented many projects on technology transfers to help poverty reduction efforts in rural and mountainous areas. The Vietnam Agricultural Science Institute has completed the technological process for asexual multiplication of cashew-nuts, raising the output to 800 kg a ha, double that of the old cashew-nut strain and six times the plant living rate. This project provided millions of high-quality cashew-nut seedlings to cover about 15,000 ha of white sandy soil in south-central Vietnam. This area produced 60,000 tons of cashew-nuts, equivalent to VND 900 billion a crop, to contribute to poverty reduction efforts in south-central Vietnam. The Food Crops Research Institute has successfully produced the hybridised tomato and cucumber strains to supply Red River Delta provinces. The 50-ha model of hybridised cucumber in Kim Bang, Ha Nam province supplied more than 2,000 tons of raw materials for the processing industry and provided jobs for 40,000 people. Cucumber farmers there earned VND 35-40 million a hectare.

- Local science and technology transfer and application centers have made great efforts to introduce technologies suited to the sub-climate and cultivation habits of farmers in each locality. Forty-three per cent of the 1,800 projects implemented by cities and provinces directly affiliated to the central Government in 2004 related to technology application and transfers in agro-forestry and fisheries, and focused on food crops and forestry, livestock breeding, aqua-culture, processing of agro-forestry and aqua produce, job generation and poverty reduction in rural and mountainous areas.

- The agricultural, forestry and fishery extension, and recently industrial extension system, established from the national to local levels is the most effective channel in technology transfer and application. Agricultural extension have been carried out by village-based agricultural extension promoters in diverse forms. They include on-the-job training, "workshop in the rice field" and demonstrations. The dissemination of information and training on scientific and technological knowledge have strictly been included in activities of community studying centers at the commune level.

The strict and consistent operations of technology transfer organisations have effectively accelerated socio-economic development in localities and contributed to realising poverty reduction targets set by our party and State.

The contributions made by science and technology to poverty reduction and sustainable development can be seen in the followings:

- The application of technological advances in production and daily life created new occupations and jobs, particularly for people in rural and agricultural areas. New occupations and jobs will help the people increase their income and get rid of hunger and poverty. The "mushroom production village" model has been applied in 100-150 households per village. According to this close cycle model, mushroom producers will do all the work involved in production, namely producing strains, and growing, harvesting, semi-processing, maintaining, processing and selling mushrooms. A village can supply 200-300 tonnes of mushrooms a year and generate jobs for 300-400 people while earning about VND 3 billion a year. Research on timber trees has produced hundreds of millions of high-quality seedlings with tissue and cutting technologies, increasing the forest plantation from 8-10 cu.m to 15-20cu.m a year. Researchers also developed technical methods for forestry extension and generated new jobs for people in many rural and mountainous areas. Aqua-culture science and technology have been successful in creating new breeds and cultivation technique, generating new occupations and jobs for people in many localities, particularly the central coast and the western part of southern Vietnam. The unisexual tilapia breeding technique has helped fish breeders earn VND 200 million per hectare after 6-7 months. Vietnamese scientists have succeeded in producing garrupa baby-fish and have transferred the technology to coastal provinces. This will help save foreign currencies from importing baby garrupa and generate jobs for hundreds of thousands of people.

- Reality has proved that new plant and livestock breeds and advanced cultivation technique have multiplied labour productivity in agricultural and rural areas. High output and high quality farm produce have increased the production value of an area many times, bringing more income and improving people’s lives. In Binh Phuoc province, the project on "development agricultural models for poverty reduction" successfully developed models of Sind hybrid cows breeding, and high-output pepper and wet rice planting. These models have been welcomed by local farmers. Localities have focused on models of coordination between scientists, businesspeople, farmers and the administration for the application of scientific and technological advances to agricultural economic restructuring and agricultural occupation and service development. In many locations, scientists have developed and replicated models combining agriculture, forestry and fisheries, for example, forestry combined with shrimp breeding, rice planting combined with shrimp breeding, forestry combined with fish breeding, and rice planting combined with fish breeding. These models have helped increase the value of agricultural, forestry and fishing production. The model of fish breeding combined with rice planting has brought about incomes 15 to 20 per cent higher than planting rice alone. The model of breeding shrimp on sandy land applied on 1,100 ha in the central coast produced 4,800 tonnes of shrimps and generated a large number of jobs for the locals, contributing to poverty reduction efforts.

- To overcome the shortage of cultivable land per capita and harsh climatic conditions, scientists studied ways to find solutions for the proper exploitation and use of land and water resources, environmental protection and sustainable development. In 2003 and 2004, they hybridised and produced new species for 45.1 per cent of rice area, 46.6 per cent of maize area, 70.5 per cent of ground-nut area, and 60.4 per cent of soy-bean area. The tissue transplanting technique has been applied nation-wide to multiply banana, sugar-cane, pine-apple, potato, fruit and timber trees, and herbal and ornamental plants species. Hybrid tomato and potato producing technologies have been transferred to farmers.

- Thanks to science and technology, farmers have accessed market information and technical advances to apply them in their production. It is become more popular for farmers to learn science and technology, follow mass media programmes on knowledge dissemination and attend training workshops on technological transfer. The Ministry of Science and Technology has focused on information to serve socio-economic development of remote and inaccessible areas and information on the technology market. In 2004 alone, 2,700 farmers’ experiences and technical advances were documented, making important and valuable contributions to the national scientific and technological information network. Dozens of websites of mountainous communes have been developed in the framework of the project on science and technology information for socio-economic development in rural and mountainous areas.

- Science and technology play a major role in improving knowledge of the people in general and that of farmers in particular. Thanks to it, many have become aware of the importance of the poverty reduction and sustainable development process to enrich themselves. Recently, the Ministry of Science and Technology included "all individuals from all social sectors who love science and technology and who have initiatives and apply scientific and technological advances to production and lives" in Vietnam’s scientific and technological resources. The Ministry will provide material assistance for these people to encourage their contributions to the application of science and technology in poverty reduction efforts.

- Science and technology constitute an important catalyst for socio-political stabilisation and securing national defence and security, a pre-requisite for poverty reduction. The transfer of scientific and technological advances to rural and mountainous areas including remote, inaccessible and ethnic minority-inhabited areas has provided farmers with new jobs and stable incomes to improve their lives. This has helped increase people’s trust in the Party leadership, improve their awareness to comply with State law and strengthen national unity. This is a firm foundation for political stability and social safety and order, and an important factor to secure national defence and security in agricultural and rural areas.

However, constraints remain in the application of scientific and technological advances to the poverty reduction and sustainable development process. First of all, a number of Party officials and members are not fully aware of this important task. As a result, some Party committees have failed to provide satisfactory guidance for scientific and technological activities in their localities as required by the Party. Second, socio-economic development programmes and science and technology projects are not strictly coordinated and integrated, hindering the role of science and technology as a motivation in economic growth. Third, different levels, sectors and social organisations, particularly science and technology institutions and businesses and households, are not fully cooperated in the application of scientific and technological advances. Fourth, many regulations on technology transfers to rural and mountainous areas are not feasible or suitable to reality, particularly the complicated and troublesome financial procedures for development projects, which constitute an obstacle to realise this mission. Finally, monitoring and evaluation have been slowly conducted.

In the draft report on orientations and tasks for socio-economic development in 5 years from 2006 to 2010 submitted to the 10^th National Party Congress, our Party affirmed that poverty reduction was an important part of sustainable development. So, we should diversify resources and methods for poverty reduction in the direction of making the most of internal resources and effectively using international assistance. Science and technology will continue to play a motive and important role to accelerate the entire process in the spirit of "basing on science and technology to generate new jobs and occupations and bring about high labour productivity" for the society.

To further promote the role of science and technology in poverty reduction and sustainable development, in the coming period, we should realise the following solutions:

First, all levels, sectors and localities should further comprehend Resolutions of the 2^nd plenum of the 8^th Party Central Committee and the Conclusion of the 6^th plenum of the 9^th Party Central Committee on science and technology, considering them a real motivation to generate new occupations and jobs for the people. Local Party and People’s Committees should regard guidance of scientific and technological activities in their localities as a regular and major mission. They must understand that technology transfers will be an effective solution for poverty reduction and sustainable development.

Second, socio-economic development programmes should be integrated in scientific and technological projects and environmental protection efforts immediately at the designing process. At the same time, both economic and science and technology management mechanisms should be consistently renewed to create an organic and mutual assistance relations between economic growth and science and technology development.

Third, all levels and sectors, particularly science and technology institutions, businesses and rural production households should join each other in poverty reduction efforts. Scientific and technical forces cannot promote their role in poverty reduction without the leadership of Party Committees, governance of authorities and the comprehensive responses and participation from social and mass organisations.

Fourth, regulations on the implementation of poverty reduction programmes and science and technology projects should be specific and suited to the reality to secure an open and convenient legal corridor for scientists and organisations to quickly apply technical advances in rural and mountainous areas.

Fifth, efforts should be made to promote the internal resources of scientists in the entire country while completing local technological institutions, particularly those at the district and commune levels. Currently, education, health and agricultural extension facilities are available at the commune level. However, science and technology institutions are available only at the provincial and part of the district levels. At the commune level, professional staff are needed to manage and organise technology transfer activities.

Source: Communist Review, No. 103/2006