- INTRODUCTION
In order to implement Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) or the post 2015 agenda in Vietnam, this memorandum suggests two sets of policies regardless of (1) continuing economic-growth approach as well as strengthening the social service and welfare and (2) transitioning to an eco-effectiveness development approach. Furthermore, the recommendations maintain that the second set of policies need time to be generated but can be a better way for sustainable development in the country.
- GENERAL DISCUSION
Millennium Development Goals in Vietnam
Over the last fifteen years, Vietnam has consistently upheld the commitment to a new global partnership for poverty eradication, development, and protecting the environment under the implementation of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The country has fully achieved a number of the MDGs such as eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, and promoting gender equality (MPI, 2015, p. 12). In addition to the economic development, the social services and welfare have also improved. This is rooted in the significant decrease of the poverty rate from 58% in 1993 to 9% in 2013, a decrease in the illiteracy rate to less than 5%, and the impressive increase of medium life expectancy to 73 in 2015 (Dantri, 2015).
There are two main lessons learned throughout the fifteen year journey in implementing MDGs in Vietnam regardless of (1) strong political will for effective MDGs implementation and (2) a comprehensive growth model combining pro-poor, social economic development with environmental protection (MPI, 2015).
Sustainable Development Goals and the need of updated policy in the country
There are a number of MDGs that demand great efforts to complete such as MDG 7 on ensuring environmental sustainability and MDG 8 on the establishment of the Global Partnership for Development by 2015. Besides, the approval of the UN and the international community to implement a new set of SDGs, the so-called post 2015 agenda, has also required a realistic assessment on Vietnam’s challenges for the next stage of development, regarding economic slowdown, inequality, donor withdrawal of grant and financial support, corruption, and climate change. All of which lead to the need for updated policies for SDG implementation in Vietnam.
Particularly, Vietnam has faced the effects of global economic crisis, especially in terms of economic performance. According to the General Statistics Office (GSO), the quarterly growth rate in Vietnam fluctuated by 5-7% from 2011-2014 (Vinacapital, p.1). Additionally, the inflation rate decreased the lowest level in 13 years: 1, 84% in 2014. However, taking into consideration the economic downturn from 2008-2014, Vietnam needs more comprehensive jobs regardless of the strategy for economic development.
With respect to inequality, there are seven of the most important “drivers of inequality” in the Vietnam context, including state-sector bias, urban bias, the secondary education bottleneck, limited access to safety nets, multiple gender biases, reinforcing vulnerabilities of ethnic minorities, and corruption (Mekong Economics Ltd., 2015, pp. 7-8). Inequality can be seen in the range of poverty rates that vary by area, ethnicity, and regions. Moreover, the poverty gap by expenditure has also revealed inequality in the country. The two tables depicted below from the GSO and the Vietnam Household Living Standards Survey 2010 (VHLSS) 1993-2013 demonstrate the disproportionate distribution of poverty and poverty gap in Vietnam (MPI, 2015, pp. 45- 48).
The first table indicates that poverty disparities between areas and ethnicity have narrowed over time but disparities remain significant (MPI, p. 44)
Table 1: Poverty rate using international standard (%) –Source: MPI, p.44-45
| 1993 | 1998 | 2002 | 2004 | 2006 | 2008 | 2010 | 2012 | |
| National average | 58.1 | 37.4 | 28.9 | 19.5 | 16.0 | 14.5 | 20.7 | 17.2 |
| By area | ||||||||
| Urban | 25.1 | 9.2 | 6.6 | 3.6 | 3.9 | 3.3 | 6.0 | 5.4 |
| Rural | 66.4 | 45.5 | 35.6 | 25.0 | 20.4 | 18.7 | 26.9 | 22.1 |
| By ethnicity | ||||||||
| Kinh | 53.9 | 31.1 | 23.1 | 13.5 | 10.3 | 9.0 | 12.9 | 9.9 |
| Non-Kinh | 86.4 | 75.2 | 69.3 | 60.7 | 52.3 | 50.3 | 66.3 | 59.2 |
Table 2 shows that the variations on the gap measure between ethnic minorities and the Kinh, has increased at a higher rate than those for the poverty headcount. This phenomenon indicates that the living standards of the ethnic minority poor have become lower than those of the majority community (Kinh) poor (MPI, p.48).
Table 2: Poverty Gap by expenditure (%)- Source: MPI, p.48
| 1993 | 1998 | 2002 | 2004 | 2006 | 2008 | 2010 | 2012 | |
| National average | 18.5 | 9.5 | 7.0 | 4.7 | 3.8 | 3.5 | 5.9 | 4.5 |
| By area | ||||||||
| Urban | 6.4 | 1.7 | 1.3 | 0.7 | 0.8 | 0.5 | 1.4 | 1.0 |
| Rural | 21.5 | 11.6 | 8.7 | 6.1 | 4.9 | 4.6 | 7.8 | 5.9 |
| By ethnicity | ||||||||
| Kinh | 16 | 7.1 | 4.7 | 2.6 | 2.0 | 1.7 | 2.7 | |
| Non-Kinh | 34.7 | 24.1 | 22.8 | 19.2 | 15.4 | 15.1 | 24.3 |
Moreover, Vietnam has joined the ranks of middle-income countries by surpassing US$1,000 per capita in 2010, which lead to the international donor’s withdrawal of grant and financial support (MPI, 2015, p. 22). Furthermore, regarding corruption, 63% of Vietnamese respondents of Transparency International’s Global Corruption Barometer believe that corruption has increased in the 3 years preceding the survey (IT, 2014, p2). According to the World Bank, Vietnam has been ranked among the five countries to be the most affected by climate change. These challenges show that it will not be easy for Vietnam to assure that no one is left behind in SDG implementation. As a result, Vietnam needs to create a new set of policies which can help to engage different international counterparts, domestic stakeholders, social groups, and social sectors post 2015.
In order to implement the new set of goals in Vietnam, the policies should ideally:
- Working with all counterparts and stakeholders
- Listening to the voices of minority groups and
- Engaging with gender mainstreaming issues, climate change adaptation, and disaster risk reduction
III. POLICY OPTIONS
This part presents two optional sets of policies for SDGs implementation in Vietnam.
- Growth continuation as well as strengthening social services and welfare
Doi Moi (Reform) is the name given to an economic reform movement that was initiated in 1986. This marked the previous changes from Soviet’s central planning economic model to the so-called “socialist-oriented market economy”. After the Doi Moi, the policy of Keynesianism has been successfully practiced in Vietnam with the main idea of inviting more people to become involved in the economy. This economic school of thought led the economy to the process of industrialization and urbanization, opening the national market, engaging the domestic market to the international one, and allowing for the participation of all social groups to develop the national economy.
However, to continue to grow under these economic theories, the country needs to further exploit natural resources, develop the industry of processing and assembly, and depend on official development aids and other government debt.
1.1. Continuing natural resource exploitation
To keep growing, natural resources such as soil, water and minerals have been exploited in the country. Firstly, the exportation of timber and exportation of furniture has brought millions of dollars to the economy, but the forest area has drastically decreased (Vo, n.d.). Moreover, approximately 85.000 hectares of land have been confiscated in order to switch from agricultural to living and industrial uses by March 2015 (NIF, 2015). Secondly, rivers in the country are being severely contaminated. Finally, natural oil and gas have also been actively extracted from the Vietnamese continental shelf. Vietnam has maintained to exploit 340.000 barrels of oil per day for many years (Bloomberg, 2012).However, in order to expand the scale of the economy, the country needs to continue these activities. Otherwise, the objective of growth will not be reached.
1.2. Continued to develop processing/ assembly industries
To create jobs and keep the growth rate stable, the processing and assembly industries have been developed for the last thirty years. There are 291 industrial zones, and economic zones have emerged and are operating (NIF, 2015). This increases exportation; however, the values that Vietnam can add to the products are not high. For instance, Samsung, LG and Intel are the three biggest exporters in Vietnam, contributing67% to the exports in 2014 (Phan, 2014). However, the values that added to products by Vietnam is low; because Vietnam’s industry is based on assembly and cheap workers, which are its competitive advantages.
1.3. Continued dependence on ODA and public debts
The public debt clock shows that the national budget of Vietnam is at 1000 USD/person, in which the majority is Official Development Assistance (ODA). ODA is known as one of catalysts for the economic growth for the last 25 years (VTV, 2013). However, the dependence of the economy on ODA can result in two main consequences: (1) the dependence of the domestic economy on foreign economies and (2) the mobilization of ODA is large extend than real demands of the country’s economic development. First, ODA is not a free lunch. The sponsors tend to impose their additional conditions on the ODA contract. On the other hand, a number of sponsors have ODA support for Vietnam, especially after 2010. Secondly, over-demand mobilization of ODA can lead to a inappropriate use of these source of capital, which leads to several consequences such as corruption, over-budgeting of projects, and outdated and un-ecofriendlytechnology.
- Transitioning to Eco-Effectiveness Development
This new set of policies requires a comprehensive new approach and strategy of development. Development theories have maintained the outlook of eco-efficiency for the last decades. However, in order to develop sustainably, “less bad” is not enough; human beings need to develop in an eco-effective way. Eco-effectiveness aims to not just saving capital and resources or being less bad. Eco-effectiveness aims to create a vision “from the primary purpose of product or system and consider the whole” in order to maintain an effective use of natural resources and omit waste by using waste of one system as material of another (McDonough & Braungart, 2002). To apply this idea to Vietnam, these are necessary actions which need to be done as soon as possible.
2.1. Industrialization and Urbanization Assessment
Land confiscation is often applied to a greater extent than would be necessary for various cities and industrial areas. This practice is rooted in the situation of “pending” plans in many locales thanks to the failure of investment attraction. In 2014, the Tayninh province have decided to omit 10 “pending” projects out of 23, in which 1, 250 hectares of land were being “suspended” for a decades, while the farmers do not have right to plan on these areas.
Therefore, there is a need of comprehensively assess the status quo of using land for industrialization and urbanization and return the rights of land use to farmers in the “pending land” in order to using the resource effectively. Land in Vietnam has been gradually improved for a thousand years to meet the requirements of rice agriculture. If land is being used wrongly, it would never completely regenerated, a problematic situation for a country like Vietnam which is based on an agricultural economy. Taking the experience of Israeli agriculture into consideration, productive investment in agriculture is a way for Vietnam to overcome the situation of being anassembly workshop of the world and suffering environmental degradation.
2.2. Knowledge-based economy
According to Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the knowledge-based economy is directly based on the production, distribution, and use of knowledge and information (1996, p. 7). In other words, Powell and Snellman (2014) defined the knowledge economy as “production and services based on knowledge-intensive activities that contribute to an accelerated pace of technical and scientific advancement as well as rapid obsolescence” (p.1).
Building a knowledge-based economy is paving the way to develop without natural exploitation, to increase the value of labors, and to avoid environmental contamination. This model of the economy is based on knowledge distribution, employment, and the science system (OECD, pp.6-7). In order to develop this sort of economy, the core condition is the education system. The system needs to be renovated with the motto of freedom of academia, democratic debate, and active in research. To do renovate education system, the government need to empower the civil society, using the resource of various groups in the society and stop imposing the political ideology on all angles of education and scientific research.
2.3. Engagement of Global Mainstreaming with Inequality Eradication, Climate Change Adaptation, and disaster Reduction, and Gender Mainstreaming
SDGs are an intergovernmental set of aspirations with 169 targets including ending poverty and hunger, improving health and education, making cities more sustainable, combating climate change, and protecting oceans and forests. Formally adopted in September 2015, SDGs need to be implemented in the context of global challenges, such as the expansion of terrorism threats, the profundity of inequality including gender inequality, and climate change with the increase in extreme natural disasters.
Vietnam is known as a country which has actively integrated into the global economy. However, this integration may lead to a drawback of being threatened by international issues such as terrorism and a profound gap between Vietnam’s rich and poor. Besides, although Vietnam has achieved a significant result in gender equality movements, there is still a need to focus on the equal rights of women and men in the society, especially women in politics. According to the World Bank, Vietnam belongs to the group of countries being most seriously affected by climate change on Earth.
As a result, Vietnam obviously should take into consideration these entire mainstream issues in creating a national development strategy for the next stage. It is also possible that Vietnam’s national development could contribute to the mainstream development of the international community.
- RECOMMENDATIONS
The first set of policies is a safe choice for the short-term vision. The government can maintain the rapid economic growth; the increase of imports and exports, and the enormous industrialization and urbanization. With this choice/option, perhaps many more statistics can be generated. However, the drawbacks would be affected by future generations. Additionally, the negative effects will come soon, especially in the context of global climate change.
This second set of policies needs more efforts and struggling. This will obviously violate some interest groups, especially the groups of the timber industry, mining, and ODA administrators and so on. This will lead to the significant changes in the political, economic and social structure. Moreover, it demands flexibility and endurance in the process of transforming to the eco-effectiveness economy. It is not easy. It cannot last just in one political term. But it is the way out for future generations.
In conclusion, SDGs is known as one of the main fir needle for the development of the countries for the last decades. Millions of people have overcome extreme poverty. The industrialization and urbanization have brought a new appearance for Vietnam, a country well-known by the Vietnam War. In addition, from being one of the poorest countries in the world, Vietnam has been ranked in the group of middle-income countries. However, Vietnam has also faced the “trap of middle income” and affected by the global economic crisis 2008, which lead the country to several challenges in 2008-2014. To bring all citizens in the country meet the aspirations of SDGs, the government needs more comprehensive and bolder strategic reforms regarding eco-effectiveness development.
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Nhung Nguyen 
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