Poverty of the Ethnic Minorities in Vietnam: Situation and Challenges from the Poorest Communes

This study examines the poverty of the ethnic minorities in the poorest areas in Vietnam. We find that the ethnic minority now constitute more than a half of the poor population, though they account for around 14.5 percent of the population,. The share of the poor ethnic minorities in the total poor has steadily increased from 18 percent in the early 1990s up to 56 percent recently. Our decomposition analysis shows that differences in characteristics could explain as much as one third of the income gap between the majority and all other ethnic minorities groups. Importantly, it implies that poverty of the ethnic minorities cannot be solved simply by investment in infrastructures and public services. This suggests an awaking alarm for the focus on provision of basic infrastructure and public services emphasized in most of the current policies and programmes for ethnic minorities.