[Vnbiz] FW: [devel-vn] Denmark to phase-out Vietnam aid upon rapid progress

[Quan Phung]

Email: pvquan at gmail.com


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From: owner-devel-vn at coombs.anu.edu.au
[mailto:owner-devel-vn at coombs.anu.edu.au] On Behalf Of Vern Weitzel
Sent: Friday, July 07, 2006 7:13 AM
To: [devel-vn discussion group]; [enviro-vlc discussion group]
Subject: [devel-vn] Denmark to phase-out Vietnam aid upon rapid progress

sent to devel-vn MDG List by Vern Weitzel <vern at coombs.anu.edu.au>

http://www.thanhniennews.com/features/?catid=10&newsid=17427

Denmark to phase-out Vietnam aid upon rapid progress
	
Danish minister of development cooperation Ulla Toernaes has announced that
Denmark will down-size 
aid to Vietnam in order to focus on Africa when the current bilateral
agreement with Vietnam expires 
in 2010.
Vietnam is currently one of the biggest receivers of Danish development aid
and will continue to be 
so until the current agreement expires in 2010, Denmark’s government
confirms.

But as Vietnam has become an economically booming country, Denmark feels
that its help is needed 
elsewhere.

  “Our success is driving us out of Vietnam, you could say,” Toernaes stated
last week. ”All the 
main figures show how much progress Vietnam is making. The economy is
improving, the conditions for 
the population is improving, more and more children are starting school, all
in all Vietnam is a 
country progressing so rapidly that we have decided to down-size our efforts
in the country.”

Vietnam’s development over the last years has been unprecedented. Annual
growth-rates of nearly 10 
percent have put the country’s growth on par with China’s, and foreign
companies are lining up to 
establish themselves in Vietnam.

Most of these companies are situating themselves in and around the big
cities, where - as a result - 
poverty is slowly being reduced.

However, the rural areas and areas with ethnic minorities still remain poor
and under-developed. 
Knowing this, Denmark will not completely erase Vietnam from its list of
aid-receivers come 2010.

  “Our presence in Vietnam has first and foremost been about fighting
poverty. When we now see that 
it has worked – at least in parts of the society – we are forced to use our
resources elsewhere,” 
says Toernaes. “Of course, we will not leave Vietnam over night, but we will
begin to phase out our 
support when the current agreement expires in 2010.”

Help needed elsewhere

The Danish minister has traveled to Vietnam several times and seen the
poverty with her own eyes. 
She admits that it is not easy to make decisions about leaving a country
where many people still 
live in poverty.

  “I know that there are many poor people. But we must realize that there
are many other places, 
where the poverty is worse and where we can offer more help,” Toernaes says.
“We must use our 
resources in the best way possible, and it looks as if they will soon be
spent better elsewhere,”

Source: ScandAsia

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