14/06/2016
More than 70 percent of Việt Nam’s population live in the countryside, the countryside is going well on its path and plays a vital role in the socio-economic growth of the nation. The national focal program to build the new countryside has become a large movement, creating a positive change in the political system as well as society at large. By intensively taking part in the process by governments of many localities and the continuous support of the people, the New Countryside Program has achived very positive first results. Among the achievements, the environmental factor stays most difficult to achieve.
The national New Countryside program from 2000-2020 set an overall target for the period: In 2000, 20 percent of the communes achieving all the targets and by 2020, 50 percent of all the communes shall meet all the targets. To be more precise, to be categorised as a New Countryside commune, it has to pass a 19-point list, in which, the environmental factor comprises of 5 requirements. Firstly, more than 75 percent of the commune households must have access to clean water that meets national standards, 100 percent of all businesses stationed in the commune meet clean environmental standards and are involved in making their surrounding environment clean, green and beautiful, local cemetery must be planned accordingly, and general waste and wastewater must be gathered and treated to meet environmental standards.
According to reports by the New Countryside program, all provinces have completed their own New Countryside planning. The program has speeded up the fundamental socio-economic infrastructure in the countryside, most notably the countryside road system, irrigation systems and the power network. More than 5,000 works have been under construction across the country and built a total of 70,000km in length of all countryside roads combined. In terms of the countryside’s clean water and clean environment, the program has upgraded more than 1,000 clean water providers, 500 waste collecting points, 1,200 sewage points that met the requirements, 40 percent of the communes have their own garbage collecting teams, marking a 10-percent higher than before this program. Countryside homes and cultural houses also got further invested and upgraded.
Besides the above-mentioned achievements, the environmental factor stays most difficult to fulfil. Across the whole country, only 26 percent of the New Countryside communes have met all environment requirements. The reason for not being able to meet target is because our countryside has been under great pressure from increased population, uncontrolled use of fertilisers and pesticides, untreated livestock waste, agricultural waste, daily and craft village waste.
In particular, the number of households who can use national-standard clean water stays very low. There was a blur line between clean water and hygiene water that pass all necessary test. In many communes, households only have access to uncontaminated water, not clean water according to the standards.
Households tending livestock have not been able to treat its waste effectively. Livestock wastes are still discarded into the public environment. There are businesses that even sold their souls as to cover up their bad practices, which lead to even more serious consequences.
On the other hand, the factories and businesses based in the countryside are mostly small in size, scattered throughout the location and they have limited investment, outdated technology and for them, taking care of the environment adds further to their workload. They have not been requested to make environmental impact reports, the craft villages grow unplanned and as a result, their waste pollutes the environment; business owners are not requested to treat their production waste as they are for-profit entities. All the above-mentioned factors are the sources of environmental pollution.
Moreover, planning a local cemetery that meets the standards, planting more trees, having a wastewater collecting and treatment system, waste collecting points in every commune have been the hard-to-meet-targets due to the commune’s limited land use and tight budget.
Furthermore, due to the mostly old and outdated machinery used in craft villages, the production and trading sites almost have no wastewater treatment facility, the local pollution in craft villages has become worse. The effectiveness of environment inspection and supervision stays low and environment-polluting activities go untreated.
The other side of speedy urbanisation process has an immensely strong impact on the environment. It’s getting closer to the point that the living environment of the people has been endangered. Therefore, the New Countryside program must set up the targets and standards for the countryside communes. It is a challenge, yet an opportunity to provide our countryside with new chances to improve the quality of life. The core point lies in the fact that everyone needs to act accordingly to the nature and our common living habitat.
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Khánh Hưng Commune in Cà Mau province has seen positive changes since it deployed New Countryside Program. |
Another source of waste has been affected our environment over the years: our daily waste, warehouse waste, local market waste, school, hospital and craft village waste to list all of them. In many localities, local governments work out positive solutions such as issuing their own resolution on environmental impact. Local volunteer organisations take charge, government support parts of the cost to build a household-base garbage burners to reduce the amount of waste. But it seems this is a temporary solution but it’s not sustainable for the long term.
In particular, statistics from Lang Son Province, until the end of March 2015, the Province People’s Committee has approved the masterplan and the New Countryside project for all 207 communes of the province, 11 districts and the city. However, not a single commune has passed the environmental requirements. More than 70 percent of the province population have access to hygiene water, but only 50 percent of the population can use Ministry-of-Health standard water. Apart from this, other targets in waste collecting and treating accordingly to standards are hard to meet. Everyday, hundreds of kilograms of daily waste in all communes need to be collected and treated, 50 percent of it has been collected an treated, but there was almost none of the waste gets treated accordingly to meet the national standards at the communal level.
Initial data assessment from Lang Son province shows that there has to be a particular strategic orientation in creating environment requirements accordingly with each locality. First of all, public awareness campaigns need to brief local people, all level of local management to increase their alertness toward environment issues and the New Countryside criteria. In the implementing process, the local government and the people need to work closely to achieve sustainable targets in the New Countryside project. Special attention must be paid to the supervision and inspection.
In order to effectively implement the New Countryside program, the directive board has suggested some solutions including: increasing the public awareness campaign, encouraging more active participation of all people in the local community to take part and supervise the whole process of New Countryside project implementation, respect the democratic, transparent and public principles giving the local people the opportunities to run the project on their own.
At the same time, in other provinces, where part of the Program has been achieved, the local governments need to improve and increase the quality of life for sustainable growth in the new countryside. For the provinces that have not a single commune that passed the New Countryside criteria, local governments need to take some communes to start with as a pilot project and then draw their own lessons to further apply in other communes. They also need to mobilise and incorporate all forms of resources to improve the vital local infrastructure, especially the infrastructure for economic development. Focus on the production growth section, increase local people’s income, lower hunger rate and eradicate poverty must go hand in hand with planting more value added products and building sustainable works in the commune. Local governments need also to give priority to research and technology transfer, set up a high-tech agriculture model with up-to-date technology to increase quality and productivity of agricultural production.
In conclusion, from an overall point of view, there need to be implemented the New Countryside program. It has boosted the local inner and outer strengths heading toward sustainable development. However, from having the right policy to applying it to reality takes a long way to design particular projects that meet local conditions and habits. Therefore, during the implementation process, there has to be concrete studies, assessments and alterations to tailor to the needs of local communes, yet maintaining the vital requirements from the overall policy, so as to be effective to meet our final target of having a New Countryside.
Phạm Thị Tố Oanh
Alliance of Co-operatives in Viet Nam
Vũ Thu Hạnh
College of Natural Science, Ha Noi National University
