The 20th anniversary edition of the UN Development Programme’s (UNDP) Human Development Report, launched yesterday in a ceremony with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, UNDP Administrator Helen Clark and Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, spotlights countries that made the greatest progress in recent decades as measured by the Human Development Index (HDI), with China, Nepal, Indonesia, Laos and Republic of Korea all making the report’s “Top 10 Movers” list.

Vietnam has achieved important milestones on the road to implementing the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals and it is committed to achieving them by 2015, despite big challenges.

Vietnam has made impressive progress in poverty reduction over the last decade, but there is still work to be done. With the country well on its way to achieving its anti-poverty targets, the government has stressed the need for disadvantaged people to have a greater say in how funds are allocated and used. Hoang Mai reports on two new programmes designed to do just that.

Across Vietnam and the developing world, non-government organisations likePlan Vietnam are making a difference to the people the global economy has left behind, improving healthcare and education and helping them to escape poverty under their own steam.

Vietnam is seen by the international community as being on the right track to eliminating hunger and reducing poverty. Thuy Dung talks with Susan Adams, senior resident representative of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), about the country’s fight against poverty.

Mountainous Lao Cai province in the far north counts among its residents 27 different ethnic minority groups. Many of these people are self-sufficient, making it difficult to pigeonhole them in the usual poverty classifications.