UN body assist Vietnam

UN body assist Vietnam

HANOI (AFP): The United Nations Capital Development Fund
(UNCDF) will provide more than US$7.8 million for a poverty
alleviation program in central Vietnam, the group said in a press
release yesterday.

The funds will form part of a five-year project in cooperation
with the Association of Netherlands Municipalities and the
Vietnamese government to invest in small-scale infrastructural
projects in Quan Nam-Da Nang province.

The project will help to rehabilitate and construct various
local infrastructures, including health clinics, irrigation
pumping stations, small bridges, access roads, schools and market
facilities.

According to statistics on GDP for 1993 released by the World
Bank, the latest and most accurate figures available, the
province accounted for just 2.3 percent of GDP with 2.7 percent
of the population.

A United Nations Development Program property report issued
late last year indicated that about half of Vietnam's population
fell below the poverty line, and that more than 80 percent of
this group lived in rural areas.