halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than $1 a day.

Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people who suffer from hunger.

---

Vietnam is ahead of the global schedule for halving poverty by 2015. (UN in Vietnam - MDG Country Report 2002)

Case Study: Bentre Province, Vietnam

12-year-old Thu Hong and her family are part of the Young Lives project in Vietnam, an international study on child poverty. As part of a series on the Millennium Development Goals and poverty reduction in Vietnam, a BBC producer interviewed Thu Hong about her experience with poverty.

"Dad is a motorbike taxi driver. Sometimes he brings home some money, sometimes not.

The whole family relies on the money my dad brings home, whatever he’s got.

My mum’s job is as bad as it gets. She’s working in a cashew nut processing factory, but she hasn’t received any salary recently.

Vietnam has reduced poverty levels from over 60% in 1990 to 32% in recent years. Food poverty rates have also been reduced from over 30% in 1990 to 15% in 2000. (UN in Vietnam - MDG Country Report 2002)

My mum still hasn’t been paid the outstanding sum requested by the school, and now I’m attending it every day.

We feel poorer than others, living in a different world. I don’t have things they have. I feel like I need a lot of things for my education. For example, I haven’t got all the books and notebooks that are required.

For breakfast, sometimes I just have a bit of rice porridge or nothing at all.

I want to become a teacher." Thu Hong