POVERTY AS A CONCERN FOR HUMAN SECURITY: VIETNAM’S POLICIES ON MULTI-DIMENSIONAL POVERTY

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Although different countries may set various strategies for economic development, the problem of poverty continues to be a serious concern in both the developed and developing economies. In fact, many policy makers, administrators, academics, politicians, also see poverty as a fundamental threat to humanity. Some even consider it to be the root of practically all global issues. This is established due to the intimate relationship between poverty and human security- a paradigm that attaches security to human focus, rather than to the traditional understanding of security. This relationship is illustrated more thoroughly as attention is paid to multidimensional poverty. This approach to poverty is used more widely nowadays by governments due to its encompassing effects, and the Vietnamese government is not an exception. This study, via qualitative and secondary method, investigates different perspectives of poverty to reveal an intellectual history of how poverty has been defined and how poverty reduction orientation may have been influenced. A case study of Vietnam also examines how its government views multidimensional poverty and develops their poverty reduction policies accordingly. A constructivist approach is also sought to explain the link between poverty and human security.