November, 2010—Thichand Som Bui and their four children live in the mountainous area of the Bac Soncommune, in Vietnam's Hoa Binh province. They belong to the Muong ethnicminority and farming is their sole livelihood.
A journey to the local market used to take Thich up to twodays, depending on the weather. Now, thanks to a road building programmesupported by the World Bank and the UK aid from the Department forInternational Development (DFID), Thich's journey to the local market is nowmuch quicker, enabling to trade his produce and gradually he and family arelifting themselves out of poverty.
Tough travelling
Before the new roads existed, Thich had to walk 25kilometres in mountainous terrain to get to the local markets.
Life was tough and trading produce was a slow process.
"I rarely went anywhere, unless it was necessary," recalls Thich.
"Perhaps my only trip in a week was to go to themarket to exchange maize and cassava for salt and cooking oil, which iscritical for our daily life."
Connecting to the outside world
As well as opening up the markets, this road buildingprogramme aims to reduce travel costs for the local communities and improveaccess to social services like health and education. Around 400 ethnic minorityhouseholds in Bac Son are benefiting from the road and 70% of them now own amotorbike.
Thich and Som have noticed a huge difference to their incomeand way of life since the new road opened.
Now they can get to the markets by bike or motorbike whichmakes trading produce faster. And the new transport links have also made iteasier for dealers to go directly to Thich and Som's house to buy farmingproducts.
Recently, as passers-by increased, Thich and Som opened asmall grocery to improve the family income.
"We now can earn around 1.5 million VND (around £50)a month altogether," says Som.
"And my kids can go to school by bicycle. It's madea big difference."
Facts and stats
- The Rural Transportation programme was co-funded by IDA and DFID.
- Phase two of the programme, which took place between 2001 and 2006, helped to increase the number of communes with all weather roads by 28%. This helped to lift 210,000 people out of poverty over the project period.
- Phase two covered 40 provinces. Phase three, which is taking place from 2007 to 2011, will cover 33 provinces.
- Phase three includes maintenance and builds on proven elements of phase two.
