Communication will contribute to changing people's perceptions, leading to the willingness to change behavior, one of the factors that sustains the results of sustainable development.

Developing information and communication systems in ethnic minority areas, the Ministry of Information and Communications is contributing to the promotion of human rights through efforts to narrow the information beneficiary gap between regions.

Ensuring the right to information for all people is a consistent policy of the Vietnamese State so far, that is clearly stated in the Constitution and laws. It has been guaranteed better thanks to the rapid and diversified development of various types and the content of mass media.

Information and communication is an important part of the socio-economic structure. Information and communication development is an important premise to improve people's knowledge, contributing to promoting economic restructuring, production development, gradually improving the quality of life of the people.

According to regulations on the new rural standards, in terms of information and communication, a commune that is recognized to meet the new rural standards must have at least 1 post service point; telecommunications and internet services; radio and speaker system to villages; information application in management and operation.

Communication will contribute to changing people's perceptions, leading to the willingness to change behavior, one of the factors that sustains the results of sustainable development.

In that spirit, the gap in information enjoyment among regions and ethnic groups throughout the territory of Vietnam has been gradually narrowed with awareness that information and propaganda serving ethnic minorities and mountainous areas is an indispensable component in the strategy of poverty reduction in information and sustainable poverty reduction, maintaining order and security, protecting national border security.

Communication will contribute to changing people's perceptions, leading to the willingness to change behavior, one of the factors that sustains the results of sustainable development. Illustrative image

Public-utility telecommunication policy supports national target programs

In the trend of integration, information innovation serving ethnic minority and mountainous areas is an indispensable requirement of the mass media. The infrastructure in the field of information and communication in many regions has been gradually built in synchronous modernization, with modern technology, meeting all types of services, importantly contributing to socio-economic development and ensuring national defense and security.

Despite many efforts, as the current socio-economic conditions and characteristics of ethnic minority areas, the information infrastructure of many ethnic minority areas has not been as expected.

One of the solutions proposed to contribute to narrowing the gap of information enjoyment among regions is the Public Telecommunications Program.

It can be said that the Public Telecommunication Service Fund has been supporting the National Target Program on Poverty Alleviation and the New Rural Construction Program. Recently, the Fund coordinated with relevant units to complete the Project of giving digital terrestrial television receivers for poor and near-poor households in phase 2 of the Television Digitization Project in 15 provinces and cities as well as implementing projects to provide public telecommunications services to people in remote areas and the project to support fishermen at sea.

Inheriting the advantages in the previous period, the Public Telecommunications Program in the period of 2016 - 2020 has many new points, overcoming the gaps of the previous service provision programs. In this phase, the program focuses on developing telecommunications infrastructure, especially multi-service broadband telecommunications infrastructure, with priority given to remote, disadvantaged, border and island areas, using appropriate technology to improve the availability of long-term telecommunications services, to develop the number of subscribers and services, especially in the context of competitive markets.

Through developing information and communication systems in ethnic minority areas, the Ministry of Information and Communications is contributing to the promotion of human rights through the efforts to narrow the information beneficiary gap between regions. Illustration.

If in the previous phase of the Public Telecommunications Program, all people living in the public benefit areas benefited from the program, regardless of the income level resulted in inequality among the poor who did not live in the public interest area and the rich who lived in the public service area, the program in the period of 2016-2020 has been adjusted to focus on the beneficiaries who are poor households, near-poor households, social policy-benefited households ... in order to ensure the goal of "ensuring equal and reasonable access rights for all people, especially for poor and near poor households".

Accordingly, the poor and near-poor households who are using analogue television that are not integrated digital TV receiver function up to DVB-T2 standard, do not have DVB-T2 digital television receiver, have not used any paid-TV services such as cable TV, satellite TV, Internet TV (IPTV) will receive a one-time support package including a terrestrial or satellite television receiver with antenna, installed and warranted for at least 1 year since the day the household receives a digital television receiver. The program will also provide free fixed telephone services and land mobile information (VND20,000/month/subscriber).

With the political determination in implementation, the Public-utility Telecommunication Program will practically benefit the people in remote areas, especially poor and near-poor households, who can use telecommunications services with affordable cost and have easy access to online public services, thereby bridging the digital gap between regions and communities, positively contributing to the socio-economic development of many localities.

Thanh Lan