The poor people and unofficial workers would be protected not only in the short term but also in the long term if they participated in voluntary social insurance, she said.

Phong spoke at a workshop themed “Developing high-quality human resources in ethnic minority and mountainous areas in agriculture, building new-style rural areas and sustainable poverty reduction”, held on September 13 in the northern mountainous province of Son La.

Speaking at the event’s opening ceremony, Phong said recently, works related to ethnic minority groups, directed by the Party and the State, had resulted in positive changes and gained comprehensive achievements in politics, economy, culture, society, national defence, security and foreign affairs.

It helped contribute to the cause of building and protecting the country as well as consolidate the confidence of the ethnic minorities towards the Party and State, she said.

Also at the event, Phong together with General Director of Viet Nam Social Security Nguyen The Manh, handed over VND250 million (US$10,700) to support 150 underprivileged civil servants at ward and commune levels in the province to participate in voluntary social insurance for one year.

The fund was mobilised from donations by officials and staff of Viet Nam Social Security, she said.

We consider it the contribution of the insurance sector to the poverty reduction programme of the country, at the same time, it also showed the sector’s attention to grassroots workers and disadvantaged people, she said.

The financial support for the people for one year to participate in the voluntary social insurance was a small amount, but we wanted to create a premise and motivation for the grassroots workers to better realise the benefits and values of the social insurance policy and continue participation in the following years, she said.

Manh said the support was very meaningful, practical and humanistic.

Manh added that he hoped the grassroots workers, who received the financial support from the insurance sector, would become communicators, spreading the benefits of the social and health insurance policies to the community; so that more and more people would participate and gain benefits from the policies in the future.

The event is a national workshop, co-organised by the National Assembly’s Committee on Social Affairs, the Viet Nam Co-operative Union; the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Committee for Ethnic Minority Affairs.

The workshop was attended by representatives of relevant ministries, sectors, organisations and co-operatives in 15 provinces and cities in the northern region./.