Imagining Health in Social and Cultural Contexts

Running head: IMAGINING HEALTH IN SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXTS
IMAGINING HEALTH IN SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXTS
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1IMAGINING HEALTH IN SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXTS
Introduction
Poverty is one of the biggest challenges for humankind, which has several forms,
degrees, times and situation. As per the statement of The World Bank, poverty is not just having
a scarcity of money, but also associated with lack of food, shelter, inability to read, not having
access to quality healthcare and living life depending on the survival of each day. Poverty is a
condition, which varies with changes in time and place, for example living in a poor condition in
Canada is not similar to living in poverty in India, therefore, time and place is a major concern
for people struggling with poverty (Bass & Dalal-Clayton, 2012). Therefore, poverty is one of
the most important goals of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 2030. Despite
the fact that within 1990 to 2015, more than half of the poverty has already been eradicated, still,
800 million people around the world live on less than US$1.25 a day and are unable to access
food, shelter and quality healthcare (Huu, 2015).
Vietnam is a Southeast Asian country, which is located in the east of Cambodia and Laos
and south of China. This country has a population of 90 million in which, 35% of the current
population lives in urban areas of the country whereas, 87% of the population are known as
ethnic Viet living in underdeveloped or rural areas of the country (Carley & Christie, 2017). 54
minority groups are also there that take up the remainder 13% of the population (Huu, 2015).
Studies have revealed the poverty-related timeline for Vietnam and has mentioned since the
Vietnam War, the population is suffering from poverty (Malik, 2013). However, since then the
government has taken several steps to eradicate poverty and maintain equity within the country
(Reeds, 2013). However, as per the strategies used by the UN to measure poverty within
Vietnam, the World Bank has mentioned that there is still 30% population, who are suffering

2IMAGINING HEALTH IN SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXTS
from extreme poverty and it affects primarily the health status of the population around the
country (Sachs, 2015).
Therefore, the government of Vietnam has adopted a series of social economic and
environmental factors that helped in the implementation of policies, which are important for
sustainable development of Vietnam and eradicating poverty (Bhattacharyya, 2012). Therefore, a
primary aim of this assignment will be determining the strategies and techniques using which the
government of Vietnam will be able to implement the sustainable developmental goals against
poverty and will eradicate it by 2030.
Thesis statement: the Vietnamese government is likely to eradicate extreme poverty by
application of SDGs by 2030.
Historical factors
Vietnam is the country, which has faced several unfavourable events, and the influence of
the western society has affected the social, economic and environmental development since the
age of World War II. After the victory of World, war II the Ho Chi Minh government declared
the state as independent, , due to the war and aftereffects, poverty started prevailing deep into the
society (McKay & Deshingkar, 2014). The government was unable to provide evenly distributed
available resources to the countrymen due to which, the country becomes dependent on the
financial aids from the western countries. There are several instances when the government tried
to revive the economy of the country and one such development in economic front of Vietnam
was observed in the year 1975 when the Vietnam War ended and different social development
policies were imposed on the Vietnamese policies (Malik, 2013). Further, one such development
was also witnessed in the Doi Moi process which commenced in 1986 and due to which the
country witnessed a gross domestic product average of 7.5 (Carley & Christie, 2017). The