The Market Access for the Rural Poor (MARP) Programme, supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), held a workshop on how to engage the private sector in pro-poor value chain development on July 3 in Hanoi. The workshop is a forum to learn from sharing international and Vietnamese examples and experience in working with the private sector for development impacts, particularly for the rural poor.
MARP was launched in July 2013 as a three-year US$5.2 million programme to support projects and organisations mainly in Vietnam, and partly in Laos and Myanmar, that enables poor rural households to participate in selected agricultural value chains and so to increase their income. MARP is active in 8 provinces in Vietnam and in 8 agricultural value chains: tea, rattan, bamboo, silk, hemp, cardamom, cinnamon, and star anise. After 10 months of implementation, MARP has successfully reached 6,870 households in 8 provinces in Northern Vietnam, of which 90 percent are ethnic minorities from 9 different ethnic groups. 32 percent of the beneficiaries are women.
“Our initial observation is that engaging the private sector in working with the poor is crucial for increasing their income” says Mr Samuel Waelty, Country Director of SDC in Vietnam. “With higher risks and transaction costs in the rural areas, and a lack of stable market linkages, it remains a strong challenge to mobilize private sector resources for sustainable pro-poor growth. SDC is keen to deepen the cooperation with the private sector to bring sustainable benefits to rural communities that experience persistent poverty in Vietnam. Sharing international and Vietnamese knowledge and experiences today will help us in finding the best solution for working with the private sector in order to achieve sustainable income both for the rural poor and the private sector.”
Nguyen Mai
Đăng ký: VietNam News