Developing Business with the Rural Poor Programme

The programme’s goal is to help develop market and business opportunities for poor rural people in two provinces of the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam. Ben Tre province is densely populated and is situated close to Ho Chi Minh City, the country’s major urban centre. Cao Bang province is sparsely populated, remote and largely mountainous. In both provinces rural poverty is widespread.

The specific objective of the programme is to improve the incomes of a broad target group that includes people with small landholdings and limited assets, landless labourers, ethnic minorities and women. The programme helps empower poor households in targeted rural communities to organize themselves for profitable market participation along value chains, in an equitable and environmentally sustainable manner. The programme also works to create a favourable policy environment for market linkages, and to generate increased private investment and provision of business development services for microenterprises in the target areas.

Source: IFAD