The Vietnam Trade Promotion Agency (Vietrade) and the Vietnam Handicraft Exporters Association (Vietcraft) recently received US$4 million from the Millennium Development Goals Achievement Fund to carry out the Joint Programme on Green Production and Trade to Increase Income and Employment Opportunities for Rural Poor People. The objective of this programme is to develop better integrated, pro-poor, and environmentally sustainable ‘green’ value chains, enabling poor growers, collectors and producers to improve their products and link to more profitable markets.
The programme, which lasts from 2010 through 2012, will create some 1.35 million jobs with the participation of 50 companies in Hanoi and other provinces/cities. It aims to increase income and employment opportunities for raw material growers/collectors and grassroots producers of handicrafts and small furniture, targeting over 4,800 poor households in four northern provinces of Vietnam, namely Phu Tho, Hoa Binh, Thanh Hoa and Nghe An. The provinces were selected based on the following criteria: High poverty rate, especially among ethnic minority households, concentration level of input materials, productivity of local handicrafts and connectivity with complete and ongoing activities.
More than 40 percent of beneficiaries targeted by the programme are households living below the national poverty line. In addition, the programme also targets 1,400 households of ethnic minorities (30 percent), mainly Thai, Muong and H'mong people. It also chooses many women (about 70 percent) to participate in activities because they are the main force of handicrafts production at both household and company levels. As such, the programme will contribute to the achievement of MDGs: ending poverty and hunger, promoting gender equality, and ensuring environmental sustainability.
In four beneficiary provinces, the programme focuses on five value chains: bamboo and rattan; sericulture; sea grass; lacquer ware; and handmade paper. Tam Nong district, Phu Tho province, which is famous for wax trees (scientific name: Rhus succedanea), will participate in the lacquer ware value chain. In Hop Hoa commune, Luong Son district, Hoa Binh province, the programme will support the formation and development of a sustainable handmade paper production unit. In Nga Son district, Thanh Hoa province, the programme will be applied to a sea grass value chain as the quality of local sea grass is very high. Bamboo - rattan and sericulture value chains will be considered in several districts of Phu Tho, Hoa Binh, Thanh Hoa and Nghe An provinces. The approach is to develop better integrated, pro-poor, and environmentally sustainable green value chains, enabling poor growers, collectors and producers to improve their products and to link them to more profitable markets; to improve the overall competitiveness of value chains, increase incomes and bring the most benefits for stakeholders.
Besides, the programme will support small and medium sized enterprises to access cleaner production methods (reducing hazardous chemicals, waste and environmental pollutants), and apply innovative technologies and sustainable designs for small and medium enterprises as well as export-oriented processing techniques (unravelling silkworm cocoons and processing lacquer). The programme also introduces appropriate standards and methods to workers to improve working conditions in the direction of increasing productivity and competitiveness. In addition, the programme will improve business management skills and business representation of grassroots level crafts and furniture producers; and strengthen provincial planning capacity for local economic development.
According to research, currently, the five value chains targeted by the programme are facing many difficulties, dearth of raw materials, lack of knowledge, inadequacy of farming extension services, shortage of clean production skills, sustainable designs and product development, lack of basic business management skills, poor working conditions, insufficient support services and inability to search and analyse commercial information.
These difficulties will be stamped out by activities of the joint programme supported by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the International Trade Centre (ITC), the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), and the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO). This programme is carried out in the framework of the One-UN Plan where Vietnam is one of the eight One-UN pilot countries.
Kim Phuong
Vietnamese
