Background

Although Vietnam has enjoyed significant economic growth in recent decades, social and economic inequality persists particularly for ethnic minority women living in remote rural areas such as in the North-western Region where some of the poorest provinces are located. Ethnic minority women face multiple barriers to social and economic development that prevent them benefitting from the economic changes in Vietnam as it moves towards a market based economy. This project combines the respective strengths of three International NGOs with extensive experience in Vietnam to implement a project aimed at increasing the social and economic empowerment of women, particularly ethnic minority women in three selected value chains in two provinces.

Objectives

The overall goal of the WEAVE project is to enhance women’s economic empowerment and social inclusion in agricultural value chains in rural Vietnam. This will be achieved through three outcomes that will collectively lead to increased women’s economic empowerment:

  • Outcome 1: Women have the decision-making influence, capacity, confidence and support to benefit from increased social and economic opportunities.
  • Outcome 2: Women gain increased benefits through better organised and enhanced value chain and market linkages.
  • Outcome 3: The Sustainable Development Programme for the Northern Upland area and local development agenda create an enabling environment for women-inclusive value chains.

Across these three outcome areas, WEAVE will generate and disseminate new evidence and lessons learned that will be accessed and used by key stakeholders, including policy makers and value chain actors.

The project targets

  • Women and men (especially ethnic minorities) in Lao Cai and Bac Kan provinces who participate in pig, spices and banana value-chains
  • Men involved in GALS; local authorities; private sector actors; women entrepreneurs; representatives of government agencies
  • Family members of production group members; ethnic minority farmers in surrounding communities

WEAVE will indirectly benefit local enterprises, other non-targeted value chain actors and product consumers. Local enterprises working as input service providers and traders will indirectly benefit through engagement with producer groups.

Locations

WEAVE will be implemented in two of the poorest provinces in the Northern Mountainous region of Vietnam – Lao Cai (gendered spice and pork value-chains) and Bac Kan (gendered banana value-chain). These provinces have been selected due to their large ethnic minority populations, high poverty level, economic significance of targeted value-chains, and established presence of consortium members.

Who we work with

The Women’s Economic Empowerment through Agricultural Value Chain Enhancement (WEAVE) project is funded by the Australian Government and implemented by a partnership of three international non-governmental organisations — CARE International, Oxfam and SNV. WEAVE will support ethnic minority women’s economic empowerment in pork, cinnamon and banana value chains. This will be achieved by promoting equality between women and men within households and producer groups, strengthening women and men producers’ skills and bargaining power, and working with business and government decision-makers to improve the policy environment to support producers.

WEAVE