On January 3rd 2025, in La Hai township of Dong Xuan district, Phu Yen province, MCNV in collaboration with the People’s Committee of Dong Xuan District and the District’s Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD) organized a year-end workshop to review activities of the project “Boosting Income and Jobs for Poor Women” (referred to as the BIJPO project).
The workshop was attended by the project management unit (including the People’s Committee, DARD, Department of Ethnic Affairs, Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs, and the Women’s Union), leaders of people’s committees of the project communes, and representatives of women’s cooperative groups.
The BIJPO project, implemented in the period of 2022 – 2025, covers 15 villages in 6 mountainous communes of Dong Xuan district. The project aims to improve income, create jobs, enhance agricultural production capacity, and reduce food insecurity for poor women in ethnic minority communities.
The project is funded by GSRD, Hulza, Wincloves and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (Netherlands) and has financial contributions from the local authority. Key activities include: establishing and operating women’s cooperative groups specialized in agricultural and non-agricultural production and business; promoting household-level agricultural production activities; and supporting micro-entrepreneurs for food and agricultural supplies.
After more than two years of implementation, the BIJPO project has achieved many encouraging results. Nearly 1,100 women (exceeding the initial target of 600 women) from poor, near-poor, and disadvantaged households have improved their income and jobs, agricultural production conditions, and local food sources through the aforementioned activities.
The BIJPO project introduces diversity in the application of various production models tailored to natural conditions, local cultural practices, and the utilization of available resources. It also enhances capacity-building and empowers beneficiaries to take ownership of their progress.
The models implemented under the project are highly diverse, including community-based tourism, brocade weaving, plastic furniture knitting, livestock farming (pigs, cows, chickens, fish, black snails, etc.), cultivation (organic vegetable farming, fruit tree and forestry tree planting, bamboo planting, mushroom growing), acacia seedling nurseries, agricultural product processing, and more.
In 2025, MCNV and the PMU of Dong Xuan district will focus on strengthening the management and operational capacity of women’s cooperative groups. The project partners will also work on scaling up best practices in agricultural and non-agricultural production, contributing to Dong Xuan District’s implementation of the National Target Program on Socio-Economic Development in Ethnic Minority and Mountainous Areas for the 2021–2030 period.
