The project “Supporting Son La women to start and run businesses” of the Initiative to Support Women Start-ups and Entrepreneurship (WISE) is within the framework of the project “Promoting gender equality through improving economic efficiency”. Agricultural Production and Tourism Development” (GREAT) in Lao Cai and Son La provinces, GREAT for short, funded by the Australian government to encourage and support innovative solutions to improve the lives of people women, their families and local communities in the Northwest region of Vietnam, while contributing to productivity and economic growth in the region.
The project’s objectives are to:
- Improve women’s business knowledge and skills to apply these knowledge and skills in production and business
- Increasing the participation of women in business partnerships with the private sector and agribusiness value chains
- Inspiring entrepreneurship and raising awareness about Gender Equality for local women
Through the following activities: (i) capacity building training; (ii) business connections; (iii) intensive one-on-one consulting and (iv) co-investment.
By 2021, key achievements are:
- 11 models participate in the Accelerated Incubation program and access intensive support from WISE; in which 02 models have access to the co-funding to expand production scale;
- Support the establishment of 02 new cooperation groups: Van Ho Sunflower Cooperation Group; Tat Nang Cooperative Group
- 572 beneficiaries participated in the project, in which 301 women and 232 ethnic minority women;
- 463 people increase their income; in which 229 women and 190 ethnic minority women;
- 63 new jobs were created, of which 46 were for women, 44 were ethnic minority women;
- The average annual revenue growth of cooperatives reached 35%;
Follow the project’s success story here.
