Vice President of Vietnam visited a FLOW/EOWE supported cooperative

Vietnam Vice President Dang Thi Ngoc Thinh visited the Agricultural Cooperative Tuan Tu in An Hai commune, Ninh Phuoc district, Ninh Thuan province on 25 August, a cooperative strongly partnered with and supported by SNV through its climate-smart agriculture and women economic empowerment programme called FLOW/EOWE.

At the meeting with Tuan Tu Cooperative, the Vice President praised the dynamism of the cooperative members, which resulted in the achievement of economic development from growing asparagus on dry land which is annually suffering from severe drought. Furthermore, the commitment of VietGAP standard-based asparagus cultivation, which aims to organic standards production, and bringing asparagus products to high-end markets creates higher economic values for cooperative members -  the poor Cham people, especially women.

Talking about the development of Tuan Tu Cooperative, Hung Ky, Director of the cooperative, highlighted SNV's contributions to the cooperative development, including support for asparagus seedlings, a water-saving watering model, support to enhance and expand the scale of the cooperative, helping poor women to join the cooperative and start asparagus production. Especially, the support focus on leveraging the participation and capacity of Cham women in agribusinesses, contributing to making impressive impacts on the role of Cham women, raising their voice, decision-making and leadership in the household and community.

Tran Tu Anh, Program Manager of FLOW/EOWE in Vietnam, shared with the Vice President the dedication of SNV and the Government of the Netherlands to support and promote the role of ethnic minority women in climate-smart agriculture, to respond to drought and climate change as a valuable vehicle to gender equality. The Vice President was delighted and emphasized her interest and appreciation in this economic model that clearly contributes to improve gender equality and increase the leadership of women, especially women from ethnic minorities.

The program “Enhancing Opportunities for Women’s Enterprises” (FLOW/EOWE) is funded by the Government of the Netherlands through SNV. The aim of the project is to enhance women's economic opportunities and empowerment through promoting an advantageous environment for women to leverage agribusinesses in the context of climate change. In Vietnam, the program is implemented in 4 provinces: Quang Binh, Binh Dinh, Ninh Thuan and Binh Thuan.