Meeting of Steering Committee phase 2 - Project promoting gender equality through improving the economic efficiency of agricultural production and tourism development (Great 2 Son La project).

The project promotes gender equality by improving the economic efficiency of agricultural production and tourism development (Great project) is an initiative in the Australian Government aid program for Vietnam, with the total value of aid $ 67.4 million, implemented in 10 years (2017 - 2027) is divided into 02 stages, deployed in Son La and Lao Cai provinces.

In the first 6 months of 2025, the Project "Promoting Gender Equality through Improving Economic Efficiency of Agricultural Production and Tourism Development in Son La Province - Phase 2 (GREAT 2 Son La)" with a total non-refundable ODA capital of 14.32 million AUD funded by the Australian Government continued implementing. By April 2025, the project had disbursed 4,190,585 AUD (reaching 29.1% of the total funding). The project comprehensively integrates gender factors into the cycle, from design to implementation and monitoring, prioritizing ethnic minority women as the principal beneficiaries. The goal is to enhance women's economic empowerment, social status, and resilience via training in production skills, business administration, digital transformation, access to finance, livelihood model development, leadership capacity building, entrepreneurship, behavior change communication, and community dialogue.

In agricultural development, the project focuses on skills and training of female producers in association with value chain partnerships, such as expanding production, improving productivity and quality, increasing product value of women-led organizations through the establishment of production groups, capacity building, cooperating in product aggregation, processing, and marketing, linking and developing business cooperation through establishing and strengthening commercial contracts between producers and consumers, improving accompanying services and supply chain management of actors in the value.

For tourism development, the project mobilizes stakeholders in the community, public, and private sectors to coordinate destination management; tests and perfects feasible models and mechanisms for ethnic minority women to participate in destination planning; tests fair and transparent cooperation models to invest in high-value destinations; promotes responsible tourism, develops products that preserve traditional culture; improves the quality and suitability of training services for ethnic minority women, etc. In addition, the project focuses on supporting the development, completion, and implementation of provincial-level policies, addressing gender inequality issues, and providing technical support for implementing national target programs and industry strategies with better gender integration, etc. chain.

To date, 08 proposals out of sub-projects have been approved by the Provincial People's Committee, 100% of which have developed specific gender action plans, including criteria for at least 80% of beneficiaries to be women and at least 40% of leadership roles in groups/cooperatives to be held by women. The project also specifically designed the BC4IM sub-project to change behavior, raise community awareness, and prevent gender-based violence.

The GREAT 2 Son La project will support Son La province in implementing national target programs on socio-economic development in ethnic minority and mountainous areas, sustainable poverty reduction, new rural construction, and Vietnam's gender equality strategy in Son La province.

Hong Le

Translated by Tuan Minh Dang