At the Mekong Delta Economic Cooperation (MEDC)’ workshop on “Mechanisms and Policies for Agricultural Commodities,” representatives of Global Competitiveness Facility (GCF), a Danida supported program, presented in detail the experiences and best practices of using the Challenge Fund approach to stimulate exports of Agribusiness Value Chains.
MDEC 2012 is the 6th annual event of the Mekong Delta for the: business community; administrators of the region’s provinces and cities; managers of Ministries and Authorities; scientists and professors from the Research Institutions and Universities to propose policy changes and initiatives by the decision makers.
The theme for 2012 was “Sustainable agriculture” that included a series of events and workshops in which the GCF’s new approach of “directly funding private enterprises to leverage their skills and capacity in creating a stream of sustainable benefits for small farmers and households” was discussed with a few case studies for the consideration of the policy makers.
This is the first time experiences from a donor supported project were shared at MDEC with over 200 participants that include high ranking officers of Mekong Delta Provincial Authorities and Central Ministries.
Mr. Tran Huu Hiep, General Director of Economic Department of South West Steering Committee and Deputy Head of MDEC 2012 Secretariat commented that: “The new approach of supporting farmers and households in export value chains through private enterprises is a good example for policy makers of Vietnam to consider replication based on the monitoring and evaluation results of the current projects.”
