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Ethnic minority women will benefit from the project

This USD-200,000 project will be carried out in four provinces, namely Hoa Binh, Son La, Dien Bien and Bac Kan in the 2018-2019 period.

Under the project, ethnic minority groups in Vietnam will receive supports to better access micro-financial services, and use the classic model named village savings and loan association that CARE developed in the 1990’s.

According to a World Bank’s report, just 21 percent of Vietnamese adults have had access to official financial services, the lowest rate in the East Asia region. Attentively, most of the traditional banks are in urban areas. Besides, main financial service providers for ethnic minority groups are the Vietnam Bank for Social Policies, the Vietnam Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, and People’s Credit Funds. Therefore, ethnic minority women have found it not easy to get access to loans and savings services to meet the needs of their daily life and production as well.

A CARE-conducted survey in Dien Bien province in late 2017 showed that almost always it was the husband who was the final decision maker. For example, to make a decision on production investment, just 17.7 percent of women did it while the rate for husbands was 49.4 percent. Meanwhile, the rate of women who can decide on questions relating to family expenses was just 25.7 percent compared to 41.4 percent of men.

Obviously, under CARE research, there is a big difference between ethnic minority women and resources and factors which they can control and can help them improve their economic empowerment.

Mr. Le Xuan Hieu, the Project Director from CARE, hoped that the project would help the recipients increase their savings via the CARE model of village savings and loan association and improve financial management of family expenses and production.

Translated by Mai Huong