Rome, 9 November 2010 – A new US$19.4 million loan and US$ 0.5 million grant from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) to the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam will increase the incomes of poor ethnic minority households in the Dak Nong Province.

The agreement for the Sustainable Economic Empowerment of Ethnic Minorities Project was signed today, in Hanoi, Viet Nam, by Vu Nan Ninh, Minister of Finance of the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam, and Kanayo F. Nwanze, President of IFAD.

The project will help to strengthen provincial institutions that will help to integrate the priorities of ethnic minority groups, particularly women within the Government planning process. 

Under the project, joint liability groups will be established as the conduit for bank lending to individual members, along with training. The main focus of the project will be on minority livelihood development, rural financial services and in providing agricultural and value chain lending. Collective action will be crucial to the empowerment of people in order to help them overcome poverty; by setting up shared liability groups and savings and credits associations among poor ethnic minority women.

Over 31,370 households are expected to benefit. These households consist of indigenous and migrant ethnic minorities. The project activities will, in particular, involve women in the poorest communes of the Dak Nong Province and low-income Kinh families.

To date, IFAD has financed 10 projects in Viet Nam for a total investment of US$ 209.20 million directly benefiting 539,270 households.

Press release No.: IFAD/72/2010

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) works with poor rural people to enable them to grow and sell more food, increase their incomes and determine the direction of their own lives. Since 1978, IFAD has invested over US$12 billion in grants and low-interest loans to developing countries, empowering more than 360 million people to break out of poverty. IFAD is an international financial institution and a specialized UN agency based in Rome – the UN’s food and agricultural hub. It is a unique partnership of 165 members from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), other developing countries and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).