In Cao Bang, the International Fund for Agricultural Development or IFAD has made many contributions to socio-economic development in recent years, especially through the Developing Business with the Rural Poor Program supported by IFAD.

IFAD's goal is to promote climate-resilient, market-driven agriculture to help these communities thrive. Building on the knowledge accumulated through the Commercial Smallholder Support Project (CSSP), IFAD hopes to leverage innovative approaches and lessons to create profound change.

The Developing Business with the Rural Poor Program has a total budget of 24 million USD, including IFAD’s loan capital of 16.4 million USD. The project fulfilled the goal of "contributing to sustainable and equitable poverty reduction in rural areas". Accordingly, the poverty rate in the project area decreased from 49% (2010) to 31.6% (2013).

The CSSP project in Cao Bang province started in August 2017, and has now recorded nearly 7 years of operation, receiving a total budget of 36.27 million USD.

As of December 2023, the disbursement results of the 2023 budget plan was more than 44.6 billion VND, reaching 51.9% of the total approved annual budget.

In 2023, the CSSP project maintained and strengthened 678 out of 800 common interest groups (CIG) and cooperative groups, supporting 8,840 households, most of them are ethnic minorities, poor and near-poor households, through mobilizing savings before funding.

In addition, the Women's Development Fund was deployed in 27/30 communes in 3 districts where the project was carried out, establishing 322 credit savings groups with 3,911 members, reaching 118% of the set target. Of these, the number of poor and near-poor members borrowing capital accounted for 41%. In 2023, the project also implemented 44 infrastructure projects, including 26 new projects and 18 transitional projects from 2022.

The Provincial Climate Change Action Plan 2021 - 2030 with a vision to 2050 has been developed and approved by the People's Committee of Cao Bang Province. The Market-Orientated Participatory Socio-Economic Development Planning (MOP-SEDP) was implemented in 161 communes with the participation of more than 103,000 households.

The CSSP project has also achieved 85% of its goal with 678/800 common interest groups established. The total loan balance of the Cao Bang Women's Development Fund in 52 communes reached over 40 billion VND with over 2,890 borrowers. In the project-covered areas, 145/187 community infrastructure projects have been completed and handed over for use. In 2023 alone, there were 44 infrastructure projects, including 26 new projects and 18 projects transferred from the previous year.

Following the success of the project, the Government of Vietnam and IFAD expanded support for ethnic minority groups in Cao Bang province through the ongoing Commercial Smallholder Support Project (CSSP) to introduce a more comprehensive public-private production cooperation strategy (or 4P).

Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Hoang Xuan Anh highly appreciated IFAD's efforts and significant contributions in Cao Bang over the past 15 years, with many useful initiatives applied with the goal of sustainable progress for the ethnic minorities.

He hoped that central ministries and agencies will continue to pay attention and create conditions for Cao Bang to connect with international donors; give support in terms of procedures for the province in the coming time. He also asked international organizations and embassies of interested countries provide ODA capital, especially non-refundable aid, to support Cao Bang with opportunities to cooperate in developing the agricultural economy in the green and sustainable growth manner.

PV