Mr. Ekk Pathammavong, SNV governance advisor and Ms Buakhai Phimmavong, EDC Managing Partner have just returned after officially representing Laos in the five-day Capacity Development Learning Week event held from May 24 to 28, 2010 in Manila Intercontinental Hotel in Makati, Metro Manila, Philippines under the auspices of the UNDP Asia Pacific Regional Centre in Bangkok. With the overall theme of Reducing Poverty; Delivering Services, the event attracted more than 50 participants from 18 countries and from UNDP, SNV and ADB. The event showcased some of the country’s CD initiatives via the event’s three segments: Practice Meets Policy, CD Talk and Panel Discussion, and CD Policy Dialogue.

On the first day, the event implemented a CD Knowledge Fair which enabled each participating group Read the rest of this entry »

EDC, ACDI/VOCA and SNV recently organized a workshop at the Settha Palace hotel on the 27th and 28th of May, focusing on enhancing staple crop value chains and cross-border trade in Lao PDR.  ACDI/VOCA, represented by Ms. Janice Stallard (Senior Technical Director – Enterprise Development – Washington DC) and Mr. Adam Keatts (Regional Director – South-East Asia), along with Mr. Wanna Lassamee from EDC conducted an assessment of the staple crop sector in Oudomxay province before attending the workshop.

During the workshop presentations were made by ACDI/VOCA on the consequences and lessons learned from the 2008 global food price crisis, gave an overview of their value chain approach and presented the findings of the study in Oudomxay. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday May 2 at 5:30 pm, the management and staff of EDC initiated a Basi essentially as a gesture of thanks for a wonderful year that was and for a hope for a prosperous Lao New Year. This is an annual ritual that EDC conducts to insure prosperity and luck for the incoming year. The four managing partners and the entire staff were present together with some invited guests, the Mo Phone and the five monks.

The prayers and wishes for a prosperous New Year was sanctified by the Monk’s incantations in the background. It was a solemn and pious ceremony. The Monk’s blessed the entire EDC premises with the holy water to appease and good spirits and drive away the evil ones. Gifts to the spirits were offered together with special prayers and wishes.  Everyone had a change to wish everyone good fortunes in wealth, health, romance, peace, and happiness and shared the virtuous strings that each tied on their right wrists. It was a sublime  experience. One of the guests remarked that this is a fast track to prosperity.

The solemn event was followed by a sumptuous dinner where everyone had a chance to share the humble food and sweets prepared for the event. Everyone looks forward to a great year ahead of all.

There were two instances that EDC has performed charity works. The first happened in November, 2008. EDC staff have collected and donated used clothes and some notebooks for poor school children and villagers from three remote villages of Nalae district in Luang Namtha provinces. The three villages, namely Mok Chord, Mok Prad and Phouthone Mok, are situated in a very high mountain. It is always very cold during winter time. In fact, temperature can go far down as 0 (and sometimes, even -1 degree). The poor children and some villagers have no clothes (not talking about warm clothes) to wear. They could only survive by staying in the kitchen around the fire place. Even used or second hand clothes can help the villagers during the harsh winter.

Then in January 2009, EDC’s team of consultants worked with an with HIV/AIDS programme. In this mission, EDC discussed, worked and observed PLHIV (people living with HIV). It is not so easy to lived with such a debilitating disease. Despite this however, EDC knows that there is still optimism and a ray of hope in most of the PLHIV. They gave two packages of milk for each family. EDC hopes that the small contibution can help them in very small way to go through the physical and emotional pain.

From now onwards, EDC will do an annual charity event. They would like to invite other institutions, projects and SMEs to join if they so desire. EDC also plans to work with the Laos Red Cross in collecting donations and used clothes for the villagers. Do contact us if you are interested in charity works.

EDC has been commissioned by the SME Promotion and Development Office (SMEPDO) and the Lao-German Human Resource Development in Market Economy Programme (HRD-ME) to draft the first ever SME Annual Report (White Paper) in Lao PDR. The paper follows the issuance of the Prime Minister’s Decree No. 43/PM dated 20 April 2004, the SME Promotion and Development Committee (SMEPDC) and its secretariat, as well as the SMEPDO. These institutions have been mandated to to coordinate implementation of the policies of the government on SME promotion and development.

The paper will use the White Papers in Thailand and Japan as guides, the draft report assembled all the available statistics and survey data in Laos today. It provided an overview of the of the situation and development trends of the SMEs during the year. Both EDC and SMEPDO hope that the paper will provide decision makers and the general public with vital information that can broaden the understanding of the role of SMEs in the national economy, specially in terms of employment, income generation and poverty alleviation. The report uses existing surveys and studies as main sources. It complemented these secondary sources with actual surveys and interviews of the existing and future SME- and private sector promotion agncues activities of several donor agencies. Among others, it featured interviews with GTZ, EU, ADB, IFC, ILO and the World Bank-International Finance Company.

The EDC’s consultant team consisted of Thiphaphone, Dr. Vivath and Phoukong are working on the SME Annual Report 2008. EDC has officially submitted the draft of the white paper to SMEPDO last month.