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 »

Fair Trade is a growing market and offers both opportunities and challenges for the Lao producers. This was the message conveyed during a seminar on Fair trade, organised by the Lao National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LNCCI) in Lane Xang Hotel last September 9, 2009. The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SADC), the Royal Dutch Embassy and Netherlands Development Organisation (SNV) co-sponsored the event.

The Fair Trade concept was primarily developed to fight poverty by creating just, honest and transparent trade agreements between producers and buyers. With Fair Trade certification, consumers are assured of buying products and services that have been produced or delivered under fair conditions. Fair Trade principles complement the current policies of the Government of Laos to promote more value adding initiatives and investments in the country.

Sales of Fair Trade products are 70 times larger than ten years ago. Sales of products carrying the World Fair Trade Organisation (WFTO) or the Fair Trade Labelling Organisations (FLO) marks are specially booming. In 2007, certified products sales were €2.381million (46% up from 2006), and non-certified products added up to €265 million (7% up from 2006). Popular products having the Fair Trade marks include coffee, tea, cocoa and cotton. Read the rest of this entry »

The first National Nutrition Policy Dissemination Workshop was organized during April 8 – 11, 2009 at International Cooperation and Training Center (ICTC), in Vientiane Capital. The objectives of the workshop are: disseminate National Nutrition Policy, National Policy on Food Safety, Mother, Neonatal and Child Health package strategy and their linkages with all sectors related to nutrition, raise awareness and clearly understand on part of all participants of the nutrition situation, causality analysis and context in Laos, and solicit inputs from provincial and other stakeholders about content and priorities for National Nutrition Strategy and National Plan of Action for Nutrition development.

A number of government organizations from line ministries and central provinces, mass organization, embassies, UN, international nongovernment organizations were gathered and participated in 4 days workshops for discussion and Read the rest of this entry »

The workshop was attended by 18 participants from Sangthong and Hinheup districts. Basically, it aimed to: (a) develop plan of operation for the implementation of the prioritized and elected watershed issues, (b)  support WSC (Watershed Committee) in prioritizing the watershed issues, (c) agree upon a monitoring plan, (d) support WSC in formulation of result chain to achieve the target indicators (with participation of WSC and gender sensitization), and (e) create understanding among the WSC on its monitoring role and responsibility.

The following were present in the planning workshop: Planning workshop for plan of action implementation. Mr. Souklaty and Mr. Anousack Somsanith from EDC facilitated the workshop. More workshops were planned by the Project Team who would like to insure the success of the resulting project.