An initiative supported by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Vietnam has empower ethnic minority women to develop their business and escape poverty in the course of Industry 4.0. 
UNDP Resident Representative in Vietnam Caitlin Wiesen and ethnic women in Bac Kan. Photo: UNDP/Nguyen Viet Lan
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The UNDP-supported initiative “Economic empowerment of Ethnic Minority Women via application of IR4.0” empowers identification of potential EM women groups.
Indeed, through the initiative, poor ethnic minority women and their business partners, investors, government policy makers and service providers will be engaged in an Accelerator Lab Journey, building on the 3M (Match, Mentoring and Move) initiative in 2017 and 2018.
Le Quyen, an ethnic woman in Thien An group in Bac Kan's Bach Thong district. Photo: UNDP/Nguyen Viet Lan
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(1) E-commerce platforms enable small production units to link to the markets and in value chains;
(2) Providing innovative finance solutions such as e-banking, e-payments, micro-insurance;
(3) Social media and other e-platforms for online learning, skill training, peer to peer learning, coaching startups and obtaining information for disaster prevention and mitigation;
(4) New production technologies such as smart agriculture, block-chain for tracing the product origins.
(5) Data and tools for real-time citizen feedback and policy maker learning.
UNDP Resident Representative in Vietnam Caitlin Wiesen at the conference on July 17. Photo: UNDP/Nguyen Viet Lan
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Addressing the conference on July 17, she said: “There is a great potential that IR4.0 and digital technologies offer to ethnic minority people and women to accelerate their efforts to improve the production and marketing of their products and businesses in ways that sustainably lift them out of poverty.”
Speaking at the event, Deputy Chairman of Bac Kan Provincial People’s Committee Pham Duy Hung highlighted the importance of IT application of ethnic minority groups in their production and marketing to effectively expand their business and contribute to economic development and sustainable poverty reduction.
Dinh Thanh Son, deputy general director of Viettel Post. Photo: UNDP/Nguyen Viet Lan
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On this occasion, UNDP and Viettel Post signed a memorandum of understanding to provide a framework of cooperation for supporting Vietnam in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially SDG1 (no poverty), SDG2 (zero hunger), SDG5 (gender equality), SDG8 (decent work and economic growth), SDG10 (reduced inequalities), and SDG13 (climate action).
Especially, both of them will jointly explore cooperation opportunities with ethnic minority women, business groups, including application of Industry 4.0 technology to serve the identification and experimentation of local solutions for their economic empowerment and poverty reduction in all provinces in Vietnam.
Caitlin Wiesen said Viettel Post will expand e-commerce and e-payment services in rural areas of Vietnam and the partnership will be meaningful amid persistent poverty concentrated among ethnic minorities in geographically challenging environment.
Vietnam has recently made remarkable progress in reducing multi-dimensional poverty, lifting six million people out of poverty in only four years between 2012 and 2016, according to UNDP.
