Vietnam Women's Union to promote financial inclusion for women

The project is to promote the development and provision of financial and non-financial services to meet women’s needs, especially the poor and disadvantaged women, through improving capacity of the VWU and other financial service providers, towards promoting gender responsive financial inclusion in Vietnam.

The 3rd Project’s Joint Coordinating Committee meeting was held on June 25, 2021 by the VWU

The 3rd joint coordinating committee meeting held online

At the meeting, Ms. Dao Thi Mai Hoa, Deputy Head of Department of Supporting Women for Economic Development, gave an overview of the project. The project has collaborated with 3 financial services providers, namely: Thanh Hoa Microfinance Institution, Dai-ichi Life Insurance Company Vietnam and VPBank, to develop and provide women-friendly products to promote gender responsive financial inclusion.

The project was planned to be completed in March 2021. However, due to the Covid-19 epidemic outbreak and some other factors, it was extended to March 2022.

The project’s main activities include supporting women to access financial education, developing financial education material to be distributed within the VWU system and among related stakeholders in order to improve people’s knowledge on financial issues, financial management and services, and conducting a survey on information technology application in the VWU system, etc.

Ms. Dao Thi Mai Hoa, Deputy Head of Department of Supporting Women for Economic Development, gives an overview of the

Mr. Shimizu Akira, Chief Representative of JICA Vietnam Office highly appreciated the efforts by VWU and the consulting team. He emphasized the project’s two expected outcomes. Firstly, the report on development, methodology and process of developing gender-responsive financial and non-financial services, lessons and recommendations on promoting gender-responsive financial inclusion. Secondly, the strengthened capacity of the VWU and financial service providers in promoting gender-responsive finance.

VWU Vice President Do Thi Thu Thao acknowledged JICA's support and emphasized the project’s remarkable achievements despite the Covid-19 epidemic thanks to the determination of the implementing agency and partners.

As the project will end in few months, Ms. Do Thi Thu Thao asked the project’s management to focus on the following activities in the remaining time, namely:

- Finalizing and testing the financial education material, and organizing business training courses for households and female small business owners. It is expected that the material will be posted on the VWU’s portal, websites and fanpage. At the same time, if JICA agrees, it will be linked with VWU programs as well as the upcoming training program on e-commerce.

- Training for VWU staff aiming at staff capacity building and broader introduction of the training products to as many business households, small businesses and WU members as possible.

- Organizing a seminar on information technology application in microfinance programs within the WU system, helping them identify digital transformation requirementsso as to improve operational capacity and efficiency, and better support customers in services access and use.

- Making a final report with lessons and recommendations on promoting gender responsive financial inclusion.