Sweden and its support for Vietnamese Women
The Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) under the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs is among the earliest donors to support activities for women and development in Vietnam through the VWU. In 1987, SIDA was the first donor to support credit schemes to poor rural women for their income generation and to provide equipment for women’s unions at different levels. Over time, SIDA has adapted its approaches to the projects for Vietnamese women. With three phases of 19 years of cooperation, and a total budget of approximately 17 million Swedish krona (SEK), SIDA had supported the VWU and women in Vietnam in different fields and in a comprehensive way. In the first phase from 1987 to 1994, SIDA directly supported the VWU to conduct revolving loan fund projects for households economic improvement and gender training of trainers in some Northern mountainous provinces.This program had helped the VWU to develop the revolving fund model for women’s groups which later led to credit-saving women’s groups. In the 1995-1999 period, SIDA adopted a new cooperation approach by signing 2 joint agreements with the VWU to support Vietnamese women. The first one for 1995 was not only for VWU, but also involved other organizations such as the Vietnam Students’ Association, Women’s Studies Centers, and SIDA Project’s Workshop for sharing VWU staff’s experience in community activities, 2006. 
The SIDA support has helped the VWU to renovate the contents and mode of its operation to better meet women’s demands and needs, to be a pioneer in piloting new models and to improve its institutional and organizational capacity. Another point worthy of being highlighted is that SIDA projects paid much attention to promoting the participation and support of local authorities, sectors, branches, mass organizations and community in the project implementation. In addition to supporting the VWU through development projects, SIDA also provided scholarships for VWU staff to attend international training programs on such topics as democratic institutions and participatory democracy and human rights.
Another close partner of the VWU and Vietnamese women, especially ethnic minority women is the Left International Forum – a Swedish NGO. From 2005 to 2008, this organization supported VWU to implement a project on empowering ethnic minority women in a number of communes in Quan Ba district, Ha Giang province with the aim to help them become more active in social and community development activities. This project provided training and communication to eradicate illiteracy among VWU members and women, disseminated knowledge and information on animal husbandry and production techniques, gender, health care, prevention of social problems and transborder trafficking in women and children... to local authorities, mass organizations and community members including WU members and women. Through the training and communication activities, local WU members and women became more self-confident to participate in community activities; local WU staff capacity was enhanced for bettering their job performance. Especially, the project has made positive changes to the awareness of local authorities on women's issues. The project intervention can be considered an appropriate model on supporting ethnic minority women in mountainous provinces.
The Swedish programs and projects for supporting Vietnamese women and the VWU for over 20 years have made significant contribution to the development of Vietnamese women, gender equality promotion and capacity building of the VWU, its staff and members and women in different provinces. The projects have helped create good models for replication. Relationships between the VWU and its Swedish goodwill partners are still maintained in various forms and through different means.
