Despite recent progress in Vietnam’s overall development, economic empowerment has proved elusive for many women, especially those from diverse ethnicities. Australia and Vietnam have therefore agreed that ‘promoting women’s economic empowerment, including among ethnic minorities’ will be one of the three pillars of their Aid Investment Plan for 2016-2020. Australia’s major investment to achieve this pillar is the Gender-Responsive Equitable Agriculture and Tourism (GREAT) program. 

GREAT builds on Australia’s past engagement with rural communities in Vietnam to help the women of Sơn La and Lào Cai to beneficially engage in profitable markets. Which will focus on amplifying the following strengths and opportunities: (1) Women’s already significant productive role in agriculture, and nascent involvement in production groups; (2) The engagement of ethnic minorities in niche smallholder production and community-based services, such as catering;  (3) The burgeoning tourism market and infrastructure, particularly in Lao Cai, which provides women with opportunities to transition to village-based or off-farm employment and income; (4) Tourism and agriculture offer the greatest potential for women to progress economically in Vietnam’s north-west.

This investment design document outlines the GREAT program with (1) background and development context, (2) rationale for engagement by Australia’s aid program, (3) investment description of the logic, delivery modality, budgets and timeframe for GREAT, (4) implementation arrangements of the governance, management and staff resources needed to deliver GREAT and (5) the core delivery approach to empowering women, inclusive business and improving sector governance and policy.