A conference was held in the northern province of Bac Kan on July 17 to connect ethnic minority women with partners under a programme supporting them to develop economic activities via Industry 4.0 technology.

UNDP Resident Representative in Vietnam Caitlin Wiesen addresses
the conference in Bac Kan province on July 17

The programme, supported by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), will enable 450 ethnic minority women in Bac Kan and the Central Highlands province of Dak Nong to develop business and production activities and escape from poverty on their own.

They will have opportunities to connect with businesses, investors and policymakers via different activities.

This programme aims to create a technical network connecting local cooperatives and cooperative groups with potential partners to assist them to improve their capacity of applying Industry 4.0 technology. The IT application will promote ethnic minorities’ production and business efficiency, thereby helping with economic development and sustainable poverty reduction.

At the conference, UNDP Resident Representative in Vietnam Caitlin Wiesen said the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0) and digital technology hold huge potential which will create conditions for ethnic minority women to swiftly improve their production and business activities and sustainably escape from poverty.

She also called on Vietnamese businesses to take actions to make use of these chances.

On this occasion, the UNDP and the military-run telecom group Viettel inked a memorandum of understanding on a cooperation framework for supporting Vietnam’s efforts to realise the Sustainable Development Goals.

Accordingly, the two sides will together seek chances for cooperating with ethnic minority women and businesses, including the application of Industry 4.0 technology to identifying and testing solutions for economic empowerment and poverty reduction in all provinces.