| Prosperity Initiative Presents at IPSARD Vision 2020 Workshop |
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On 4 December, the Institute of Policy and Strategy for Agriculture and Rural Development (IPSARD), one of Prosperity Initiative's most important partners in Viet Nam, held a workshop describing the vision for its future. IPSARD shared this "Vision 2020" with a large audience, including stakeholders from Government, donors, partners and clients. The agency set out its future as the leading provider of agricultural and rural development analysis and policy advisory services for the Government and people of Viet Nam.
Speakers included Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Mr. Cao Duc Phat, Vice-Minister Mr. Nguyen Viet Thang, the Head of MARD's Crop Production Department, Mr. Nguyen Tri Ngoc, and the Director-General of IPSARD, Mr. Dang Kim Son, as well as donor representatives such as Mr. Andreas Zurbrugg, First Secretary (DC) at AusAID in Hanoi. Prosperity Initiative was honoured that its Director of Programmes, Mr. Nigel Smith, was invited to address the audience about its successful partnership with IPSARD.  During IPSARD's "Vision 2020" workshop, Smith presented the origin and basis for the successful partnership with IPSARD. He explained IPSARD's and Prosperity Initiative's mutual commitment to achieving measurable, scalable and sustainable improvements in rural economies in Viet Nam with a particular focus on eliminating poverty by linking rural producers, workers, and businesses to market opportunities. He also discussed the key role of governments and "think tanks" such as IPSARD in enabling commodity market development. Smith then set out the main points to delivering a practical partnership with IPSARD. These included joint teams with a shared commitment to IPSARD's interests and the needs of its stakeholders, delivering on priorities of common interest as skills develop and gradually widening the range of activities. Trust between the partners will continue to be built by working together in a single office with a contractual but flexible approach.
Antony Feeny, Head of Prosperity Initiative's National Market Leadership Programme, which works directly with IPSARD, said "It was a great honour for Prosperity Initiative to be invited to speak at such an important workshop for IPSARD; this indicates the shared pride of our first year of collaboration." "We see our relationship deepening in 2009 as we shift work to more significant commodity sectors such as rice and catfish, which are key to our agendas of eliminating poverty through market-based agricultural and rural development," Feeny said. Under the current partnership, seven staff from IPSARD's Center for Agricultural Policy (CAP) are currently working in Prosperity Initiative's office under the guidance of Prosperity Initiative's Strategy Managers to produce studies on a variety of agricultural sectors. The CAP Team, with Prosperity Initiative's technical support, is currently completing studies on soybean, cardamom and coconuts and has also begun studies on cocoa, chili and pomelo. The next stage of the partnership will focus on more high profile sectors, and the objectives will broaden from developing the technical skills of IPSARD's staff to include organisational development support. Prosperity Initiative intends to use this partnership as a model for future partnerships with similar organisations in the Mekong Region. We are currently in discussion with the Policy Research Centre (PRC) of the Ministry of Agriculture in Lao PDR to transfer the IPSARD experience and help facilitate linkages between the two agencies.
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