9-13 September 2009. Members of Prosperity Initiative’s Mekong Bamboo Team participated in this year’s VietBuild conference in Ho Chi Minh City. Over the last ten years, VietBuild has become Viet Nam’s biggest construction material exhibition. This year, more than 2,600 companies, ranging from material producers, construction companies, furniture manufacturers, designers and home décor consultants participated in VietBuild. 

12-16 July - A delegation of experts from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Rome was recently hosted by Prosperity Initiative to establish the feasibility of the Bamboo Carbon Trade Project in North-West Vietnam. The delegation included advisors from INBAR (The International Network for Bamboo and Rattan) to provide carbon and bamboo science expertise and Eco-Securities, a major carbon trade brokerage firm to ascertain the viability of various carbon trade options in the industry.

28 - 30 June 2009 - A team from Prosperity Initiative visited Houaphanh, Lao PDR, to introduce its new Houaphanh Bamboo Project Manager, Sommai Faming, to partners in the province. While there, the team met with provincial authorities to discuss future plans on developing the bamboo sector. The discussions focused in particular on opening trade between Houaphanh and neighbouring Thanh Hoa province, where Viet Nam's bamboo industry is most developed.

3 June - Prosperity Initiative and The Center for Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the Institute of Policy and Strategy for Agriculture and Rural Development (IPSARD) presented the outcome of their joint market strategy project for 2008 at a seminar hosted by the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) at the Australian Embassy in Hanoi.

26 June - Irish Aid signed a contract with Prosperity Initiative, awarding the organization with a 900,000 EUR grant to support its poverty reduction work through the end of 2010. Prosperity Initiative will receive half of the grant in July 2009 (EUR 450,000) to carry forward implementation of the Mekong Bamboo programme and support to Viet Nam's Ministry of Agriculture's Centre for Agricultural Policy's market strategy and policy, working specifically on key agricultural commodities including rice. The remainder of the grant will be applied in 2010. Through this grant, Prosperity Initiative anticipates a productive partnership with Irish Aid as another major donor in support of its market based approaches to poverty reduction. Prosperity Initiative is looking forward to the opportunity to make an important contribution to Irish Aid's Development Strategy in Viet Nam.