Prosperity Initiative started as a bamboo supply chain project in northern Viet Nam. The poverty impact potential uncovered in this project, and the methodologies developed during it, eventually led our strategic partners to support the creation of a separate organisation called Prosperity Initiative.

In 2005, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) began work on a bamboo supply chain project in Thanh Hoa Province, Viet Nam. This project, started by the IFC's Mekong Private Sector Development Facility (MPDF), involved a number of partners and linked bamboo farmers through the supply chain of bamboo flooring to the international retail chain IKEA.

In 2006, Oxfam Hong Kong and IFC-MPDF built on this experience and jointly coordinated a bamboo sector feasibility study in Viet Nam, Lao PDR and Cambodia. The study involved 14 organisations and consultants working in the three Mekong countries and China. It established the important poverty impact potential that the bamboo sector could have if the sector developed in the sub-region over the coming decade.

Prosperity Initiative was created by Oxfam Hong Kong in 2006 to provide a long-term home to the Mekong Bamboo programme and early stage work in other sectors. After the bamboo feasibility study was released in mid 2006, Oxfam Hong Kong, IFC and a growing number of partners continued to build on the work in the Thanh Hoa bamboo supply chain, working with local bamboo processing factories. Work began on a number of other pilot supply chains and bamboo sector initiatives in the region. A database of over 350 bamboo businesses in Viet Nam was created, and links with bamboo business associations and investors in China were formed to assist in kick-starting the sector. This work also began to build a strong base across government, development agency and private sector partners. These activities are now coordinated under Prosperity Initiative's Mekong Bamboo programme.

In November 2007, the programme formally separated from Oxfam Hong Kong to form Prosperity Initiative CIC, a UK-registered social enterprise. CICs ("Community Interest Company") are a new legal form created in the UK for non-profit companies that operate using charitable and social entrepreneur principles and exist to provide benefits to a community. In Prosperity Initiative's case, this community is poor people around the world (www.cicregulator.gov.uk).