Our main partnership under the National Market Research Leadership programme has been with the Center for Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the Institute of Policy and Strategy for Agriculture and Rural Development (IPSARD), the think-tank associated with Viet Nam's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD). Given IPSARD's central role in rural policy development and its mandate to develop a commodity expert group, the immediate priority has been to contribute to its development of appropriate skills and market knowledge. A group of staff from CAP has been working with a team from Prosperity Initiative in our offices since the beginning of 2008 and during the first year completed ten short sector studies analyzing the demand, supply and poverty impact of different products, as well as contributing to our in-depth feasibility study on Coconuts. The initial success of this partnership was underlined by the signing of an MOU between CAP/IPSARD and Prosperity Initiative covering a period of two years.

The poverty impact from this partnership is achieved indirectly and over a longer time horizon through improved decision-making and allocation of government resources and private sector investments. The two mechanisms for achieving this are:

1. Information: Making high quality analysis of market opportunities and poverty impact available to a wider community of decision makers in government and business.
2. Advice: Improving the skills of a cadre of staff in key government offices and other service providers so they are able to apply improved approaches to market-based development and poverty reduction work in support of the Government's own objectives and of the private sector.

Prosperity Initiative's developmental work with CAP/IPSARD is being extended to build on the achievements of the first year of collaboration. In 2009, the partnership with CAP/IPSARD is being broadened to include an enhanced set of activities designed to further build the technical capacities of CAP/IPSARD staff in key commodities such as rice and rubber as well as to contribute to CAP/IPSARD's policy development work with the Government.

In addition, in Lao PDR, engagements modeled on the IPSARD partnership are being explored with similar government agencies, such as the Policy Research Centre (PRC) of the National Agriculture and Forestry Research Institute (NAFRI) of the Government's Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries.

Joint Prosperity Initiative/CAP sector studies:

Honey - Small Scale Report
Coconuts - Small Scale Report
Bananas - Small Scale Report
Chili - Small Scale Report
Cardamom - Small Scale Report
Grapefruit/Pomelo - Small Scale Report
Groundnuts - Small Scale Report
Cocoa - Small Scale Report
Soybean - Small Scale Report