Donor: IFAD; GEF funds; Vietnamese Government

The project has a total budget of $ 25 million.

Co-implementation Unit: Agricultural and Forestry Research and Development Center for mountainous areas (ADC)

Implementation period: From 6/2009 - 2015.

Implementation location: In 3 districts: Pac Nam and Ba Be and Na Ri, BacKan province.

The onjectives of the project: to achieve the sustainable and equal poverty reduction, improve the livelihoods of the rural poor in BacKan province through the improvements in forest management.

Key results:

Impacts of the project

• The project reduced the proportion of below poverty level households in three districts of the project at at least 15%
• The number of households in the project area living below poverty level and receiving food aid declined rapidly. In 2010 with 4166 household's receiving times and in 2013 with only 1,159 household's receiving times, decreased 71.84%. In which the number of households receiving aid 2 times / year decreased from 1,716 to 487 households (deacreased 71.62%) and the number of  households receiving aid 2 times / year decreased from 734 to 185 households (decreased 74.80% ). Especially in Na Ri district from 2012 there is no household with 2^sd time of receiving aid.
• The percentage of malnourished children under 5 years old decreased by 5% (from late 2009 to late 2013 the average rate of malnutrition in the project area  decreased from 22,87% to 17.66%). The percentage of Ba Be reduced 6.70%, from 24.2% to 17.5%. The percentage of Na Ri decreased from 19.00% to 14.48%. The percentage of Pac Nam decreased from 25,4% to 21.00%).

Land use plannning and land allocation

• The project completed the forestry land use planning and land allocation in in 235 villages/ 18 communes and allocated forest to 2,943 / 5,819 poor households with a total area of 9151 hectares, accounting for 37%.
• The project completed the biodiversity protection plan in 15 communes of three districts with a total area of 43,200 hectares
• Completed the process of forestry land use planning and land allocation with the participation of 3 districts in project sites.

Creating opportunities to increase income for the poor

• The project provided technical services in agriculture and forestry and supported o help people receiving their benefits with these services, increased 25% income .
• Having 32/48 project management at commune level were evaluated the qualified investor ability and ability to plan, manage and monitor the activities of the project (obtainted 67%).
• Income of the poor increased by an average of > 15% after being benefited from CDF and APIF funds of projects: the irrigation canal project increased the income from rice production to about 15-30 % for households (especially the poor households). The production line projects helped to increase incomes up to 67% to 161% thanks to the expansion up to average of 50% of cultivated areas.

Promoting initiatives to improve the environment

• The project trained capacity enhancing in growing grass in 36 communes with 173 interest groups with a total area of 114 hectares, the number of households receive training and applying the model is 2,214 households and more than 90% of households had known and were able to apply the knowledge in growing grass and conserving slopping land.
• The project was successfully piloted in two models PES  in 2 communes with 81 participated households.
• The project enhanced the capacity for 360 people (43% of the poor) by completing 12 training courses on tourism services, and also, trained 30 local tour guides. Supporting in the promotion and introduction of Ba Be lake ecotourism. (The results shown the number of tourists to Ba Be lake in 2013 compared to that of 2009 increased by 38%).
• The project have coordinated with the Department of Forestry to plant 12 hectares of medicinal plants in 3 districts of project areas;