Fieldtrips bring the MTR Mission the overall picture of the IMPP-TV

The Mid-term Review Mission has been working with the Project for Improving Market Participation of the Poor in Tra Vinh province from 10 to 21 Jan 2010. Under its workplan, the Mid-term Riview Mission spent three days carrying out fieldtrips to nine project communes out of the 30 project communes in Tra Vinh province to have the overall picture of the project implementation.

On the fieldtrips, the Mission listened to the communes' report on the project implementation in the communes. The Mission, then, looked at different aspects and project's support areas, including:

• how commune market opportunities plans (CMOPs) to be elaborated and the possibilities to integrate the CMOPs into the SEDPs;

• how to link the farmers and producers to markets;

• the sustainability of the common interest groups and colaborative groups;
  

• the opportunities for the poor, women and Khmer people to access to rural microfinance; and so on.

The Mission also fucused on the involvement of the poor, women and Khmer people in project activities such as planning meetings, training and workshops, vocational training and women savings and credit groups.

A part from learning how the project has been implemented, the Mission spent hours to talk directly to beneficiaries at site to understand their support needs. Understanding that the Mission brought a good opportunity for the communes to improve their project performance, the communes and villagers who the Mission met were so happy and expressed their thanks to the Mission.

In Phong Phu commnue, Mr. Duc - the Chairman of the CPC - on the behalf of his people promised to the Mission that the commune would use the project resource effectively in integration with other program resources to improve livelihoods of his people and especially the poor and vulnerable households. Mr. Duc and his people saw the Mission off with a nice present, "wax coconuts" - a speciality of Cau Ke district.

Pham Vu Bang - KMO IMPP-TV