Sea Program: Conference On Sustainable Enterprise Development

The Conference on Sustainable Enterprise Development through Market Driven by Smallholder Farmer Groups was held at Central Co-operative Society (CCS) in Yangon on Friday.

With the support of We Effect (Swedish Cooperative Centre), two projects  implemented by CCS and Myanmar Environment Rehabilitation-conservation Network (MERN) are to raise income and equal access to land and resources for landless, smallholder farmers especially women and ethnic people are economically empowered and socially included to reach equitable growth and equal rights.

Project Director, Zaw Lwin Oo said “Today conference is a program under the project supported by We Effect and organized by MERN and CCS. Here in the event, primary cooperative societies under the project and cooperative societies under the Myanmar Environment Rehabilitation-conservation Network display their products. That is to build sustainable enterprises for those smallholder farmers. And also CCS is going to share about banking and facilitation processes.”

There are two phases for two projects; one is Strengthening Rural Cooperatives (SRC) Project, which was implemented as the first phase in Maubin Township of Ayeyarwaddy Region from June 2014 to December 2017.

The second phase was in NyaungDone Township of Ayeyarwaddy Region and Bago and Phyu Townships of Bago Region with Sustainable Development for Cooperative Movement (SDCM) Project carried out from July 2018 to December 2019.

Project Coordinator, Paing Htet Thu said “We have three aims to organize this conference. First is knowledge exchange and sharing, second is seeking for farmers’ needs, challenges and rights in doing enterprises, and third is synergy action plans. Also, this project that we called Southeast Asia Program, which is implementing in three countries including Vietnam, Cambodia and Myanmar. In Myanmar, we are implementing this program by MERN, CCS and Agriculture & Farmer Federation of Myanmar (AFFM).”

During the projects, smallholder farmers of cooperative societies received technologies, trainings and other valuable practices.

Member, MERN, San San Yu said “I live in Southern Shan state. I’m doing cottage industry as a MERN member.”

My dreams come true and I really happy to be here to share knowledge and to make linkage among the enterprises of other cooperative societies.

At present across the country of Myanmar, there over 40,000 cooperative societies including primary cooperative societies, 463 cluster groups and over 4.2 million of individual members.