Women in the Mekong Delta start-up to adapt to climate change - Last article: Accompanying women

Faced with difficulties and challenges, women in the Mekong Delta are not alone in their journey to assert themselves through a series of new livelihood models.

Women confidently participate in introducing startup products. Photo: Le Thuy Hang/VNA

During that process, in addition to receiving support from organizations, local authorities and international programs and projects, women themselves have overcome difficulties and strived to maximize their roles in response to the requirements of real life and society.

Many aids are gradually opening up

At the award ceremony of the national final round of the "Women starting a business, promoting local resources" contest in 2023 organized by the Vietnam Women's Union, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh commented that in the context of the startup ecosystem in Vietnam still not commensurate with its potential, still lagging behind other countries in the region and the world , Vietnamese women face many unique and very specific difficulties in their startup journey.

Our country is facing the "headwinds" of the global economy , requiring not only the efforts of women themselves but also the support, companionship, backing, and facilitation of the Government, ministries, branches, localities, and Women's Unions at all levels, economic groups, corporations, and domestic and foreign enterprises.

The 2018 Law on Small and Medium Enterprises and the 2023 Law on Cooperatives both have content that prioritizes support for enterprises and cooperatives owned and managed by women... The National Strategy on Gender Equality for the 2021 - 2030 period sets the target "The rate of female directors and owners of enterprises and cooperatives will reach at least 27% by 2025 and 30% by 2030".

The Government has issued projects specifically for women, assigned the Vietnam Women's Union to preside over implementation, notably two projects: Project "Supporting women to start businesses in the period 2017 - 2025" (called Project 939) and Project "Supporting cooperatives managed by women, creating jobs for female workers by 2030".

From here, policies to support women in starting businesses, developing the economy, arousing women's determination to rise up to have jobs, income, economic independence, proactively join hands to solve social issues related to women... have gradually been implemented synchronously and effectively.

From a local perspective, Vice President of the Ca Mau Provincial Women's Union Nguyen Thi Ngoc Thuy affirmed that policies are an important resource to promote activities of "supporting economic empowerment for women". Unions at all levels coordinate with specialized agencies to organize vocational training classes, provide training on scientific and technical knowledge on animal husbandry, weaving, OCOP product development... which have received increasing attention from women because of their practical effectiveness. In addition, from here, the work of introducing jobs and supporting women to access preferential loans to develop start-up ideas, create jobs, expand production and business is more convenient.

The cooperation from the community, businesses, and association models helps women boldly innovate and create. Projects and programs of international organizations such as Deltaccelerate of the Australian Government, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP)... have also accompanied and supported women to improve their skills, access capital, technology, and expand markets.

According to Associate Professor, Dr. Le Anh Tuan (senior lecturer at Can Tho University), the attention of society towards women, including women entrepreneurs, has changed a lot. Social organizations and non-governmental organizations also have many priority programs for women in raising awareness, equipping them with information or incentives in credit loans, vocational training, etc. This is an important premise to help many women-led start-up models in the Mekong Delta become more and more successful.

From the perspective of an expert in monitoring and supporting women-owned businesses, Ms. Nguyen Thi Thuong Linh, Deputy Director of the Vietnam Federation of Commerce and Industry, Mekong Delta Branch (VCCI Mekong Delta), said that in the current period, the Politburo has issued Resolution No. 68-NQ/TW dated May 4, 2025 on private economic development and Resolution No. 57-NQ/TW dated December 22, 2024 on breakthroughs in science and technology development, innovation and national digital transformation. The two Resolutions talk about innovation activities and focus on startups and new business establishment; including women.

With a series of new mechanisms and policies, these will certainly be important supports for women to have more motivation to rise up, no longer considered as the weakest group in the face of the impact of climate change. However, to take advantage of the policies, each woman must know her strengths, the challenges she is facing, and the opportunities that are opening up...

Internal strength is the deciding factor

According to Ms. Nguyen Thi Thuong Linh, Deputy Director of VCCI Mekong Delta, from policies related to climate change, agriculture and women starting a business, women in the Mekong Delta can be sensitive to the advantages and potential of agriculture to find opportunities to start a business.

However, experts from VCCI Mekong Delta also said that the policies are for women nationwide, not just women in the Mekong Delta. Therefore, in the harsh context, the advantages for women in the Mekong Delta when starting a business do not only come from the outside (support policies), but the decisive factor is their own internal strength.

The inner strength of women starting a business in agriculture - according to Ms. Nguyen Thi Thuong Linh is to change their mindset to adapt to current weather and climate conditions; change farming habits, apply new science and technology to have high quality and high value products. That is a must for entrepreneurs in the agricultural sector to survive and develop.

“Women entrepreneurs should not rely on support policies but must be self-reliant by improving their own capacity. To be successful, entrepreneurs need to clearly understand and constantly upgrade 3 pillars: Finance, knowledge capital (related to business, accounting, law, etc.) and social capital (expanding and connecting relationships in business networks, etc.)”, Ms. Thuong Linh conveyed the message to women entrepreneurs in the Mekong Delta.

Many experts shared, analyzed, and evaluated at conferences, forums, and seminars that the policies introduced by the Party and the State aim to create opportunities and beneficiaries must know how to grasp them. Therefore, each woman in the Mekong Delta must recognize her own intrinsic value, always learn, change her thinking, and improve her qualifications. Climate change is an issue that cannot be changed, so we must accept it proactively and see opportunities from the challenges.

Having clearly identified that, after 11 years of establishment, the Ca Mau Province Women Entrepreneurs Club has had over 630 enterprises managed by women. Although this rate is still quite modest, enterprises managed by women contribute greatly to job creation, creating stable income and promoting gender equality...

Ms. Nguyen Thi My Diep, Head of the Ca Mau Province Women Entrepreneurs Club, emphasized that the above results were achieved due to the convergence of many factors, but the first priority was to arouse women's will to dare to start a business.

The Party and the State have issued programs and policies to support women's start-ups, but if women themselves do not change their thinking and awareness and do not upgrade themselves, it will be difficult to grasp opportunities. Obviously, the more they change their thinking, the more multi-dimensional their approach to the problem will be. There, many start-up models of women in the Mekong Delta have become typical examples of the desire to turn "danger" into "opportunity".

With a series of potentials and challenges that have been identified, in the future, if supported by policies and the support of organizations and specialized agencies, women in the Mekong Delta can completely transform themselves to start businesses, promoting a central role in the process of making Vietnam's economy develop green, sustainable and adapt to climate change.

Source: https://baotintuc.vn/kinh-te/phu-nu-dong-bang-song-cuu-long-khoi-nghiep-thich-ung-bien-doi-khi-haus-bai-cuoi-dong-hanh-cung-phu-nu-20251008084851171.htm