Accelerate My Business: Transforming Women-Led SGBs in Vietnam

Vietnam’s small and growing businesses (SGBs) comprise 98% of the national economy, accounting for 40% of the total gross domestic product and 50% of the total workforce. Women own 17% of all micro, small, and medium enterprises in Vietnam, leading 27% of them.

Despite their growth in recent years, women-owned and women-led SGBs continue to face issues, including limited access to financing and training. The Asia Foundation and members of the Future Skills Alliance (FSA) brought the Accelerate My Business (AMB) program to Vietnam to equip 25,000 women entrepreneurs with foundational business and financial literacy skills to participate in the digital economy and cultivate and support inclusive economic growth.

Following successful pilots in Malaysia and Indonesia, AMB Vietnam was launched in March 2024, with support from Visa. Adopting a locally led learning approach, the program worked with the identified Vietnamese service providers to design a training curriculum that is responsive to the needs of the SGBs and accessible through local language translation. AMB micro-lessons are made available on a learning platform that trainees can access at their schedule and pace, and with support from over 350 local trainers and staff, 85% female, deployed to major districts in Vietnam.

Our partnership with locally based organizations, the Center for Women and Development, and local microfinance institutions Tinh Thuong One-Member Limited Liability Microfinance Institution, Thanh Hoa Microfinance Institution (Thanh Hoa MFI), and VietED Group were critical to designing and implementing training that met the needs of women entrepreneurs.

As of June 2024, the project has trained over 3,200 SGBs from Thanh Hoa and Hanoi, working in various sectors, including retail, service, food and beverage, manufacturing, and agriculture. Trainees report increased confidence in entrepreneurial and financial management and using digital technology to grow their business.

AMB trainee Nga, a farmer from a remote district in Thanh Hoa, found the training and mentoring sessions valuable. She enrolled in the program to find ways to increase profits from their agricultural produce amidst growing competition. After completing the AMB online course, she was matched with a mentor from Thanh Hoa MFI, who helped her apply the business skills and digital tools she gained from the training to pilot a new business model, supported by digital marketing, to sell crops and other agricultural produce from their town farm.

Accelerate My Business continues to empower women entrepreneurs like Nga in Vietnam and is on track to reach and support 6,000 SGBs by the end of the year and a total of 25,000 small businesses by 2026.

AMB is part of The Asia Foundation’s Future Skills Alliance, a collective impact platform for private and public sector partners to deliver future skills at scale to the region’s underserved groups.