To meet the ambitions of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the private sector will need to play a greater role in supporting development objectives. Inclusive businesses offer the opportunity to address development challenges and leave no one behind. Inclusive businesses are companies that: “provide goods, services, and livelihoods on a commercially viable basis, either at scale or scalable, to people living at the base of the economic pyramid making them part of the value chain of companies’ core business as suppliers, distributors, retailers, or customers.”^[1]

Inclusive business provide triple wins. They provide market opportunities to enterprises; they provide above market-rate income opportunities and access to affordable essential goods and services for low income and marginalised groups; and they help governments deliver affordable goods and services and lift people out of poverty at scale.

These workshops took forward within the framework of the recently launched “Regional Inclusive Business Models in Agriculture and Food Systems” initiative supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and have been designed in collaboration with the Agency for Enterprise Development (AED). They created awareness amongst the public and private sector stakeholders of what inclusive business is and how to identify it. This discussed within the framework of the 2022-2025 Program on Support for private Enterprises in Sustainable Business to promote sustainable businesses, as well as the opportunities and challenges which exist to support inclusive agricultural transformation in Viet Nam. 

Related documents:

• Background - Promoting Inclusive Business in Viet Nam (English, Vietnamese)
• Programme - Private sector session (English, Vietnamese)
• Programme - Public sector session (English)
• Presentation - Morning session, by ESCAP (English)
• Presentation - Afternoon session, by ESCAP (English)
• Session Presentation by ESCAP (Vietnamese)

^[1] As defined by the Inclusive Business Framework of the G20 and referenced in the Guidelines for the Promotion of Inclusive Business in ASEAN.