On the 19 September 2023, the World Bank team lead by Mr. Paavo Eliste, Practice Manager, Agriculture and Food Global Practice, East Asia, and Pacific Region, based in Singapore, along with his team from the WB courtesy call on the Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Forestry. The main purpose of the meeting is to report on the success of the implementation of LACP and to discuss the initial design of Small Green Agriculture Competitive ness Project. In this regard, the Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Forestry expressed his gratitude for leading the World Bank delegation to visit the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and was pleased to cooperate in the activities in Lao PDR. Mr. Paavo Eliste said that the LACP in the Lao PDR is an important project in the development of agriculture sector in the Lao PDR, as well as the development of the people’s livelihood in rural areas. Therefore, the World Bank consulting team together with the central and local stakeholders proposed to continue the implementation of the previous activities including increasing target area and target group by focusing on the rice miller, creating the basis of the production project, expanding the exchange of lessons from the project that has been successful in the past from the household goal from 15,000 households to 30,000 households from 5 provinces to be 8 provinces to raise the productivity of rice seeds, create a good agricultural production model with higher income. At the end, the Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Forestry praised the results of the project as well as offered the World Bank team to cooperate, coordinate and provide funding to support the agricultural sector in the form of projects as well as encourage in the form of investment in agriculture.
