Establishing an Evolutionary Learning Laboratory for Improving the Quality of Life of Vietnamese Women in Small-scale Agriculture: Part II ‐ Systemic Interventions

This study applies a systems thinking approach by using the seven‐step Evolutionary Learning Laboratory (ELLab) framework to identify the most economically, environmentally, culturally and socially appropriate systemic solutions to improving the quality of life for women smallholders in rural Haiphong (Northern Vietnam), with a special focus on the perceived (visible) problem of labour constraints. This paper focuses on the first five steps of the ELLab. Income, production efficiency (leading to less work pressure) and health were found to be the major contributing factors for improving the quality of life of the women farmers. The systemic interventions that will have the most effect on achieving the aforementioned leverages were defined, and the first integrated management plan was formulated to improve the quality of life of the women farmers. Although not part of this paper, further refinement and validation of the plan will be carried out in the next two steps of the ELLab process. The outcomes and lessons learned from this research will be shared with other case studies via a globally established ‘sharing platform’ in the Access Hub of the web‐based think2impact(http://think2impact.org) package. The purpose of this process is not only to improve the local knowledge and systemic management plans to help the women in agriculture in Haiphong but also to contribute to enhancing the global knowledge pool on dealing with complex issues in rural areas of many countries around the world