Rural Cambodia is poor and relies heavily on agriculture which is often not enough to feed a household all year round. Knowledge of entrepreneurial skills is limited in rural areas. Most handicraft producers are women, however, women tend to be relatively shy when dealing with buyers and middlemen at the marketplace.

A project in rural Cambodia supported by the Millennium Development Goals Fund sought to build the capacity of women to generate income through traditional handicraft production and provide access to new markets and opportunities.

Capacity-building through handicraft mentorship programmes, development of entrepreneurship skills, financial literacy, business planning, and rural marketing were designed following consultations with beneficiaries in order to evaluate their specific needs.

Craft makers, especially women, received training and coaching to build confidence in pricing their products and dealing with buyers. Capacity-building programmes intended to enable 547 local female producers to generate supplementary income through sales of these handicrafts, were developed. As a result, sales are up on average by 33% (around USD 50), and women, as producers, own the revenue entirely. 

The training has strengthened the capacities of local communities, as women are now not only able to produce handicraft but also to do their own pricing, marketing and sales. Women are now generating supplementary household income, which subsequently strengthened their position within the family and earned more respect from their husbands. 

Through the Fund producers were connected to district and provincial markets while their supporting NGOs became members of nationwide handicraft associations such as the Artisans Association of Cambodia, thus gaining access to a much larger markets.