Establishing an Evolutionary Learning Lab - II

Establishing an Evolutionary Learning

Laboratory for Improving the Quality of

Life of Vietnamese Women in Small-scale

Agriculture: Part II– Systemic

Interventions

Tuan M. Ha*, Ockie J. H. Bosch and Nam C. Nguyen

Systems Design and Complexity Management Alliance (SDCM), The University of Adelaide Business School,

Adelaide, Australia

This study applies a systems thinking approach by using the seven-step Evolutionary

Learning Laboratory (ELLab) framework to identify the most economically, environmen-

tally, 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 achiev-

ing 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

Keywords quality of life; women smallholders; labour saving; systems thinking; systemic

interventions

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