Sustainable development of local livelihoods in Vietnam: A demand‐driven approach through “One Commune, One Product”

“One Commune One Product” (OCOP) is a national target program intended to develop the rural economy of Vietnam. The goal of the OCOP program is to identify and promote competitive, marketable products that originate from local and indigenous resources. Since its nationwide implementation in 2018, nearly 5000 OCOP products have been evaluated and certified for OCOP status. The present study interviewed 600 Vietnamese consumers and employed the latent class choice model to investigate the consumers' willingness to pay for OCOP attributes, including the ethical attributes of traceability information, local production, and fair trade, along with the government “star rating” for the product and the OCOP certification label. Through a choice experiment, we identified two distinct consumer segments, one of which (about 74% of the sample) expressed preference and willingness to pay price premiums for the product attributes and the other which (about 26%) was unwilling to pay for any of the attributes. We also found that the consumers in the “Optimist” segment were willing to pay a price premium for “private” product attributes compared to “public” attributes. Consumers in the “Opponent” segment were characterized as highly price sensitive; they expressed lower levels of concern for the environment and lower preferences for local products. Based on these results, we propose some policy implications for continued development of the OCOP program and local livelihoods.