Bokeo Social Enterprise

Since inception in 2008, BsE has developed a viable model for public-private sector cooperation to preserve artisan skills and reduce poverty, supplying new products to the Lao and international markets. BsE's aims are to promote local products and private economic initiatives, train the local population in appropriate skills and preserve traditional indigenous knowledge and biodiversity. In order to do all these, BsE, unlike a traditional non-profit organization, takes proactive approaches to market.

BsE has successfully used targeted marketing, sales promotion activities, and affiliation with international consumer certifications to create results (such as organic and Fair Trade). Their inaugural product, Bokeo Brown, is a traditional brown sugar produced by an artisan manufacturing process and packaged in an environmentally-friendly method. 

Income generated from sales of products and eco-tourism programs are reinvested in community social development projects and research in traditional knowledge. As a social enterprise, BsE takes to heart the “double bottom line”: profit and social mission. In the long term, BsE aspires to become a national institution focusing on communities for the improvement of their economic status and enhance the development of local products for wider distribution and sales.  Currently BsE is working with various NGOs in and out of Lao PDR such as multilateral donor organizations, charities, and members of the local and national governments in keeping with their vision of providing quality consumer products that directly benefit the disadvantaged villagers of Northern Laos.