The Japanese movement, One Village, One Product (OVOP) is being implemented in El Seibo, the first in the Dominican Republic. The program promotes local artisanal products including the tropical cider-like beverage known as “mabi seibano,” Dona Tula sweets, and includes the chocolate route and other products.
The Japanese initiative that began in 1979 has spread to more than 30 countries around the world.
Essentially, the OVOP movement is to encourage villages to come up with a product that is unique in the world. By focusing on differentiated products, the destinations can earn higher profits, at least in the short term. The focus is on encouraging communities to discover the special products that best represent each town or village and deserve national acclaim and promote them as a way of encouraging local development.
The Ministry of Industry and Commerce under the Department for the Promotion of SMEs, headed by deputy minister Ignacio Mendez, is leading the initiative for the Dominican government. Mendez said that El Seibo was chosen as a pilot project because it already had a local development agency with good levels of efficiency and organization and because the people of El Seibo had shown an interest in the OVOP movement.
He said the government is open to backing other community entities. If they are interested, all they need to do is to visit the Ministry of Industry and Commerce to present their projects.
“The beauty of this is that it is the local people who choose the products and from there we intervene to support their efforts to achieve quality, packaging and all that,” he said.
Mendez made the announcement on Thursday, 18 September 2014, after the opening of the III Regional OVOP Workshop, with 50 guests from Central America who have already adopted the Japanese movement. The Japanese Ambassador Takashi Fuchigami in the Dominican Republic and several representatives of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) also took part. Ambassador Fuchigami spoke at the event of the Turisopp project for rural sustainable tournament developed in Puerto Plata together with the Ministry of Tourism and the National Technical Professional Training Institute (Infotep) and JICA. The Turisopp project sought to create quality tourism products in rural communities to attract tourists who would not normally visit these areas.
http://www.7dias.com.do/portada/2014/09/18/i172686_seibo-primera-provincia-que-ingresa-movimiento-internacional-pueblo-producto.html#.VBtRXEvxj7I
http://seibanosrd.blogspot.com/p/cada-pueblo-tiene-algo-que-lo.html
http://turisopp.blogspot.com