About ILO/China South-South Cooperation Project

Project objectives

This Project is designed to improve labour market efficiency and participation, reducing unemployment, and enhancing linkages and information flows between job seekers and employers, which will in turn contribute to the reduction of poverty in Cambodia and Lao People’s Democratic Republic. In line with the frameworks outlined in the Decent Work Country Programme for both Cambodia and Lao People’s Democratic Republic that place emphasis on employment promotion and improving the skills and employability of the workforce and in keeping with the national development strategies of both countries, the project has the following two immediate objectives:

• Enhance the quality of employment services delivered by the responsible ministry/agency and strengthen the client orientation of its network of job centres.
• Improve the collection, analysis and dissemination of relevant labour market data to allow for better job matching and placement, and the development of relevant labour market programmes for specific groups like women, migrant workers and people with disabilities.

The Project strategy builds on the core role of employment services as defined under the ILO Convention No. 88. Regardless of the economic situation, globalization and technological progress rapidly change the skills needs of enterprises, and thus put pressure on enterprises to find qualified workers and the workforce to find jobs. Improving the quality of employment services through strengthened client orientation and capacity building of job centres and their officials, and improving the quality and analysis of labour market information will be the core components of this Project. Appropriate methodologies and tools for capacity building will be developed with tripartite partners.

The Project will be implemented under the ILO South-South Cooperation Framework with which the People’s Republic of China’s support will combine the provisions of financial resources and a wide range of knowledge exchange initiatives based on experiences at both national and provincial levels. Core to this cooperation will be the technical assistance, advisory services and sharing of good practices. Together with the ILO’s expertise and drawing upon a large inventory of practical case studies from Asia and other regions, the Project aims to contribute to a more developed labour market and human resources to achieve the economic and social growth and advance with the current work envisages under the 2015 ASEAN Regional Economic Integration agenda.

Project outcomes

Enhance the quality of employment services delivered by the responsible ministry/agency and strengthen the client orientation of its network of job centres.

• Development and further development of employment services tools to be utilized at job centres.
• Development of communication plan to the general public, employers’ organizations and trade unions on employment services and job centres.
• Development and design of comprehensive training and capacity building programme for officials and staff on employment services.
• Documentation and the sharing of good practices, using horizontal and triangular cooperation, with the People’s Republic of China and the member countries of the ASEAN Community.

Improve the data collection, analysis and dissemination to allow for better job matching of the jobseekers who are looking for jobs with enterprises who need workers to fill their job vacancies, and to provide tailor-made labour market programmes to specific groups (i.e. women, migrant workers and people with disabilities).

• Develop and design a computer-based system on job-seekers, vacancies and job placements which includes training on computer literacy and database management.
• Design mechanisms to ensure better outreach of database and information to users.
• Design of labour market programmes that would be adapted to match the needs and contexts of specific groups, for example, organization of vocational training programmes for women job-seekers and people with disabilities in rural areas.