Promoting Decent Youth Employment in Cambodia

Promoting Decent Youth Employment in Cambodia

PROJECT BACKGROUND

Cambodia is a vibrantly young and growing nation. Youth under the age of 30 represent two thirds of the country’s population, which continues to grow at around 1.6% per year. This demographic dividend can be used to further boost economic growth and bring about positive social transformation in Cambodia. Yet the country’s ability to realize these benefits in the future is dependent on youth’s access to decent and higher value jobs, their capacity to start and sustain their own enterprises, and their ability to adapt to rapid technological change driven by the arrival of the fourth industrial revolution.

The "Promoting Decent Youth Employment in Cambodia" project aims to support the Royal Government of Cambodia to promote and expand decent employment among youth and to identify and test avenues for young people to maximize returns on their jobs and income opportunities in the context of the changing landscape of Industry 4.0.

PROJECT FOCUS

The project focuses on the following three results:

Improving national and sector-specific policies related to youth skills development and employment in the context of Industry 4.0;
Developing human capital for higher-value added employment to support Cambodia’s transition to Industry 4.0; and
Increasing capabilities of young entrepreneurs to start and sustain businesses that are responsive to changing industry needs.

ACHIEVEMENTS

In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, the project showed its resiliency and achieved the following results:

An industrial survey is taking place to understand the I4.0 technologies and automation in the garment and footwear sector and its potential impact on youth workforce in Cambodia. The result of the survey comes out in September 2020;
The project joined hands with the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications to roll out a national assessment on the labor market of ICT skills in Cambodia. The survey is expected to be completed by December 2020 and the result from the assessment is expected to benefit the RGC and development partners’effort to develop national skill roadmap.
A digital literacy assessment was completed in June 2020 and the findings are being made into an accessible format for the target and wider audience.
The project supported the National Employment Agency in organizing the 2019 National Career Fair and Productivity Workshop raising awareness around productivity concept, automation technologies in garment sector and industry 4.0, and development of TVET system.
The Accountancy Technical Qualification (ATQ) programme has advanced to teaching stage. 80 per cent of learning materials have been developed and its first batch of 350 students (51% women) enrolled in the programme. ATQ accepted by 5 teaching institution and it aims to engage with more universities in Siem Reap province in 2020 and 2021.
The project partnered with Khmer Enterprise which an implementing agency of the Ministry of Economy and Finance, the private sector, and local business incubators to launch two incubation programmes for 20 youth and tech startups and 30 women-owned enterprises (76% women).
The project successfully partnered with the Regional Youth Co:Lab and implemented the National Dialogue to promote youth entrepreneurship and youth’s employability skills which engaged more than 600 youths and reached more than half a million public audiences through social media campaigns.
Through collaboration with the Young Entrepreneurs Association of Cambodia (YEAC), more than 1,900 young people (38% are women) had the opportunity to receive curricular entrepreneurship training and were engaged with an emerging and vibrant entrepreneurship ecosystem in both the capital city and provinces. The partnership also sees the development tax guides and investment guidebook and digital investment platform developed for provinces—Siem Reap and Kampong Cham.