Company/Team for a Diagnostic of informality in a Cambodian Agri-food Sub-Sector

In Cambodia, the agriculture forestry and fishing sector employs 4.7 million workers or 55 per cent of the workforce (8.6 million). The vast majority of workers in agriculture (4.2 million, 88 per cent) are employed in the sub-sector Growing of non-perennial crops (short-term crops). This sub-sector includes the industries of cereals, leguminous crops and oil seeds, rice, vegetables and melons, sugar cane, tobacco, fibre crops, and other non-perennial crops. Estimates from the LFS2019 indicate that about 70 per cent of these workers may be employed in the growing of rice. The second largest sub-sector is Growing of perennial crops which employs 280 thousand workers (6 per cent).

The employment status of workers in the sector is characterized by the prevalence of own account workers and unpaid family workers. Together, these two categories describe 96 per cent of the sector’s workers. Own account workers correspond to 55 per cent of the total (2.6 million), and unpaid family workers to 41 per cent (1.9 million).

Overall, the agri-food sector has the highest rate of informal employment of any economic sector, estimated at 98.6 per cent in Cambodia. Since Cambodia is largely a rural country, and 65 percent of the employed population lives in rural areas, the sector makes up above one third of informal jobs. Work in the Cambodian informal economy is characterized by significant decent work deficits and is consequently also linked to the prevalence of poverty.

The drivers of informality are multiple. Some are common across different contexts, such as ineffective public institutions, while others can be specific to a certain group or sector. In the case of rural areas where agri-food employment is high, low public spending, poor infrastructure and low levels of social services remain key drivers.

The ILO promotes the transition to formality to reduce decent work deficits, foster economic growth, including through the development of an enabling environment for sustainable enterprises, increase productivity and competitiveness, while respecting workers’ rights, ensuring opportunities for income security, livelihoods and entrepreneurship and preventing the informalization of jobs in the formal economy. This takes into the diversity of actors and tailor formalization approaches to specific drivers of informality.

The ILO has been working together with the RGC for the promotion of evidence-based dialogue between the different stakeholders, capacity building activities, and the production of evidence to feed the national debate on formalization. Within this framework, ILO is will engage a company / team of consultants to undertake a diagnostic assessment of the drivers of informality in the agri-food sector, with the view to identify practical and action-oriented recommendations for initiating the discourse of transitioning enterprises and workers into formalization. Please kindly refer to the attached ToR file for detailed tasks and deliverables, and strictly follow the application process.