The action’s overall objective is to contribute to inclusive economic recovery in the Tonle Sap region by improving food security, income and employment opportunities for fishing and farming communities and returnee labour migrants by leveraging existing relationships with private sector and local civil society partners to further strengthen value chains by linking producers, processors and buyers
. The action will contribute to the impact by ensuring smallholder farmers and fishers have increased food production and consumption in the horticulture and livestock value chains through their use of effective agricultural practices, products and services (specific objective 1), and returnee labour migrants and laid-off workers in COVID-19 affected sectors have improved access to market relevant skills, affordable finance and social protection (specific objective 2). The action will support the formation of agricultural enterprises (agro-enterprises) and focus on both technical and organisational training to ensure smallholder farmers maximize their production and are linked to markets, while also strengthening smallholder farmers´ economic, social and environment resilience for sustainable recovery. The action will facilitate employment opportunities and job creation to address the high rates of unemployment caused by COVID-19. The action will link returnee migrants and laid-off workers to vocational training that will train individuals to fill a need in the horticulture and poultry market chain for agro-processing. In addition, the project will connect returned migrants with the On-demand ID Poor effort and with needed information on their labour rights. In doing so, these migrants will be able to benefit from social services provided to ID Poor households including cash payments that the government is expected to make in Quarter 3 of 2020. The proposed action will also address the challenges arising from indebtedness by providing financial literacy, loan restructuring support, in-kind support, and grants provided by co-applicants as well as financial institutions as technical partners
