MHP-DGD 22-26 SP and Labour Rights In ASEAN, a substantial share of informal economy is in the agri-food sector, particularly in Laos there are a lots of small-scale agricultural cultivation and food processing-sales sector. they should be regarded as workers who are entitled to decent work including good social protection. although, the percentage of employment in agricultural sector has decreased (to 59% in Laos in 2018) , but can be said that this group still account for the large proportion of informal workers, which get hired with low pay, insufficient and has low potential. Mostly, MSMES in Laos, the agricultural sector employs 99,1% of the workforce, while 88% of jobs in rural areas are in the informal sector.  Majority of the workers are women and children, who work for their family businesses as unpaid labour. There are more than 7 millions people with 18 provinces and 143 districts in Laos, an average of GDP growth rate of 5,8% per year. Informal workers mark up to 83% of labour force and are the significant factor in the country’s economic and social development.According to the findings of joint research conducted by Asian Development Bank (ADB) and International Labour Organisation (ILO), there are still significant number of workers who earn daily pay, have precarious employment and not covered by social welfare or social protection. Particularly, the most impacted are women workers in the informal economic sector who are disadvantaged and vulnerable in socioeconomic terms, which includes self-employed, small-scaled farmers, migrant workers, unemployed workers and others due to the relevant parties still lack of decent policies and effective enforcement in promoting decent employment as well as social protection system.
Government of Laos is aware of this issues and has taken into crucial consideration to promote and implement social protection policies, such as the adoption of “ASEAN DECLARATION ON STREGNTHENING SOCIAL PROTECTION” by the Lao PDR in October 2014, which recognize equal access to social protection as a fundamental human right. The declaration was supported by the guidelines of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) R202 (Social Protection Floor) and the push to execute the policy to achieve four key objectives, such as Universal Health Coverage (UHC); child income security, elderly income security and working age workers. This aims to enhance, access to well-being and live a decent life by their life cycle and specifically looking back to capture various adverse issues. In addition, ASEAN has developed the “ASEAN plans and Action plans for Implementation of the Resource plan on strengthening social protection. Relevant committees and related ministries were established in accordance with the action plans to encourage, support and oversee members regarding the designs, resource contribution and development of national policy plan for social protection.
Based upon the mentioned issues and circumstances, this project is intended to effectively assist the growth of social protection for the interests of vulnerable workers (informal workers) and their families. It aims to contribute to the development of local, national and international policies and practices addressing social protection to enhance accessibility to public service systems as well as to contribute to the government and international ending poverty. The project focuses on ADVANCING SOCIAL PROTECTION FOR WORKERS IN THE AGRI-FOOD SECTOR IN THE LAO PDR  in order to comply with the government policies. The project will work in close cooperation with the Lao Federation of Trade Union (LFTU) from central to local levels to enable informal workers to access and perceive social protection information policy set out by the government such as social security law, health insurance including the socual welfare policy that protect low-income workers are all designed to encourage voluntary social security enrollment and provide accessibility to high-quality, cost-free healthcare, handing vulnerable workers some peace of mind in the event of illness.