MHP (SOLAR) “Reducing vulnerability in Lao PDR: Advancing social protection and labour rights and entitlements in the coffee and tea sectors ofLao PDR (SOLAR)” is a new project financed by the European Union from 15 November 2021 to 14 August 2024 that aims to promote labour rights and improve access to social protection and occupational safety and health for coffee and tea sectors workers in Bolaven Plateau, Lao PDR. The project has two specific objectives:

1. Specific objective 1: Extended and improved social protection and occupational safety and health (OSH) delivery system and services at district level in the coffee and tea sectors, particularly for informal workers and women.
2. Specific objective 2: Workers in the coffee and tea sectors, particularly informal workers and women, in three contiguous districts of the Bolaven Plateau of Lao PDR are organized and empowered to promote and protect their labour rights.

The SOLAR project works in three contiguous districts of the Bolaven Plateau region of southern Lao PDR; Paksong in Champasak Province, Thateng in Sekong Province, and Lao Ngam in Salavan Province. The project’s direct beneficiaries are 400 women and men working in the coffee and tea sectors in Bolaven Plateau. They are mostly engaged in informal and vulnerable employment often unpaid and seasonal without proper employment contracts and social security coverage, and can be subject to labour rights and OSH violations as well as violence and sexual harassment in the workplace and households. Some of the workers work fluidly, by shifting between tea and coffee production on a seasonal basis.

The project’s target groups include at least 3 civil society organizations; at least 50 community leaders; the private sector including the Lao National Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Lao
Coffee Association, Tea Association, small and medium enterprises, cooperatives, farmer and
producer groups, plantations, and processing plants; the Lao Federation of Trade Unions; Lao
Social Security Organization and its provincial and district offices; and the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare and its provincial departments and district offices.

To ensure a strong gender component, MHP will receive financial support tothird parties to conduct a power mapping in the tea and coffee sectors in the target districts (A.2.1.2), and will be in charge of all activities under Output 2.3, including a gender analysis (A.2.3.1), trainings on leadership and capacity to organise adopting GALS methodology (A.2.3.2), and awareness-raising among communities on gender socio-norms and roles (A.2.3.3). MHP will also contribute significantly to the formulation of gender-responsive policy and institutional development recommendations (A.1.2.1). All gender-specific components ofthe Action were designed together with MHP.

MHP will support LFTU, PTSE and ASDSP on gender mainstreaming by using the GALS methodology, conduct power mapping and gender analysis for target groups, strengthen women’s leadership in worker groups including awareness raising on gender social norms and roles, and contribute to the formulation of gender transformative policy and institutional development recommendations.