In 2022, Rapid Asia conducted the End-line Evaluation for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Thailand Counter Trafficking in Persons (CTIP) project with the lead implementing partner, Winrock International.
As part of the End-line evaluation, Rapid Asia prepared the Learning Paper Series. This paper explores the learning question: “How effective are the bilateral MoUs on employment cooperation with the governments of Cambodia, Lao PDR, and Myanmar? What adjustments could benefit this approach”
This paper provides an answer to the learning question through an exploration of five key learnings:
- The recruitment process and regularization process of the MoUs are too lengthy and expensive to be functional
- Operationalization of the MoU has focused more on reactive measures for those who do not follow the MoU guidelines and associated labor laws, rather than tackling the causes of workers and employers wanting to bypass the system. For the MoUs to meet their purpose, employers and migrant workers should be more centrally involved in the MoU revision process
- MoU operationalization should more strongly focus on social protection for migrant workers
- The MoUs and surrounding processes do not adequately address the practical needs of employers, migrant workers or sending countries
- Streamlining the systems of operationalization of the MoUs could benefit from the strong stakeholder engagement approach used by this project
To read more about this paper, please click here.