Safety + Health for All Workers in South Asia

Plantations play a critical role in many developing and emerging economies with large rural sectors. They create, directly and indirectly, employment opportunities for millions of people and generate important export earnings. Plantations crops and in particular tea are important agriculture subsectors in South Asia. India is the second largest tea producer in the world (1.2 million tonnes) and the fourth largest tea exporter, Sri Lanka is the fourth largest tea producer in the world (343,100 tonnes) and the second largest tea exporter (288,000 tonnes) and Nepal is the 21st tea producer in the world and the 22nd tea exporter (13,200 tonnes). Several reports, including recent investigation from the ILO, indicate that the tea sector presents significant challenges in establishing infrastructure and services necessary to support Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) improvements in rural settings. Tea production is characterized by high labour intensity especially in remote rural areas with female workers representing half of the total workforce. Overall conditions of tea workers are very poor and characterized by low wages, poor hygiene, sanitation and health conditions, as well as limited workers’ representation. An important part of tea workers are working for estates, but the number of smallholders is growing and the productivity of smallholder farmers is usually higher than the one of big estates. An ILO report highlighted that OSH is a major area of concern for the actors in the sector, in particular chemical and biological hazards resulting from the use of agro-chemicals with little or inadequate protection and scarce access to proper water and sanitation. These conditions have contributed to a lack of investment in workers’ living and working conditions, leading to serious social issues and negative health and safety impacts on workers and their family. The project will be implemented in the framework of the ILO’s Flagship programme Safety + Health for All and will aim at improving the safety and health of workers in plantations in South Asia. To this end, the project will work towards the 3 below mentioned objective in the target countries and at subregional level: ¿ Generate and share knowledge on constraints and opportunities to improve the safety and health of workers and prevention discrimination in the plantation sector in South Asia; ¿ Strengthen national and local institutions to better promote and protect the safety and health of plantation workers in India, Nepal and Sri Lanka; ¿ Develop or strengthen workplace and industry level practices and initiatives to promote the safety and health of workers, in the plantation sector in India, Nepal and Sri Lanka, notably through improved representation (including ‘voice’) of workers in the smallholdings and of women workers. The levels of intervention will span enterprises or workplace to sector-wide to national and sub-regional institutions, mechanisms and processes. Interventions will take place in both the formalised estates and more informalised smallholdings. The project will intervene in the plantation sector with tea as a common crop for the three target countries.

Project symbol

RAS/20/08/JPN

Admin unit

CO-Kathmandu
CO-Colombo
DWT/CO-New Delhi

Start date

23/12/2020

End date

31/12/2024

Total allocation

3142568

Total expenditure

Status

Active

3142568

Development Partners

Japan, Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare

Country/Countries

Nepal
Sri Lanka
India

Outcomes

Outcome 6: Protection at work for all
Outcome 2: Strong, representative and influential tripartite constituents and effective social dialogue