Royal Academic of Culinary Arts (RACA)
Tourism is a highly competitive sector worldwide. In Cambodia, there is a shortage of qualified kitchen staff, and employers often need to turn to workers from other countries. Cambodia needs more skilled workers in the hospitality sector in order to compete in the tourism sector.
The Royal Academy of Culinary Arts (RACA) project has two main objectives:
Cambodian hotel and restaurant operators improve the quantity and quality of their services through improvements in the number and quality of trained Cambodian kitchen staff available in the labour market.
- The Cambodian Government and Representative Organizations from the Hospitality Sector have put in place a governing and financial model that ensures the long‑term financial and technical sustainability of the RACA, independent of the financial support of Development Partners.
Cassava
Cambodia is ranked the third biggest exporter of cassava in the world, but has yet to capture more value added from the sector. The vast majority of Cambodian cassava exports go to China, meaning that Cambodia is highly vulnerable to shifts in Chinese demand. Many Cambodian cassava exports are first absorbed by Vietnam and Thailand, and Cambodia would benefit from direct access to more diversified markets.
Other challenges faced by Cambodian cassava exporters include high transportation costs, with long distances from farms to ports, and limited capacity to ensure frequent supply of cassava at the quantity required and technical capacity to access export markets.
The project will move forward in market diversification, with emphasis on effective approaches to providing capacity building to cassava associations and expanding capacity building to exporters/processors, while also pursuing sustainability.
Marine Fisheries
Cambodia’s marine fishery sector employs thousands of people, but is almost entirely artisanal and traditional with no major domestic processing facilities. Most exports are done informally, while formal exports are composed primarily of less value‑added products such as live mentis shrimps. Cambodia’s fish exports are well behind the neighboring countries like Vietnam and Thailand in the global market. This is mainly due to country’s poor institutional climate and lack of quality infrastructure.
The Government of Cambodia has identified marine fisheries as a key sector for export diversification. This project will help ensure that the needs of the marine fisheries product export sector are better understood, improve the business environment, and restructure the sector so that key players can play an active role in the national policy dialogue.
Results
Royal Academy of Culinary Arts (ACAC) of Cambodia
- A building has been contributed rent free for five years from the private sector to the Ministry of Tourism, who is in turn contributing this building to the ACAC. The refurbishment of the building for the use of the ACAC began in 2015. Architectural, kitchen and engineering design have been completed, and some internal structures have been demolished.
- A Head of Culinary Arts Teacher has been recruited.
- A baseline survey of hotels and restaurants in the area of kitchen and related staff is being developed, focusing on skill needs and sanitary standard needs. This will feed into curriculum development.
- A mixed governing board has been formed to lead the ACAC, using the approach of a public-private partnership. The ACAC Board held its first meeting in August 2015.
- The Swiss Hotel Management School (Lucerne) visited Cambodia in November 2015 to provide technical assistance on the curriculum and management systems development.
Cassava
- A value chain study focusing on the export of cassava chips and processed cassava (starch, flour, ethanol) is being finalized. It is scheduled for completion by the end of February 2016.
- 8 local cassava associations were successfully formed in target areas under the leadership of the MoC.
- The eight cassava associations participated in a workshop on the roles and functions of cassava associations in September 2015 (50 men, 20 women) and a workshop on contract farming and its application in the cassava sector in June 2015 (70 men, 20 women).
- 60 cassava export and processing companies participated in a cassava sector dialogue forum organized with the Department of Private Sector Development in the MoC.
Marine Fisheries
- The key issues affecting the marine fishery sector were identified and a roadmap for value chain development was completed. Fishery value chain development has been integrated into a draft of the Strategic Planning Framework for Fisheries (2015-2024).
- SPS needs assessment of four processors were carried out. This is an important step in making these processors export ready.
- Environmental Impact Assessment at field was completed in September 2015. All issues and mitigation measures are being compiled.
- The final draft of a trade facilitation manual has been produced.
- Fishery-related standards have been assessed. Codes of Practices are being jointly developed by the Institute of Standards of Cambodia and MI (UNIDO) to complement existing standards. Training provided to officials to equip them with good knowledge and background of standard as well as codes of practices development.
- 129 people participated (114 men, 15 women) participated in five trainings/workshops on topics including standard development, environmental impact assessment, value chain assessment