This project, jointly developed by CDRI and the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA), provides a comprehensive policy and programme framework to support the reintegration of approximately 910,000 Cambodian migrant workers who returned from Thailand in 2025. The initiative outlines a coordinated response that combines emergency income support, rapid registration systems, debt relief, job creation, skills activation, and medium-term economic transformation measures. The programme aims to stabilise vulnerable households, prevent further poverty escalation, and turn the crisis into an opportunity for rural revitalisation, SME development, and structural economic upgrading.

• To establish a Returnee Labour Database (RLD) enabling systematic registration, skills profiling, and policy targeting.
• To provide short-term protection through cash transfers, NSSF health coverage, debt relief, and large-scale public works.
• To activate and match returnees’ skills through Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL), fast-track training, and employer incentives.
• To promote medium-term growth by expanding agro-processing, strengthening SME and entrepreneurship development, and absorbing labour into high-value industries.
• To support long-term resilience by improving housing, healthcare, education, and essential infrastructure in border provinces.
• To align the intervention programme with national strategies, ensuring a coordinated whole-of-government implementation.