A training organised by the Forest Smallholders Project of the European Forest Facility (EFI) in a small village of the Lampang Province north of Thailand has provided women with the skills they need to engage in family timber businesses and play more diverse roles, thereby contributing to more sustainable livelihoods.
Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) is a multidisciplinary field concerned with the safety, health and welfare of people at work. Occupational Safety refers to working without danger, risk, injuries, and physical and spiritual loss. Occupational Health means having good hygiene at the workplace without negative impact on the physical and spiritual health of the employees.
The goal of OHS is to foster a safe and healthy working environment. OHS also protects the general public affected by business operations. This is important in the context of the wood processing as it can cause pollution, including from dust, noise and chemicals.
OHS is an important topic for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) because it is an area where capacity is generally low, in particular among micro enterprises. Business owners are seldom trained on OHS, and non-compliance with the relevant laws and regulations are commonly observed throughout the Mekong region.
Poor OHS practices can also have a negative impact on the welfare of workers, resulting in poor performance and low productivity. On the other hand, improving OHS drives good business practices, ensures continuous operations, and reduces pollution. This brief introduces OHS in the context of the wood-processing industry, describes challenges faced by MSMEs and shares training recommendations based on the experience of our Forest Smallholder Project in the Mekong region.
Since 2016, the European Forest Institute (EFI) has been supporting wood-based micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in four Mekong countries to operate legally and sustainably. Under its Forest Smallholders Project, EFI has been testing solutions to MSMEs’ key challenges in pilot projects. Lessons learnt from these pilots are documented and disseminated nationally, regionally and internationally. Through its support to MSMEs, the Project promotes gender equality and women’s economic empowerment in the forest sector.
This website has been produced with support from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency. The contents of this website are the sole responsibility of the authors and can under no circumstances be regarded as reflecting the position of funding organisations.
Somporn Khongthanakrittakorn
Wilfredo Elis / European Forest Institute