The Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC) adopted the Industrial Development Policy (IDP) in 2015 to promote the country's industrial development with a clear vision of becoming an upper-middle-income nation by 2030 and a high-income one by 2050. However, skills mismatch, skills gap, and shortage of skilled labor remain the nation’s key constraints. Cambodia still has to transform the labor-intensive economy to a skill-basedto achieve the abovementioned goals. A market-responsive and high-value-added skills workforce must meet the industrial sectors' real need for skills and skilled labor. The indispensable role of public-private partnership (PPP), therefore, is needed in a new agenda to create an enabling environment for the right skills development for the current and future context of the industrial labor markets.

The Skills Development Fund (SDF) project has been piloted by the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) since March 2018 to test a new and innovative financing mechanism to promote demand-driven and sustainable skills development with the ultimate objectives of diversifying and increasing value addition in Cambodia’s Economy as well as creating better and well-paid jobs for Cambodian citizens. With the outstanding achievement, the Royal Government of Cambodia has transformed this pilot project into a TRUST FUND under the name of the Skills Development Fund (SDF) (Sub-Decree 97.RNK.BK dated May 18, 2023) with the Board of Directors comprised of the MEF, relevant line ministries and industry leaders. As of April 2024, the SDF has approved 138 training projects in priority sectors such as manufacturing, construction, ICT, electronics, automotive and tourism amount 12.3 million USD worth of training grants for 29,121 trainees (33% female) under the cost-sharing and joint-training model between industry and training providers (public, private and NGO).