Aid and development

Between 2008 and 2015, the World Bank and German aid agency GIZ spent $13 million setting up eight social land concessions for thousands of the poorest Cambodians, doling out small farms they could use to pull themselves out of poverty and, after a few years, ...

Residents and evictees from Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak and Bo­r­ei Keila neighborhoods re­turned to the World Bank’s country headquarters on Norodom Boul­evard on Monday to hurl eggs at the front gate and demand that the international lender leave Cambodia.   ...

In an effort to identify and address “key barriers that impede the realization of children’s rights in Cambodia,” the Cambodian government and UNICEF Cambodia officially signed a new Country Program Action Plan yesterday, entering a three-year partnership that will cost an estimated $65 million, according ...

The European Union pledged €10 million in preparation of the upcoming 2017 and 2018 elections yesterday, which the National Election Committee (NEC) hopes to add to in a new budget they will be submitting to the government, according to NEC officials. ...

Swiss ambassador to Cambodia Ivo Sieber pledged his country’s continued support of Kantha Bopha Hospital yesterday, mentioning that almost half of the hospital’s funding comes from the Swiss government. The promise was made during Amb. Seiber’s meeting with Foreign Minister Hor Namhong at the Foreign ...

The Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction issued a statement on Saturday defending its track record and denying that Germany ended its support for the ministry’s land rights program due to a lack of transparency and sluggish reform pace. ...

A Tongan national was appointed as Asian Development Bank’s director for Cambodia effective 01 February.Samiuela T. Tukuafu will lead ADB operations in Cambodia to support the country’s development goals of promoting inclusive growth and diversifying the economy. ...

Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Namhong is in China this week for official talks aimed at strengthening trade and security ties. ...

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) plans to provide financing totally about 880 million US dollars to Cambodia for 2016 – 2018. According to a press release from the Ministry of Economy and Finance, which was released yesterday. ...

The European Union (EU) last week announced this year’s recipients of 8.2 million euros ($8.9 million) in grants to civil society, with much of the money going to nongovernmental groups whose stated goal is to make the country’s elections more open and inclusive.  ...

Cambodia must tackle the skills gap to boost the productivity of its labor force in order to grow its economy, according to the latest report. ...

The Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) has started work with Cambodia on patent applications, a move which will allow firms from both countries to hasten the process. ...

Though it’s extremely early days, experts this week welcomed Cambodia’s membership to the nascent China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), saying it would provide much-needed diversity of funding for the nation’s infrastructure and connectivity needs. ...

Six months after the European Parliament adopted a resolution calling on the Cambodian government to scrap a draft NGO law that came into effect in August, the E.U. announced on Monday that it had pledged 8.2 million euros (about $8.9 million) to local and international ...

Some of the country’s top business leaders laid out their main concerns with a controversial draft union law during a meeting with CPP lawmakers on Monday, including a stipulation that would let only 10 people form a union at a workplace. ...

The advent of Cambodia’s much-criticized NGO law was among the top “troubling” developments to take place across the globe last year, the U.N. special rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association said in a report released Friday.   ...

Cambodia’s economy is expected to grow at 6.9 percent this year, the same rate it expanded last year, due to slowing growth in leading economies in region, especially China, Asia’s largest and the world’s second-largest economy, according to the World Bank. ...

Cambodia’s prime minister defended his government’s energy policy on Wednesday and hit back at environmentalists opposed to hydropower plants by suggesting their electricity be cut off and they should use resin torches instead. ...

The Japanese government Friday granted nearly $20,000 to repair and upgrade fascilities at schools in two provinces. ...

Cambodia ranked 143rd out of 188 countries in the U.N.’s latest Human Development Index (HDI), a composite measure of development incorporating health, education and living standards, according to new figures released on Monday. ...

Australia has so far disbursed more than $3.5 million in aid to Cambodia as part of the agreement for its unwanted refugees to be resettled here, but the Interior Ministry’s spokesman is livid that the money has come into the country via development agencies rather ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday called on banks and microfinance institutions (MFIs) to suspend loan repayments by borrowers affected by this year’s drought, or either make the loans interest free or cut the rates. ...

After five years of building, the 24-million-U.S.-dollar Angkor Panorama Museum, invested by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), opened in northwest Cambodia’s Siem Reap city, a local English newspaper reported on Monday. ...

A Finance Ministry official said on Sunday that the government had yet to decide whether it would comply with Asian Development Bank (ADB) rules that families facing eviction from along the country’s old railway tracks be offered resettlement options better than the ones they have ...