Aid and development

As the World Bank considers supplying fresh loans to Cambodia, a new study uses the country as exhibit A for how the financier effectively sponsors corporate land grabs at the expense of the rural poor it purportedly helps. Three years ago, the bank’s own inspectors found ...

Cambodia’s economic growth is forecasted to reach 7.2 percent in 2014, and 7.5 percent next year according to a report by World Bank on Monday. The report said Cambodia’s garments continue to be the key engine of growth, followed by construction. The poverty rate continued to ...

For 70-year-old Chan Shay, the choice between working through old age and a retirement in poverty is an obvious one. Shay, a cyclo taxi driver in Phnom Penh, said that while he dreams of retiring to his home in Takeo province, in reality he can see ...

The Ministry of Culture on Tuesday introduced the country’s first strategic cultural policy, an ambitious plan that includes setting up provincial cultural centers, launching arts education in schools, holding annual cultural events and promoting individual artists. Speaking to an audience that included representatives from the leading ...

Foreign Affairs Minister Hor Namhong addressed the UN’s General Assembly on Monday, in a speech that focused more on the threat of the Islamic State and international conflicts than it did on Cambodian issues. Hor Namhong told the Assembly that Cambodia supports joint international efforts to ...

Foreign minister Julie Bishop announced that an additional $40 million in development assistance was given to Cambodia. The amount shall boost Cambodia’s effort to provide humanitarian aid to those who are in need of protection as part of the Refugees Convention and a member of ...

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said on Monday that the country will take in refugees from Australia on a voluntary basis, stressing that accepting asylum seekers is part of an international obligation for Cambodia. Hun Sen said a Cambodian working group will interview those refugees ...

Opposition party leader Sam Rainsy said that Cambodia should not have signed a deal with Australia to accept refugees to live in Cambodia. Cambodia should not have accepted the refugees from Australia because they are not goods for being exported or imported by any country, Sam ...

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) announced last week a $30 million loan aimed at overhauling Cambodia’s technical and vocational education system (TVET). According to a September 26 statement issued by the ADB, the new funding will go towards launching a “competency-based” assessment and certification process, and ...

Australia’s Immigration Minister Scott Morrison has defended the government’s plan to transfer refugees to Cambodia, saying the programme would start small but be a long-term arrangement. Under Canberra’s hardline immigration policy, asylum-seekers who arrive on boats are denied resettlement in Australia and sent to Papua New ...

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has maintained its growth projections for Cambodia in 2014. The ADB’s midyear outlook for Cambodia, released yesterday, states that Cambodia’s economy still stands to achieve 7 per cent growth by the end of the year, and potentially 7.3 per cent in ...

Cambodia may be on the verge of a new era in human rights protection, an independent United Nations human rights expert declared today, adding that while the political momentum in the country was headed in a “positive direction,” a strong human rights infrastructure was still ...

About 100 anti-eviction activists from the Boeng Kak, Borei Keila and Lor Peang communities held their latest joint protest outside the World Bank office on Thursday over a recent announcement that it is considering the resumption of loan to the government after a three-year freeze. ...

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Thursday that the country needs about 11 billion U.S. dollars for public investment to support the implementation of the government’s priorities from 2013 to 2018. ...

The World Bank is contemplating a $25-million project to build up 15 social land concessions (SLCs) across Cambodia and could approve the scheme as soon as December, according to a proposal posted to the Bank’s website late last month, a move that would end its ...

More than 100 officials from some 20 economies in Asia and the Pacific are meeting with donor institution representatives in Cambodia’s Siem Reap province in a bid to strengthen public financial management systems for climate change adaptation projects, said a news statement on Monday. ...

The Chinese government provided 200 sets of ambulances to​ the Cambodian Ministry of Health on Friday to contribute to the development of health sector. Chinese Ambassador to Cambodia Bu Jianguo signed to deliver the ambulances to​ Cambodian Minister of Health Mam Bunheng. ...

With security footage of elephants, clouded leopards and other wildlife caught on hidden cameras in Cambodia’s Eastern Plains flashing on a TV screen, Toby Eastoe of Conservation International noted that their cameras also catch other activity. Presenters ranging from anti-corruption advocates to health service workers ...

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) on Monday unveiled a five-year Integrated Nutrition, Hygiene and Sanitation project in Cambodia, which is estimated to cost 16 million U.S. dollars, according to a press statement from the U.S. Embassy to Cambodia. ...

The Council of Ministers on Friday approved a three-year $5.24 billion “public investment program”—a package of several hundred projects from 2015 to 2017 designed to help the government reach its goal of 7 percent annual growth or better. ...

The Comprehensive Strategic Partnership of Cooperation between Cambodia and China has been providing “more favourable conditions” for economic, trade and investment ties between the two countries, Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister and Cabinet Minister Sok An said on Sunday. ...

A proposed project hopes to channel the widespread use of mobile phones among factory workers to bring the voice of the 600,000 Cambodians employed in the crucial garment sector into future wage negotiations. The project, which would collect information about working hours, conditions, wages and expenses ...

Weak logistics have stood in the way of Cambodia’s trade progress for years with its export costs at least 30 percent higher than those of Southeast Asian neighbours Thailand and Vietnam. Getting the goods from farmers to markets remains difficult, and exporters struggle to supply overseas ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday defended his government, saying its reputation for corruption is undeserved, laying blame on the private sector for initiating the bribe process and calling out international development partners for applying double standards. Speaking at the Eighth Regional Conference of Anti-Corruption Intiative for ...