Multilateral development assistance

The United Nations independent expert on the situation of human rights in Cambodia, expressed concern today that the country’s National Assembly held its second session last week without the opposition representatives taking up their seat, and urged the legislature to upkeep the key principles of ...

The World Bank upwardly revised Monday its GDP growth forecast for Cambodia this year to 7.2 percent, up from its October projection of 7.0 percent. In explaining the higher forecast, the bank’s East Asia and Pacific Economic Update pointed to “the expectation of renewed confidence and ...

The World Bank says Cambodia has the most open foreign direct investment regime in ASEAN while Thailand has the most restrictive. In a report released Monday, the bank also said that Cambodia had recently emerged as ASEAN’s second-biggest recipient of foreign direct investment in the agricultural ...

In a rare moment of honesty a Cambodian official has admitted his doubts about his country’s ability to meet regional expectations in time for the launch of the much vaunted ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) by the end of 2015. “If you talk about short-term: Yes, we ...

Toll Royal Railway, the private operator of Cambodia’s train service, has no system in place to regularly inspect the state of its tracks, and lacks qualified inspectors to check either tracks or bridges, according to a recent safety audit of the firm’s Phnom Penh operations. The ...

The Asian Development Bank on Tuesday said it expects Cambodia’s economic growth to slow slightly in 2014. In its annual “Asian Development Outlook,” the bank said it expects to see a drop in the rate from about 7.2 percent last year to 7 percent this year ...

Following a scathing report from its internal watchdog about the resettlement of thousands of Cambodian families affected by a national railway rehabilitation project that it is funding, the Asian Development Bank has agreed with the government on an action plan for further compensation, it said ...

Cambodia has seen significant improvements in logistics performance in the last four years, a World Bank’s senior official said Wednesday. “According to the World Bank Logistics Performance Index (LPI), Cambodia’s LPI ranking has risen spectacularly by 46 places, to 83rd out of 160 countries in 2014, ...

It is almost four years since the UN General Assembly declared that water was a human right, meaning every person should have access to safe water and basic sanitation, yet 6.3 million Cambodians do not have this basic necessity, UNICEF said to mark World Water ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday encouraged Cambodia to pick up the slack on its higher-education system in order to bolster the country’s economic competitiveness. “Training human resources is necessary to developing the labour market and encouraging investments,” the premier said during the Royal University of Law ...

The World Bank on Thursday asked Phnom Penh municipal officials to do more to help the thousands of families the city evicted from the Boeng Kak neighborhood to make way for a CPP senator’s private real estate project, and is now waiting for a reply, ...

The number of Cambodian rural households with access to latrines increased from 23 to 33 per cent in 2013, a Ministry of Rural Development report released yesterday says. Chreay Pom, director of the ministry’s rural health care department, said that last year, the ministry constructed about ...

Cambodia is making steady headway towards its goal of providing universal clean-water access. “The 2013 population census shows that the percentage of people who now have clean water sources has climbed to 49 per cent. We will be able to achieve the 2015 Millennium Development Goal ...

Corruption remains the most significant challenge facing Cambodia’s economy, according to a survey of more than 300 employers conducted last year by the International Labor Organization (ILO), the results of which were released Tuesday. Despite legislation meant to stamp out graft, corruption continues to be perceived ...

Representatives of some of the 3,000 families evicted from Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak neighborhood in recent years said Thursday that municipal government officials, who were ultimately responsible for the mass evictions, told them they would be inviting the World Bank and NGOs to help compensate ...

The offices of commune officials along the Tonle Sap basin will soon be solar-powered as part of a poverty-reduction project backed by the Asian Development Bank. Some 123 off-the-grid commune council offices in Banteay Meanchey, Siem Reap, Kampong Thom and Kampong Cham provinces will be fitted ...

“From my view, I don’t want to have it, but it is development, we can’t stop them,” says Srekor’s village chief, Leang Saroeurn. Cambodia’s impressive yearly GDP growth rates of 7 percent for the last decade have come, in part, through a ravenous consumption of the countries ...

The International Finance Corporation’s compliance ombudsman has officially accepted a complaint filed by ethnic minority families in Ratanakkiri province against the IFC for investing in rubber plantations accused of stealing land and clearing forests. In a letter sent to the families on Monday, the ombudsman deems ...

Representatives for the hundreds of families facing eviction from homes around Phnom Penh International Airport have agreed to let the compliance ombudsman of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private investment arm of the World Bank, mediate a solution to the land dispute with the ...

Cambodia’s poverty rate fell dramatically between 2004 and 2011 – from more than 50 per cent to roughly 20 – but those gains are so precarious that a slight economic shock could send millions plunging back below the poverty line, according to a World Bank ...

The World Bank says it will investigate reports from indigenous groups in Cambodia that a company funded by the bank’s International Finance Corporation is involved in deforestation and land grabs. The bank’s Office of the Compliance Adviser Ombudsman, or CAO, will first examine the credibility of ...

UN special rapporteur on freedom of peaceful assembly Maina Kiai, who visited Cambodia two weeks ago, has called on the Kingdom to embrace regular changes in leadership and to take lessons from Africa’s strongman-riddled history, in a column published in Kenya’s Daily Union newspaper on ...

Ministry of Finance said that Asian Development Bank (ADB) would provide USD773 million in loan for implementation of economic development projects from 2014-2016 in Cambodia. Of the loan, USD573 million would be provided by ADB, while another USD200 million would be lended by another partner through ...

In 2009, a railway project official arrived at 45-year-old Ry Preng’s home in Por Sen Chey district and spray-painted “1.042” in red on the side of his house. He wasn’t sure what it meant, but was told that at some point he would need to ...