Aid and development
Multilateral development assistance
Clean water access ‘improves’
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 ...
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/clean-water-access-%E2%80%98improves%E2%80%99
Business employers say corruption greatest threat to economy
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 ...
Colin Meyn
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/business-employers-say-corruption-greatest-threat-to-economy-53963/
City Hall wants World Bank, NGOs to compensate evicted families
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 ...
Solar power for communes
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 ...
Daniel de Carteret
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/solar-power-communes
Development pushes poor from land as Cambodia dams its rivers
“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 ...
Daniel Quinlan
http://asiancorrespondent.com/120212/development-drives-displacement-as-cambodia-dams-its-rivers/
IFC accepts complaint over Ratanakkiri rubber plantations
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 ...
Zsombor Peter
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/ifc-accepts-complaint-over-ratanakkiri-rubber-plantations-53251/
IFC Ombudsman to help settle Phnom Penh airport land dispute
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 ...
Aun Pheap and Zsombor Peter
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/ifc-ombudsman-to-help-settle-phnom-penh-airport-land-dispute-53146/
Poverty gains ‘precarious’
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 ...
Stuart White
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/poverty-gains-%E2%80%98precarious%E2%80%99
World Bank To Review Environmental Complaints Against Company
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 ...
Sok Khemara
http://www.voacambodia.com/content/world-bank-to-review-environmental-complaints-against-company/1853122.html
‘Big Man rule’ taken to task by UN envoy
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 ...
Stuart White
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/%E2%80%98big-man-rule%E2%80%99-taken-task-un-envoy
ADB to provide USD773 mln in loan for development projects in Cambodia
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 ...
The Cambodia Herald News Staff
http://thecambodiaherald.com/cambodia/detail/1?page=15&token=Y2RiYWM4MDA0YTB
Railway leaves area in limbo
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 ...
Daniel de Carteret
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/railway-leaves-area-limbo
ADB waters down plans to amend mistakes in Cambodia
Newly approved plans by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to fix mistakes it made on a $143 million railway project appear to water down recommendations proposed by the Bank’s own review panel, and could impose the costs of the plan on the very families who ...
Zsombor Peter
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/adb-waters-down-plans-to-amend-mistakes-in-cambodia-51763/
ADB admits mistakes over controversial railway project in Cambodia
In a rare admission, the Asian Development Bank has surprisingly acknowledged its own shortcomings following a controversial railway rehabilitation project in Cambodia that sparked complaints from thousands of displaced local residents affected by forced resettlements, insufficient compensations and neglect of their human rights. The concerns were confirmed by the Compliance ...
Lean Alfred Santos
https://www.devex.com/en/news/adb-admits-mistakes-over-failed-railway-project-in/82809
Demining Mali goal for troops
The Ministry of Defence will dispatch more than 300 members of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) to Mali as part of a United Nations peacekeeping mission, a senior government official said yesterday. ...
Vong Sokheng
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/demining-mali-goal-troops
Worse off than before
In May of 2010, just four days after their family was resettled in Battambang province, two children, accompanied by their sister-in-law, walked to a pond. Stories differ as to why they were there. Rights groups say they went to bathe and collect water. Police claim ...
Daniel de Carteret
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/worse
UN Envoy Asks Cambodia to Lift Demonstrations Ban
A U.N. rights envoy suggested Thursday that Cambodia lift a ban on public gatherings in the capital imposed amid a violent crackdown on demonstrators a month ago. Maina Kiai, the U.N.’s global Special Rapporteur for freedom of peaceful assembly and association, made the suggestion to Foreign ...
Radio Free Asia News Staff
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/rapporteur-02062014181843.html
Khmer minority lack equal rights: report
Thach Ry, a 64-year-old Khmer Krom man, fled Vietnam in 2008 after authorities there tried to arrest him for protesting the government’s treatment of his community. Arriving in Cambodia with his wife and daughter, authorities here tried to arrest him, too, he said, so like many ...
Kevin Ponniah and Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/khmer-minority-lack-equal-rights-report
IMF says Cambodia's strong outlook subject to 'considerable' risks
Cambodia’s strong economic growth and foreign investment are subject to “considerable” downside risks, the International Monetary Fund has warned. A staff report released in Washington late Tuesday said “economic activity remains strong driven by robust exports, with garment exports helped by preferential access to European Union.” At ...
The Cambodia Herald News Staff
http://www.thecambodiaherald.com/cambodia/detail/1?page=13&token=M2FjYzE4NzRmYzQ
National Rail Project on Hold ‘Indefinitely’
Work on a $143 million donor project to renovate the country’s creaking railway system, which is already over budget and years behind schedule, is now indefinitely postponed due to a lack of funds, with more than 300 km of rail still to be laid, a ...
Phorn Bopha
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/national-rail-project-on-hold-indefinitely-51323/
ADB Admits Fault in Rail Project, Pledges Compensation
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has for the first time admitted to major flaws in its efforts to protect the roughly 4,000 families losing land to a $143 million project it is funding to rehabilitate Cambodia’s dilapidated railway system. On Friday, the ADB said it would ...
Zsombor Peter
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/adb-admits-fault-in-rail-project-pledges-compensation-51210/
Mixed message to UN
A call for the Cambodian government to lift its controversial ban on public assembly is among 34 such recommendations it has chosen to defer in the wake of last week’s second Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of its human rights situation. The UN on Saturday released a ...
Stuart White
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/mixed-message-un
Made here, owned there
At the end of a well-paved road just past the city’s airport sits a cluster of factories. Each one is barely discernible from the next – grey concrete walls and blue aluminium roofs. But one factory in the lot, MAG (Cambodia), is different. In a country ...
Daniel de Carteret
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/made-here-owned-there
Rainsy eyes seat at UN rights review meeting
Opposition leader Sam Rainsy left for Europe yesterday evening to attend a UN Human Rights Council review on Cambodia in Geneva and to lobby European Union officials to take a stronger stance against the government, he said before departure. Rainsy plans on attending the Universal Periodic ...
Meas Sokchea and Kevin Ponniah
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/rainsy-eyes-seat-un-rights-review-meeting