Multilateral development assistance

The United Nations is ready to cooperate with and support the National Election Committee (NEC) with additional aid, providing it submits a written letter of intent to the UN’s office in the country. ...

The government’s suppression of human rights poses a serious threat to Cambodia’s democratic progress, visiting members of the European Parliament’s human rights subcommittee warned on Friday.   ...

The U.N.’s human rights envoy to Cambodia said the political climate had clearly deteriorated in the six months since her first fact-finding mission and that the country remained at a “dangerous tipping point” ahead of commune and national elections. ...

The United Nations Human Rights Commission in Cambodia (OHCHR) yesterday released an analysis of the contentious draft trade union law finding key clauses to be in violation of existing Cambodian law, human rights norms and the ILO’s conventions.   ...

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) will continue its support for the Kingdom’s food security and agricultural sector, while also helping with market research to assist the export of Cambodian milled rice and geographically-protected pepper products, Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Chum Sounry said ...

Cambodia’s economy is expected to remain stable this year as uncertainty surrounding China’s economic slowdown appears to ease, and backed primarily by strong performance in garment and footwear manufacturing, as well as construction, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said yesterday. ...

After police in Preah Vihear province blocked the U.N.’s human rights envoy from meeting with indigenous villagers earlier this week, Rhona Smith sat down with Interior Minister Sar Kheng in Phnom Penh on Wednesday and called for better communication between national and local government officials. ...

The independence of the country’s judiciary was among the issues that UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights Rhona Smith raised yesterday during a meeting with the minister of justice as part of her 10-day visit. ...

Construction of a seaport in Kampot is set to begin this year two years after being approved thanks to an $18 million loan from the Asia Development Bank (ADB), according to officials. ...

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 ...

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. ...

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. ...

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 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 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. ...

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. ...

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 ...

The United Nations and the Cambodian Ministry of Women’s Affairs will organize four major events across the country to raise awareness of the need to end violence against women and girls, according to a UN Women’s statement on Wednesday. ...

The World Bank is considering yet another internally funded project in Cambodia that, if approved, would lift the organization’s four-year-old freeze on new lending to the country. ...

The World Bank could approve its first internally funded project in Cambodia in March, according to recently released reports, a move that would effectively end the freeze on new lending the Bank imposed on Cambodia over four years ago. ...

Despite failing to meet many of the expectations of its foreign donors over the past two decades, Cambodia’s government has never struggled to secure aid from abroad. ...