Multilateral development assistance

Driven by garment and improved agricultural export markets, Cambodia has bucked the wider trend of slowing Southeast Asian economies, according to the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP). ESCAP’s semi-annual Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific, published ...

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Wednesday that the country’s economy is forecast to grow by 7. 5 percent in 2014, driven by steady growth in agriculture, garment export, tourism, and construction. ...

The World Bank has debarred Cambodia’s CDW Construction Co Ltd for three years for fraudulent practices relating to the Ketsana Emergency Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Project. Announced in 2010, the $40 million project aimed to restore transport as well as water and sanitation services to the tens ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday applauded the recent creation of the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB), saying it could ease Cambodia’s dependence on institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). BRICS member nations Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa announced ...

Villagers from Koh Kong province delivered petitions in Phnom Penh on Friday seeking international intervention in their land dispute with powerful businessman and CPP senator Ly Yong Phat, alleging that his Koh Kong Special Economic Zone (SEZ) was encroaching on their farmland. Five representatives of the ...

United Nations human rights expert for Cambodia Surya Subedi has welcomed the political breakthrough reached between the two main political parties in Cambodia. “I welcome the agreement reached between both parties that finally breaks the deadlock that has gripped the country for almost a year,” said ...

Cambodia’s efforts to tackle HIV/AIDS over the past 15 years have won it praise, and put it well ahead of many other low-income countries.  But some of those most involved in the fight against AIDS are worried that an array of challenges could see some of ...

Phnom Penh’s first solar-powered building looks for all the world like a cube of colored Lego blocks dropped in a factory lot on the city’s industrial outskirts. Covered in some 1,350 solar panels — including large panes of multi-colored solar glass — the three-story building ...

Nearly a month after Cambodia’s second universal periodic review (UPR) of its human rights situation at the U.N. in Geneva, rights groups met in Phnom Penh on Thursday to discuss how they can work with the government to ensure that the 163 recommendations it accepted ...

International legal experts are expressing deep concern over proposed changes to Cambodia’s legal system that critics say hand over too much power to the executive.  At a meeting in Phnom Penh Tuesday, a group recommended the three judicial reform laws should be returned to parliament ...

A senior government official has accused authorities involved in the construction and repair of the nation’s roads of embezzling a significant portion of the money budgeted to them. Nhim Vanda, the first vice president of the National Committee for Disaster Management, on Wednesday added his voice ...

More than 100,000 hectares of forest have been replanted across the country since 2008, according to a government report – but about 90 per cent of that amount can be chalked up to private plantations. Produced by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the report, ...

The Ministry of Industry and Handicraft will introduce an online registration platform for Cambodia’s small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) this year, a ministry official confirmed yesterday. Heng Sok Kong, secretary of state at the ministry, said the new software for web registration was built in partnership ...

For Cambodians with disabilities, the launch of two major initiatives in the past two days designed to improve their lives has brought some optimism about the future—tempered by a note of caution. At Koh Pich island on Thursday, in front of a crowd of more than ...

With a rapidly rising population exacerbating the country’s existing infrastructure, the Asia Development Bank (ADB) has highlighted in a new study the Cambodian government’s failure to install effective planning policies in its most densely populated urban centres. The ADB estimates that, driven by work opportunities and ...

Residents of three displaced communities in Phnom Penh on Friday submitted a petition to the office of the European Union delegation, urging it to monitor funds it gives to the government. More than 50 protesters from the Boeng Kak, Borei Keila and Thmor Kol neighborhoods were met ...

About 60 residents from Phnom Penh and the provinces of Battambang, Banteay Meanchey and Preah Sihanouk who lost land or are in danger of losing land due to a railroad development project funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) protested outside its offices Thursday morning ...

Cambodia on Thursday rejected four recommendations for improving its human rights situation that it initially accepted earlier this year during its second universal periodic review at the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva. It also “noted” 38 recommendations—meaning it has not committed to implementing them—some relating ...

The UN human rights envoy to Cambodia says the space for democracy has shrunk following a bloody crackdown on protesters earlier this year. Months of anti-government protests boiled over in January this year, when police open fired on striking workers and opposition supporters. The next day, as ...

About 50 families gathered under a timber roof here Sunday among muddy fields granted to them as compensation after China’s Union Development Group (UDG) began to turn their coastal homeland into a $3.8-billion tourist mecca. The families, who now live in timber houses dotting the barren ...

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) announced Thursday its Integrated Nutrition, Hygiene, and Sanitation Program that will improve the lives of mothers and young children by teaching better nutrition and hygiene practices and increasing the use of latrines.The five-year, $16 million project will benefit ...

U.N. human rights envoy Surya Subedi met with representatives of the country’s businesses and employers Thursday for talks that focused on the protection of workers’ rights and measures that can be taken to ensure that strained industrial relations do not once again erupt into violence. In ...

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Cambodia, Surya Subedi, will visit the country next week to assess the government’s progress in improving human rights and democratic and land reforms, his office said Wednesday. During the 10-day fact-finding mission, beginning June ...

A Battambang bridge project isn’t to blame for blocking a river and preventing water from reaching parched rice fields, an Asian Development Bank investigation concluded yesterday. Bavel district farmers accused the bank-funded construction project of choking the river since construction began in December, leaving their recently ...