Multilateral development assistance
World Bank
World Bank loan of $100 million angers Boeng Kak activists
Boeng Kak supporters on Tuesday said they were dismayed at the World Bank’s announcement of a new $100 million loan to the Cambodian government amid ongoing harassment and jailings of land rights activists. ...
Brendan O’byrne and Sek Odom
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/world-bank-loan-of-100-million-angers-boeng-kak-activists-128160/
WB help sought for logistics
Cambodia has asked the World Bank to assist in the development of the terms of reference for its planned National Logistics Committee, a move that is hoped to improve the transportation sector and reduce costs for exporters. ...
May Kunmakara
http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/26944/wb-help-sought-for-logistics/
Cambodia's economic status raised to lower-middle income
The World Bank has officially revised the status of Cambodia’s economy, moving it up a rung from the low-income bracket into lower-middle income territory – a reclassification that economists expect will lead to a scale-back of foreign aid and preferential trade access over the coming ...
Cam McGrath and Hor Kimsay
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/cambodias-economic-status-raised-lower-middle-income
Cambodia and World Bank expand development engagement to reduce poverty and share prosperity
The government of Cambodia and the World Bank today signed agreements for four projects to improve road surfaces, manage fisheries, improve livelihoods from agriculture in targeted rural communities, and increase access to health care, with funding from the International Development Association, or IDA, the World ...
Bou Saroeun
http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2016/06/09/cambodia-and-world-bank-expand-development-engagement
Government not ready for World Bank loans: US
The U.S. accused the Cambodian government of scaling back the space for free speech and the World Bank of failing to learn from its mistakes in justifying its decision to abstain from a recent Bank vote that approved a sheaf of new loans to Cambodia. ...
Zsombor Peter
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/govt-not-ready-for-world-bank-loans%E2%80%88us-113178/
World bank loans prompt credibility questions
The World Bank’s decision earlier this month to resume lending to Cambodia after a five-year moratorium has drawn criticism from development experts. ...
Sok Khemara
http://www.voacambodia.com/a/world-bank-loans-prompt-credibility-questions/3347308.html
World Bank to re-engage after five-year absence
The World Bank has approved $130 million in developmental aid aimed at reducing poverty in Cambodia, signalling its first direct re-engagement with the Kingdom since it left in protest in 2011 after one of the largest forceful evictions led by the government displaced more than ...
Kali Kotoski
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/world-bank-re-engage-after-five-year-absence
World Bank to vote on ending punitive 5-year funding freeze
The World Bank’s board of directors could vote today to renew a project for landless families in Cambodia that has run into major problems, a move that would effectively lift a five-year freeze on lending its own money to the country in protest over forced ...
Zsombor Peter
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/world-bank-to-vote-on-ending-punitive-5-year-funding-freeze-112778/
Garments to keep economy strong through China slowdown
The World Bank on Monday said it still predicted strong growth from the Cambodian economy—led by garment exports—and only a moderate cooling over the next few years despite a “faster than expected” slowdown in China, Cambodia’s biggest foreign investor. ...
Zsombor Peter
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/garments-to-keep-economy-strong-through-china-slowdown-111225/
Kingdom's economy to remain stable: ADB
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. ...
Kali Kotoski
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/kingdoms-economy-remain-stable-adb
World bank project in trouble before it starts
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, ...
Zsombor Peter and Aun Pheap
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/world-bank-project-in-trouble-before-it-starts-108700/
Protesters hurl eggs at world bank office, promise to return
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. ...
Aun Pheap
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/protesters-hurl-eggs-at-world-bank-office-promise-to-return-108550/
Slowing China to impact Cambodia, region: WB
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. ...
May Kunmakara
http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/19591/slowing-china-to-impact-cambodia--region--wb/
World Bank readies another project
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. ...
Zsombor Peter
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/world-bank-readies-another-project-100986/
World Bank looks to end funding freeze
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. ...
Zsombor Peter
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/world-bank-looks-to-end-funding-freeze-100353/
Cambodia faces turning point on foreign aid
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. ...
Tej Parikh
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/cambodia-faces-turning-point-on-foreign-aid-100205/
First families get land titles in criticized world bank project
The government has handed out the first 250 land titles to the more than 3,000 families in a World Bank-funded project for poor Cambodians that has been criticized by a local rights group for sticking many of those families with unusable land. ...
Zsombor Peter
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/first-families-get-land-titles-in-criticized-world-bank-project-99698/
World Bank says Cambodia will weather China slowdown
The World Bank on Monday stuck to its prediction made in April that the country’s economy would continue to cool off slowly over the next few years and said China’s own slowdown would send only modest ripples through Cambodia. ...
Zsombor Peter
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/world-bank-says-cambodia-will-weather-china-slowdown-96516/
World Bank does little as villagers threatened and jailed for protesting big projects
Nget Khun, a 76-year-old known to some in Cambodia’s capital as “Grandma Mommy,” hasn’t had a quiet retirement. A World Bank spokesperson said the bank is in discussions with the government about “how to support the country’s development in a way that benefits all Cambodians.” ...
Phorn Bopha et al
http://www.voacambodia.com/content/world-bank-does-little-as-villagers-threatened-and-jailed-for-protestting-big-projects/2959923.html
World Bank shows no interest in views on freeze
New documents from the World Bank on its preparations to lift a 2011 freeze on new loans to Cambodia show that the international lender is giving short shrift to public opinion on whether it should restart lending in the first place. ...
Zsombor Peter
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/world-bank-shows-no-interest-in-views-on-freeze-91886/
World Bank urged to help Boeng Kak families
A group of local and international NGOs are urging the World Bank to include a program for helping the thousands of families evicted from Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak neighborhood as part of the plan to start funding new projects in Cambodia. ...
Zsombor Peter
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/world-bank-urged-to-help-boeng-kak-families-91236/
Too soon to issue new loans, NGOs tell World Bank
A group of NGOs on Monday told the World Bank to fix the land-rights problems surrounding its past projects in Cambodia before lifting a freeze on new lending to the country it imposed in 2011 to protest the mass eviction of Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak ...
Zsombor Peter
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/too-soon-to-issue-new-loans-ngos-tell-world-bank-88151/
World Bank hears local officials’ woes for pending 3-year plan
High electricity prices, low wages, limited irrigation and modest rice and crop prices were among the top concerns raised by government officials at a workshop in Phnom Penh on Monday to help the World Bank decide how to spend its money on the country over ...
Aun Pheap and Zsombor Peter
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/world-bank-hears-local-officials-woes-for-pending-3-year-plan-87426/
World bank starts meetings on whether to renew lending
The World Bank on Monday began two weeks of meetings to help it decide whether to start funding new projects in Cambodia after a four-year freeze. ...
Zsombor Peter
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/world-bank-starts-meetings-on-whether-to-renew-lending-86898/