Multilateral development assistance

As the World Bank considers supplying fresh loans to Cambodia, a new study uses the country as exhibit A for how the financier effectively sponsors corporate land grabs at the expense of the rural poor it purportedly helps. Three years ago, the bank’s own inspectors found ...

Cambodia’s economic growth is forecasted to reach 7.2 percent in 2014, and 7.5 percent next year according to a report by World Bank on Monday. The report said Cambodia’s garments continue to be the key engine of growth, followed by construction. The poverty rate continued to ...

Foreign Affairs Minister Hor Namhong addressed the UN’s General Assembly on Monday, in a speech that focused more on the threat of the Islamic State and international conflicts than it did on Cambodian issues. Hor Namhong told the Assembly that Cambodia supports joint international efforts to ...

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) announced last week a $30 million loan aimed at overhauling Cambodia’s technical and vocational education system (TVET). According to a September 26 statement issued by the ADB, the new funding will go towards launching a “competency-based” assessment and certification process, and ...

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has maintained its growth projections for Cambodia in 2014. The ADB’s midyear outlook for Cambodia, released yesterday, states that Cambodia’s economy still stands to achieve 7 per cent growth by the end of the year, and potentially 7.3 per cent in ...

Cambodia may be on the verge of a new era in human rights protection, an independent United Nations human rights expert declared today, adding that while the political momentum in the country was headed in a “positive direction,” a strong human rights infrastructure was still ...

About 100 anti-eviction activists from the Boeng Kak, Borei Keila and Lor Peang communities held their latest joint protest outside the World Bank office on Thursday over a recent announcement that it is considering the resumption of loan to the government after a three-year freeze. ...

The World Bank is contemplating a $25-million project to build up 15 social land concessions (SLCs) across Cambodia and could approve the scheme as soon as December, according to a proposal posted to the Bank’s website late last month, a move that would end its ...

A proposed project hopes to channel the widespread use of mobile phones among factory workers to bring the voice of the 600,000 Cambodians employed in the crucial garment sector into future wage negotiations. The project, which would collect information about working hours, conditions, wages and expenses ...

Weak logistics have stood in the way of Cambodia’s trade progress for years with its export costs at least 30 percent higher than those of Southeast Asian neighbours Thailand and Vietnam. Getting the goods from farmers to markets remains difficult, and exporters struggle to supply overseas ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday defended his government, saying its reputation for corruption is undeserved, laying blame on the private sector for initiating the bribe process and calling out international development partners for applying double standards. Speaking at the Eighth Regional Conference of Anti-Corruption Intiative for ...

The government has finished calculating the additional compensation it will pay out to some of the families forced to move for a $143 million railway rehabilitation project being funded mostly by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), according to a new report. The report, released this week ...

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Wednesday that countries and economies in Asia and the Pacific region needed to work together to fight against corruption. ...

Cambodia needs to develop a trade logistics plan to align the Kingdom with the regional production network and increase its competitiveness as an investment destination, a senior World Bank economist said yesterday. ...

About 50 villagers who live near railway lines in Phnom Penh gathered outside the Asian Development Bank yesterday morning to again demand more detailed information about what will happen to them during forthcoming phases of a bank-funded railway rehabilitation project. ...

Cambodia on Monday launched a five-year policy and action plan for early childhood care and development with an aim to increase enrollment and enhance protection for children aged less than six years old. ...

The UN and human rights groups called on the government Friday to honor its obligations as a party to the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance and thoroughly investigate the disappearance of 16-year-old Khem Sopath, who was last seen lying ...

Cambodia stands to be the biggest beneficiary, in terms of GDP growth, for the first decade following ASEAN Economic Integration in 2015, according to a study released publicly today by the International Labour Organisation (ILO). The ILO’s 160-page report says Cambodia could see a 19.9 per ...

Cambodia’s GDP per capita is expected to reach 1,130 U.S. dollars this year, an estimated increase of 8 percent from 1,043 U.S. dollars last year, Prime Minister Hun Sen said Monday. ...

The UN Children’s Fund in Australia has warned volunteers and tourists to avoid visiting Cambodian orphanages following critical reports from the press in recent weeks. In a post on its website, UNICEF Australia said “these types of tours exploit children and their families for the financial ...

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) will provide nine poor rural provinces in Cambodia with year-round access to markets and social services through a 118 million U.S. dollars project to provide a safer, cost-effective rural road network, the bank said in a press statement on Monday. ...

Phnom Penh families who face losing a part of their land to a railway rehabilitation project being funded primarily by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) protested in front of the bank’s country headquarters Monday over what they say has been a lack of transparency about ...

A controversial deal to allow Australia to send refugees to Cambodia is imminent and could be signed as early as this week, sources have told Fairfax Media. The Australian and Cambodian governments have been negotiating for months over a deal to resettle up to 1000 refugees ...

Most of the infrastructure required for enhanced connectivity in the Greater Mekong Subregion has been put in place, particularly the transport links that form the base of the envisaged economic corridors, Bindu Lohani, vice president of the Asian Development Bank, said yesterday. He made the remark ...