Social development

Experts on Monday requested farmers to rethink the use of chemicals, particularly the mixing of them, a practice causing serious impacts on the health of both people and animals, and harming the natural environment. The issue was discussed at a workshop run by international development ...

African swine fever has spread to parts of Vietnam that border Cambodia’s Ratanakkiri and Kratie provinces, a Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries official said on Friday. Tan Phannara, the General Directorate of Animal Health and Production director-general, told a Phnom Penh workshop that he ...

Ouk Chetana, a 39-year-old mother of two, sits on a bamboo bed in a temporary home after the house she had lived in since 2009 was destroyed by authorities, as the village she shared with some 200 other families was deemed to have encroached on ...

Government spokesman Phay Siphan said on Monday that Preah Sihanouk province will become a second Singapore, as authorities were warned that its development, fuelled largely by Chinese investment, was coming at a cost to locals. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen said on Sunday that he was considering introducing the death penalty for people who rape children, but he said it would only happen after a nationwide referendum. He was speaking during a meeting in the capital’s Dangkor district with 44 staff ...

Some 400 women from various associations, unions and civil society organisation were blocked by Phnom Penh municipal security forces from marching from the Olympic Stadium to the Council of Ministers to deliver a joint petition on International Women’s Day which fell on Friday. ...

A Bunong ethnic community representative on Tuesday claimed Mondulkiri provincial officials have not begun measuring land for the Hill Tribes Cultural Centre in the Phnom Dos Kramom mountain area even though they had received an order to do so from Prime Minister Hun Sen late ...

The US Agency for International Development (USAID) has provided more than $1 million to a Collective Action to Support Women’s Rights (CASWR) project to promote the leadership and engagement of women in politics. The CASWR initiative is a 32-month project designed to advance meaningful representation ...

Women’s Affairs Minister Ing Kantha Phavi and National Assembly president Heng Samrin yesterday highlighted an increase in the number of women who are working in the public sector during a celebration to mark the upcoming International Women’s Day on Friday. Ms Kantha Phavi said females accounted ...

As International Women’s Day approaches, 12 organisations have finished drafting a petition calling on the government to continue to address challenges women are facing, including violence, inequality and poverty. The 12 organisations include the Centre for Alliance of Labour and Human Rights, Coalition of Cambodian ...

Minister of Education, Youth and Sport Hang Chuon Naron met with representatives of Microsoft on Wednesday at the National Sport Training Center in Phnom Penh to support the multinational firm’s assistance with the development and expansion of the New Generation Schools (NGS) programme. ...

The German government has committed €5 million (about $5.68 million) to a joint government and civil society programme to boost cooperation between local authorities, local service providers and the public to improve performance. The German Embassy announced the funding of the Implementation of Social Accountability ...

Civil society organisations dealing with environmental issues yesterday urged the Environment Ministry to disclose environmental impact assessment reports due to a lack of public information on whether or not companies comply with their reports after development projects have been approved. In a workshop on “Promoting Environmental ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen advised people on Monday not to be irrationally afraid of rabies to the extent of flocking to get vaccinated against the disease, and rendering institutions unable to provide timely services. The prime minister’s call came during the 7th National Clean City ...

More than 1,000 cases of dengue fever have been reported so far this year, a number similar to that reported over the same period last year, said Leang Rithea, the dengue control programme manager at the National Centre for Parasitology, Entomology and Malaria Control. Rithea ...

A Cambodian official reported last week that about 23 percent of children in three provinces along the border with Thailand have stopped attending school. Cambodian Education Minister Hangchuon Naron spoke at a conference about the student dropout rate. He said that the rate in Battambang, Banteay Meanchey ...

The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport (MoEYS) launched the Basic Education Equivalency Programme (Beep) on Sunday – an internet-based education programme for Cambodian youths in grades seven to nine who have dropped out of school – at the Institute of Technology of Cambodia (ITC). ...

In an agreement signed at the Embassy of Japan in Phnom Penh on Tuesday, Shanti Volunteer Association (SVA) received a $529,068 grant from from the Japanese government to carry out its projects aimed at improving early childhood education in Battambang. In a press release, the ...

Information Minister Khieu Kanharith yesterday confirmed that the draft law on Access to Information has been inserted into the 6th mandate of the government’s strategic plan. In an announcement dated yesterday that addressed public and civil society groups’ requests, Mr Kanharith said the ministry had ...

Eleven people at the centre of a case involving seven indigenous Bunong villages in Mondulkiri province pursuing legal action in France have expressed disappointment after the French embassy in Phnom Penh denied their visa applications to attend court. A press release said the 11 included ...

The EU on Monday announced that it has begun the 18-month process of withdrawing the Kingdom’s access to its preferential Everything But Arms (EBA) agreement over “a deterioration of democracy [and] respect for human rights”. ...

A group of 19 non-governmental organisations and associations have urged the Kingdom’s legislative and executive bodies to expedite the passage of a draft law on freedom of information, which the group said had been delayed for years. ...

The Ministry of Environment has funded a Cambodia Climate Change Alliance project and selected five schools to test climate change response strategies by planting trees and developing gardens with increased biodiversity. ...

The Justice Ministry yesterday hit back at US-based Human Rights Watch over a report accusing the government of failing to provide free medical treatment for victims of acid attacks or take action against perpetrators. HRW on Monday issued a 48-page report titled “What Hell Feels Like: ...