Social development

About 120 students at a Christian school in Oddar Meanchey’s Trapaing Prasat district came down with food poisoning after consuming a dessert served by the school on Wednesday, though officials confirmed that all were “recovering well”.​ ...

In a move activists fear could endanger thousands of Cambodian children, Thailand plans to reduce the number of children of illegal migrants living in the country to zero by 2020, according to a newspaper report. Thailand is the top destination for Cambodians seeking work abroad, with ...

Education Minister Hang Chuon Naron has unveiled a plan to add coursework on entrepreneurship to the school and university curricula starting in the next academic year, state news agency AKP said yesterday. ...

Acleda Bank, a leading locally-owned commercial bank, has received a $30 million loan from the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), the US government’s development finance institution, through Goldman Sachs’ 10,000 Women and the International Finance Corporation’s (IFC) Banking on Women program for supporting women-owned small ...

Cambodia fell four spots in a 2016 ranking of internet freedom across the world released yesterday, with the organization behind it tying the drop to a spate of arrests for nothing more than Facebook posts and a much-maligned telecommunications law that critics say gives the ...

The United Nations is standing behind Office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) country representative Wan-Hea Lee after a letter signed by Foreign Minister Prak Sokhon accused her of failing to respect Cambodia’s sovereignty.​ ...

A new tech-centered co-working space is challenging the country’s young leaders to find practical ways technology can be utilized to create a positive impact on the day-to-day lives of people. ...

The ban on surrogate pregnancies announced by the health minister on Monday will remain in place until the government drafts a law protecting Cambodian women giving birth to the children of other parents, an official said on Thursday. ...

More than 100 former Boeung Kak and Borei Keila residents submitted petitions to the premier and various ministries in Phnom Penh yesterday, asking for intervention in their respective land disputes and making various other requests. ...

The health minister has banned surrogate pregnancy arrangements in the country, putting the brakes on what appeared to be a quickly expanding—if controversial—industry. The move comes just days after the justice minister called for the practice to be outlawed. ...

Companies should embrace the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in their operations and encourage a positive impact through their activities on the environment, consumers, employees, communities, stakeholders and all other members of the public, said an NGO official yesterday. “CSR-focused businesses would proactively promote public ...

Civil society groups are getting closer to unveiling a new set of guidelines that will change how the impact of big development projects is assessed across the Mekong region, NGOs said yesterday, following the end of a two-month public consultation period. ...

The public has spoken and among their top priorities for spearheading sustainable development in Cambodia are eradicating poverty, administering quality education and achieving peace and justice, according to a new survey published by NGO World Vision. The survey takes focus on 2030’s UN Sustainable Development Goals ...

A project in Stung Treng province is giving women the opportunity to participate in one of the fastest-growing food-production sectors in Cambodia: aquaculture fisheries – a field that has also traditionally been among its most male-dominated. ...

Amid reports of the emergence of the Zika virus in Myanmar and the discovery of the first birth defect believed linked to the virus in Vietnam, two researchers with Phnom Penh’s Pasteur Institute have concluded that Cambodia is at high risk of its own Zika ...

Cambodian betel nut chewers are six times more at risk of contracting potentially malignant oral cancers, according to a new report. The study surveyed 1,634 people in Phnom Penh, Kampot, Kampong Cham, Pursat and Stung Treng and found that 54 percent had oral lesions – white ...

Pen Sovann, Cambodia’s first prime minister after the Vietnamese invasion in January 1979 that swept the Khmer Rouge from power and a serving opposition member of parliament, passed away at his home in Takeo province’s Duan Keo town on Saturday evening aged 80. ...

Ten students will have the opportunity to further their studies for free thanks to Smart Axiata’s SmartEdu Scholarship Program, which not only covers their entire tertiary education tuition, but has also awarded them a monthly stipend amounting to $15,000 for the duration of their degree. ...

At least 17,571 hectares of rice fields were affected by the recent floods – of which about 3,186 hectares were severely damaged, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) yesterday, which urged all provincial agriculture departments to immediately evaluate the affects from ...

As part of ongoing education reforms, a new curriculum set to be implemented in 2018 will address the lack of career counselling in high schools across Cambodia, a Ministry of Education official told attendees of an education forum yesterday. ...

An election watchdog yesterday announced it had uncovered plans to move registration stations closer to military bases in Kampong Speu, Tbong Khmum and Kampong Chhnang provinces.​ ...

Authorities in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadav district were thwarted in their attempt to inspect an ethnic Jarai community’s timber stocks on Tuesday, with some officials and observers ascribing the incident to a clash of cultures. ...

Despite having access to other sources of information about the election process, including television and smartphones, Cambodia’s urban poor remain heavily reliant on potentially biased village-level officials when it comes to voter registration, according to a new report. ...

Cambodia’s indigenous groups populate much more of the country than was previously known, but many are also at risk of disappearing, according to yet-to-be-published research.​ ...