Social development
World Bank Urged To Review Policies in Places Like Cambodia
The World Bank is under pressure to review some of its policies around the world to ensure that in countries like Cambodia it is not funding the wrong projects. In a discussion at George Washington University this week, panelists said the World Bank is needed for ...
Cambodia Lacks Research Enough To Tackle Its Problems, Analysts Say
Not enough priority is given to research in Cambodia, threatening its long term development, economists and other experts say. Larry Strange, executive director of the Cambodian Development Research Institute, says the country cannot plan for major reform, build its economy, or reduce poverty without proper analysis ...
Monitoring for Nothing: Is the ILO’s ‘Better Factories’ programme failing the Kingdom’s garment workers?
The United Nations in Cambodia has taken a beating in recent months. The UN-backed Khmer Rouge tribunal has been plagued by high-profile resignations and accusations of political interference. Elsewhere human rights activists have criticised the UN’s failure to take a firm stance against an increasingly ...
Frédéric Janssens
http://sea-globe.com/monitoring-for-nothing/
Rubber Fails: Court Halts Operations Of R’kiri Firm
The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Thursday temporarily suspended the operations of Vietnamese rubber concessionaire Day Dong Yoeung, which has clashed with Jarai ethnic minorities in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadav district since late last year, after its previous manager was jailed on fraud charges, district governor ...
Hun Sen Thanks Student Land-Titling Volunteers
Student volunteers from across the country yesterday took a break from their land-measuring duties to attend a pre-Khmer New Year ceremony at Phnom Penh’s Koh Pitch where they were presented with a thank-you letter from Mr. Hun Sen. Since Mr. Hun Sen launched the land titling ...
Villagers getting ready for DM Group hearing
The Ratanakkiri Provincial Court has issued letters to 11 ethnic Tampuon villagers from the province’s Lumphat district, instructing them to prepare for a hearing over accusations of using violence on the property of rubber company DM Group. DM Group first began setting up rubber plantations in ...
Hun Sen’s Land Titles Receive Rare Praise From Germany
Since Prime Minister Hun Sen announced an ambitious new plan some 10 months ago to make nearly half a million families official land owners, hardly a week goes by that a rural community does not complain of local officials trying to scam the project. But when ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/hun-sens-land-titles-receive-rare-praise-from-germany-17312/
Mondolkiri, Kompong Thom Face Climate Threat
Mondolkiri and Kompong Thom provinces could suffer some of the most extreme effects of climate change in the Lower Mekong Basin region, such as a high incidence of flash floods and droughts by 2050, according to a new study. Analyzing temperature and rainfall from 84 provinces ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/mondolkiri-kompong-thom-face-climate-threat-17224/
Initial Mapping For Communal Titles Underway in Mondolkiri
Initial mapping of three ethnic minority Banong communities in Mondolkiri province got underway yesterday, a critical step in their plans to gain much coveted communal titles to their ancestral land. Established by the 2001 Land Law, communal land titles were designed specifically to protect the ancestral ...
European Lawmakers Press for Probe of Land Concessions
Lawmakers from the European Union (E.U) are again urging the block’s trade commissioner to investigate Cambodia’s Economic Land Concessions (ELCs) over a raft of alleged rights abuses and consider revoking the duty free access their owners currently enjoy to member states. Going mostly to industrial ...
Forestry Administration Fights Logging with Wedding Gardens
As the remains of the county’s forests fall to rapacious illegal loggers and to make way for the government-awarded economic land concessions, officials tasked with forestry protection are hoping newlywed couples can build a last line of defense. “Wedding gardens”- green spaces where newly-married couples are ...
Kuch Naren, P.20
http://www.cambodiadaily.com
Ethnic Jarai villagers defend claim at court
Jarai ethnic minority villagers appeared at Ratanakkiri provincial court yesterday, demanding compensation from a Vietnamese company they say illegally cleared 30 hectares of community land in November last year. Chea Chanrith was granted a licence from the Ministry of Agriculture last year to clear land ...
Banong Families Close to Communal Land Titles
An indigenous ethnic Banong community in Mondolkiri province yesterday began the final stage in acquiring a communal land title, setting it up to become only the sixth community in the country to secure one of the coveted documents. Established by the 2001 Land Law, communal land ...
Titles closer, but ‘land damage done’
Three ethnic Jarai minority communities passed a crucial hurdle on the way to obtaining communal land titles in government-sanctioned ceremonies this week. But a human-rights activist tempered the celebration, saying mass deforestation in the province had already stripped most of the land the villagers are ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013032264629/National/titles-closer-but-land-damage-done.html
NGOs query Lao’s telco promotion
Four NGOs asked the government yesterday to explain the decision to promote Lao Saroeun to an undersecretary of state position in the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, even though he has not been cleared of alleged corruption. “In proper practice, people under investigation for alleged corruption ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013032062034/Business/ngos-query-lao-s-telco-promotion.html
R’kiri minorities say land’s sale improper
Fifty Tampuon ethnic minority families protested yesterday in front of the Soeung Commune Hall in Bakeo district against their commune chief, who they allege sold land that belonged to the Ratanakkiri community. In a complaint filed to rights group Adhoc yesterday, the families claim that commune ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013031962012/National/r-kiri-minorities-say-land-s-sale-improper.html
Myanmar’s siren song
Unions and labour rights groups have spent recent months unashamedly drilling home a stark reminder: Cambodia’s minimum garment wage, at $61 per month, compares poorly with those in Thailand – where workers earn more than $200 a month – and Vietnam, which has a base ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013031861998/National/myanmar-s-siren-song.html
Japan to provide Cambodia with nearly 34 mln USD grant aid
Cambodia will sign to receive 33.9 million U.S. dollars in grant aid from Japan for three projects in small hydropower dams, healthcare and education, according to a news release from Cambodia’s foreign ministry on Monday. ...
Still No Donor to Take Over Communal Land Titling From Canada
The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) said yesterday that it had still found no replacement donor to commit long-term to carrying on its work helping indigenous ethnic minority groups secure communal land titles once it pulls out in May. Kan Vibol, project field manager for CIDA’s ...
Animal feed lucrative but demand not being met
The production of animal feed may be lucrative for family-run businesses, but production is failing to meet the local market’s demand, said industry experts. Ros Limhy, National Agriculture adviser for the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries’ Tonle Sap Poverty Reduction and Smallholder Development project, and ...
Banong Families Receive Communal Land Tiles
Seventy-two ethnic minorities Banong families received communal titles to a combined 1,008 hectares of ancestral land in Mondolkiri province yesterday morning in a ceremony attended by Land Management Minister Chhun Lim. Communal titles were designed to protect the ancestral lands of the country’s minorities from outside ...
The drugs don’t work: Despite the best efforts of the authorities, producers of fake medicines are making a killing in Cambodia
“Counterfeit medicine kills, while real medicine heals.” This was the simple but apt message selected just over a year ago for a poster campaign in Cambodia that aimed to raise awareness of the risks of counterfeit medications, as part of a government crackdown on the ...
EU fund of over $4.5 mln in Cambodia
The European Union in efforts to reduce the poverty rate and secure a free society has awarded $4.5 mln to four projects. These projects will work to improve justice, natural resources, land rights, and build the capabilities of local authorities. Four projects were selected among ...
http://www.thecambodiaherald.com/cambodia/detail/1?page=15&token=ODhhZmVjNmU1OTd
CNRP Rallies Garment Workers With Promises of Change
Speaking to hundreds of garment workers yesterday in Phnom Penh, Kem Sokha, deputy president of the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), appealed to those in attendance to vote for the newly formed opposition party, promising higher wages, social security and free access to schools and ...