Democratic Reform Needed to Ensure Growth, Prosperity
With the long-ruling CPP sworn in to govern for another five years despite the opposition CNRP abstaining from sitting in the National Assembly due to election irregularities, a new report argues that imminent threats to Cambodia’s future development can only be overcome with significant government reforms to improve democratic governance. The comprehensive analysis by Cambodia Development Research Institute (CDRI)—a think tank with long and close relations with the government—examines Cambodia’s development over the past two decades and sets out the many challenges it now faces in meeting ambitious socio-economic targets. … Sustainable growth can only be achieved with improvements in equality, health, education, industry, the environment, business investment, good governance and democracy—every area of governable society, the report states. … By April 2013, the country’s per capita income had risen from about $240 in 1993 to $970, putting it just below the $1,025 benchmark that the World Bank uses to classify “lower-middle income” economies, which the report says could be reached by 2015. In 2009, only 1 percent of GDP in Cambodia was spent on government-funded safety nets including child welfare, health care assistance and unemployment benefits, lagging far behind Vietnam’s 4.7 percent of GDP. … A lack of government investment in education also leads to a lack of skills for expanding that industrial base, according to the report. Businesses also shy away from expanding to Cambodia due to corruption, cronyism in awarding land concessions and disparity in international and local human rights obligations. … “[A] democracy characterized by an independent genuine multi-party system, a better balance between the legislative and the executive arms of the government, an independent judiciary, enhancement of civil liberties, a more independent and impartial National Election Committee, and above all, change in the political culture that enables better citizen participation in decision-making,” the report says. But as the CPP carries on regardless of the will of almost half the voting population, the government’s strategy of implementing any of these reforms remains to be seen. …
Simon Henderson
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/democratic-reform-needed-to-ensure-growth-prosperity-43690/
