Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009

June 2010

contents

Map of Cambodia...... iii

Acronyms and Abbreviations...... v

Executive Summary...... 1

SECTION I: Introduction...... 5 1.1 Purpose of this Document...... 5 1.2 Process of CCA Development...... 5 1.3 Conceptual Framework of the CAA...... 6

SECTION II: Overview of Country Context...... 9 Historical Background...... 9

Development Context...... 9

Macro-economic Environment...... 10

Impact of Current Economic Crisis...... 11

Population Trends...... 12

Social and Cultural Context...... 14

Human Rights Issues...... 15

SECTION III: Strategic Analysis of the Current Context...... 17 3.1 Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction...... 17 3.2 Education...... 28 3.3 Health...... 32 3.4 Social Protection...... 37 3.5 Governance...... 43 3.6 Summary of CMDG Achievement...... 49

SECTION IV: Causal Analysis on Major Development Problems: Rights Holder Perspective...... 55 4.1 Duty Bearer Perspective...... 55 4.2 Rights Holder Perspective...... 57

Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 i SECTION V: Conclusions...... 59

ANNEXES ...... 63 Annex A: Initial Areas and Issues to Guide the CCA Analysis...... 63 Annex B: Structure of Coordination of External Assistance in Cambodia...... 65 Annex C: Cambodia MDG Indicators and Targets...... 67 Annex D: References...... 73

FIGURES Figure 1: Triple A Diagram...... 6 Figure 2: Real GDP Growth (Y/Y percent Change...... 11 Figure 3: 2005 Age Pyramid...... 13 Figure 4: PLHIV Projections...... 14 Figure 5: Urban and Rural Poverty and Inequality...... 17 Figure 6: Primary gross and net enrollment rates (both sexes, 1997-2008)...... 29 Figure 7: Summary of Progress in Achieving CMDG Targets...... 53 Figure 8: Cambodia CCA Causal Diagram...... 56

ii Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 MAP of cambodia

104° 105° 106° LAO PEOPLE'S 107° DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC CAMBODIA THAILAND

Samrong Cheom Ksan Siempang an g g S 14 en n 14 ° Sr o °

K BANTEAY Phnom Thbeng Meanchey STUNG RATANAKIRI MEANCHEY TRENG Boung Long Poipet SIEM REAP PREAH VIHEAR g n o Sisophon k Lumphat Angkor Wat e Stung Treng M

has C n Battambang e 13° Tonle S 13° Sap Pailin BATTAMBANG KAMPONG THOM MONDOL Moung KRATIE Roessei Kampong KIRI Pursat Thom Chinit Kratie Senmonorom m a T e o P n Kampong le

Chhnang

PURSAT S a

KAMPONG p KAMPONG CHAM 12 Snoul 12 ° CHHNANG Kampong Cham ° ekong M VIET NAM

KAMPONG Phnom Prey GULF Krong Penh Veng OF Koh Kong SPEU PREY National capital THAILAND KOH KONG Kampong Ta Khmau VENG Provincial capital Speu KANDAL Banam B Town, village a SVAY

s s Major airport

a RIENG Sre k International boundary Ambel Chhak Takeo Svay Rieng Provincial boundary Kampong Rroad Saom KAMPOT TAKEO CAMBODIA Railroad Bok Kou Sihanoukville Kampot 0 10 20 30 40 mi The boundaries and names shown and the designations SIHANOUKVILLE used on this map do not imply official endorsement or 0 20 40 60 km 103° 104° 105° acceptance by the United Nations.

Map No. 3860 Rev. 4 UNITED NATIONS Department of Peacekeeping Operations January 2004 Cartographic Section

Number of provinces 24 Percentage of urban population 19.5% Number of districts 185 Annual population growth rate 1.54% Number of communes 1,621 Density of population 75 per km² Number of villages 14,073 Sex ratio (males per 100 females) 94.2 Population (both sexes) 13,388,910 Average size of household 4.7 Male 6,495,512 Female 6,893,398 Source: General Population Census of Cambodia 2008 - Provisional Population Totals, National Institute of Statistics (NIS), August 2008

The designations employed and the presentation of material on this map do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Secretariat of the United Nations concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries.

Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 iii

ACRONYMS & ABBREVIATIONS

ADB Asian Development Bank BE Bilingual Education CAMFEBA Cambodia Federation of Employers and Business Associations CAS Cambodia Anthropometric Survey CCA Common Country Assessment CCDM Commune Committee for Disaster Management CCWC Commune Committee for Women and Children CDC Council for the Development of Cambodia CDCF Cambodia Development Cooperation Forum CDRI Cambodia Development Research Institute CEDAW Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination against Women CMDG Cambodia Millennium Development Goals CPP Cambodian People’s Party CRC Convention on the Rights of the Child CRDB Cambodian Rehabilitation and Development Board CTIS Cambodia Trade Integration Strategy D&D Decentralization and Deconcentration DfID Department for International Development (UK) DP Development Partner DTIS Diagnostic Trade Integration Strategy EC European Commission ECCD Early Childhood Care and Development ECD Early Childhood Development ECE Early Childhood Education EFA Education for All ELC Economic Land Concession ESP Education Strategic Plan

Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 v ESSP Education Sector Support Programme FA Forestry Administration FDI Foreign Direct Investment GDCC Government-Donor Coordination Committee GDI Gender Development Index GDP Gross Domestic Product GEM Gender Empowerment Measure GER Gross Enrolment Rate GMAG Gender Mainstreaming Action Group HEF Health Equity Funds HIV Human Immunodeficiency Virus HRBA Human Rights Based Approach HSP Health Strategic Plan IDU Injecting Drug User IFC International Finance Corporation ILO International Labour Organisation JICA Japan International Cooperation Agency JMIs Joint Monitoring Indicators LDC Least Developed Countries LSS Lower Secondary School MBPI Merit-Based Pay Initiative MDG Millennium Development Goals MoE Ministry of Environment MoEYS Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport MoH Ministry of Health MoJ Ministry of Justice MoLVT Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training MoWA Ministry of Women’s Affairs MSA Ministry of Social Affairs MSM Men Who Have Sex With Men NAA National AIDS Authority

vi Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 NEC National Election Committee NER Net Enrolment Rate NGO Non-Governmental Organisation NSDP National Strategic Development Plan NTB National Training Board ODA Official Development Assistance OVC Orphans and Vulnerable Children PBA Programme Based Approaches PLHIV People Living with HIV PMG Priority Mission Group PMTCT Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission (of HIV) RGC Royal Government of Cambodia RH Reproductive Health SIDA Swedish International Development Agency SME Small and Medium Enterprises SPS Sanitary and Phytosanitary SRSG Special Representative of the Secretary-General SSC School Support Committee STI Sexually Transmitted Infections SWAp Sector Wide Approach TA Technical Assistance TVET Technical and Vocational Education and Training TWG Technical Working Groups UN United Nations UNCT United Nations Country Team UNDAF United Nations Development Assistance Framework UNTAC United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia USG UNDAF Steering Group UXO Unexploded Ordnance VCT Voluntary Counselling and Testing (for HIV/AIDS) WB World Bank WTO World Trade Organisation

Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 vii

Executive summary

This document presents a complementary Common Country Assessment (CCA), prepared by the United Nations Country Team (UNCT) in Cambodia, based on existing analyses, as part of the overall process of developing the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) for the period 2011-2015.

Country Context With the formulation of its Rectangular Strategy, and the National Strategic Development Plan (NSDP), the Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC) has taken firm ownership of the national development agenda. The RGC has put in place mechanisms designed to coordinate external assistance and enhance its effectiveness in pursuing its four priority areas: enhancement of the agriculture sector; further rehabilitation and construction of physical infrastructure; private sector development and employment generation; and capacity building and human resource development; with good governance at the centre of the strategy as a prerequisite to sustainable development. Cambodia has enjoyed a period of robust economic growth, growing at an average of 6 percent from 1993 to 2003, and 11.1 percent for 2004-2007, relying mostly on garment exports, and the tourism and construction industries, while maintaining low inflation (below 6 percent per annum) and a stable exchange rate. High economic growth, generated in urban areas, has reduced overall poverty rates at the national level dramatically from 47 percent in 1993 to 30 percent in 2007. Recent global events have, however, resulted in a substantial downward revision of all growth estimates, changed to -1 percent for 2009 and approximately 3 percent for 2010, highlighting Cambodia’s relatively narrow economic base and its vulnerability to external events. Eighty percent of Cambodia’s 13.4 million people live in rural areas; however, the trend of urbanisation is increasing. Approximately half the population is under 20 years of age, and with close to 250,000 youth entering the workforce each year, the youth are moving to the cities to seek jobs. This presents both opportunities in terms of an abundant youthful workforce, and challenges in relation to increased migration, changed aspirations and exposure to various risks. Progress in the national development agenda is affected by deeply rooted hierarchichal relationships that underlie governance processes, continued prevalence of traditional gender norms, low levels of trust and social cohesion resulting from decades of trauma and difficulties in the realisation of their economic, social, civil and political rights by all rights holders.

Strategic Analysis of Current Situation

Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction While poverty has decreased substantially over the last 10 years, the benefits of growth have not been equitably distributed, resulting in increased inequality in the country: a third of the population still lives below the poverty line and approximately 12 percent face hunger and food insecurity. The recent economic downturn has resulted in substantial job losses, which have mainly affected the garment, tourism, and construction

Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 1 sectors in urban areas. Combined with increased food and gas prices, the downturn is already causing reversals of the recent gains in poverty reduction, straining the country’s ability to achieve its CMDG targets of reducing overall poverty levels to 19.5 percent by 2015.1 Diversification in industry and services is a must, but accelerating poverty reduction in Cambodia is largely about improving the rural and urban informal economy, and the RGC is now turning with increased urgency to agriculture as a source of sustained growth and livelihood enhancement. While there is immense potential in agriculture, a number of challenges must be overcome to diversify the economy and increase investment in agriculture. In addition to technical barriers in agriculture, these challenges include: diversifying the economy and increasing investment in agriculture; addressing the issue of land ownership and land titling; an unfavourable business climate; low levels of skills in the workforce; limited access to productive employment opportunities and decent work; inadequacy of the existing vocational training options; supply constraints and technical barriers to trade; low levels of climate change awareness and disaster preparedness; limited access to water and sanitation; and the absence of a productive safety net which would shield the rural poor from shocks and encourage entrepreneurship and risk taking. Assistance to the urban informal economy should target: micro credit, vocational training and skill improvement; safety and work place improvement; improved access to water and sanitation in communities; and protection of land tenure security. Specific strategies are also required to address the potentially destabilising youth unemployment issue, gender disparities in access to economic opportunities, increasing risks of trafficking and HIV infection.

Education Significant progress has been made in key education indicators in recent years, including raising the national Primary Net Enrolment Rate (NER) to 94.42 while closing the geographical and gender gaps, doubling the Lower Secondary NER and improving the national youth literacy rate. The current challenges in education include closing the remaining gap in primary enrolment, the high proportion of over-age children in primary education, low completion rates, low levels of early childhood education, low levels of parent and community participation in education, low quality of education, and issues of the relevance of education.

Health Significant progress has also been made in key health indicators between 2000 and 2005: infant and under five mortality rates have almost reached their CMDG targets; immunisation rates and feeding practices are steadily improving; antenatal care from trained health personnel has increased substantially; access to improved water supplies is on target; innovative financial schemes have been developed to protect the poor from the costs of public sector user fees; the number of casualties from mines and unexploded ordnance has decreased considerably; and the HIV prevalence rate was brought down to 0.9 percent in 2006. Areas of concern include the high maternal and neonatal mortality ratios, child malnutrition and the reach of health services to rural communities. The key challenges faced by the Health Sector relate to human resource management, service delivery, financing, governance, epidemiological transition and occupational health and safety. An additional challenge is maintaining the gains made in HIV prevention and address the risks of a second wave epidemic due to behaviours among groups at particular risk of HIV infection. Significant inequities also persist between rural and urban areas, across provinces and among people with different educational levels and economic status. Lack of access to health services plays a major role in maintaining or furthering poverty.

1 National Strategic Development Plan (NSDP) Mid-Term Review 2008 2 Ministry of Education , Youth and Sport (MoEYS) 2009

2 Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 Social Protection The formal and informal social safety nets which could help the poor, both in rural and urban areas, and the vulnerable manage risks and encourage a degree of productive risk-taking remain weak. The RGC’s limited financial resources have been allocated to support civil service pensions, veterans’ benefits and vocational education, and the support of NGOs and donors have been relied upon to fill the gaps in reaching the poor and vulnerable. Given Cambodia’s high poverty rates and limited financial resources, it is a priority for the country to focus on developing a sound safety net system as the first stage in the long-term task of establishing an effective and affordable social protection system. Helping households manage the potential impoverishing effects of health expenses, diversifying sources of income and improving labour market opportunities in rural areas, particularly for the large proportion of young people entering the workforce, and protecting Cambodia’s children and youth, are priority areas.

Governance While elections are now peaceful and technically free and fair, improvement is still needed in meeting International standards, the strengthening of legislative and judicial functions is also necessary. There is no culture or institutionalised mechanisms for participation of civil society in decision-making and civil society itself still lacks the capacity to reach out to and represent local constituencies in a coherent way. The decentralization process has provided opportunities for increased participation; decision-making and experience in leadership roles for both men and women at the local level and is beginning to open up democratic space at that level. The recent promulgation of the Organic Law is also expected to accelerate the process of deconcentration and help provide the local level with the necessary technical support and services to take greater responsibility for managing local affairs. However, a greater effort is necessary to empower the local governments to better plan and govern their territories. Reform processes in Public Administration and Financial Management have shown some progress, but the quality and efficiency of public service remains a challenge because of the complexity of reform, lackof capacity and traditional structures which underlie the governance system. While the RGC’s legal and judicial reform programme has received strong donor support, the ability of the courts to provide citizens with a system for realisation of their rights is still limited.

Causal Analysis of Main Development Problems Analysis of causal factors and relationships in the areas described above reveals that further progress in achieving national development goals and maintaining international commitments is constrained by a number of interrelated factors. From the duty bearer side, these factors include low staff motivation, budget limitations and leakage of resources, patronage relationships and the absence of mechanisms for participation and accountability. From a rights holder perspective, the factors include a lack of access to services; inequitable distribution of available services; low utilisation of services due to high access costs to households; limited productive employment opportunities and decent work due to an unskilled workforce; poor investment climate and technical barriers to trade; the absence of an effective safety net that would allow the poor to take risks in improving their productivity; and the depletion of natural resources and landlessness, which lock the poor in a vicious circle of poverty. Their effective participation in decisions that affect their lives is constrained by their lack of capacity and low awareness of rights, low trust and social cohesion, fear of participation, and gender norms that both prevent women from speaking up and cause others to put a lower priority on the fulfilment of their rights.

United Nations DevelopmentCambodia Common Assistance Country Framework Assessment 2011-2015 2009 3 Conclusions From the foregoing analysis, it appears that key issues to be addressed in the UNDAF development process include: economic revitalisation and growth for large scale productive employment and decent work creation, in both the rural and urban economies; the development of a sustainable safety net system and improved vocational options that would shield the poor from shocks and stimulate their entrepreneurship; enhancing the institutionalisation of constructive dialogue between rights holders and duty bearers to achieve improved equitable and quality service delivery, especially in the social areas; strong attention to redressing gender imbalances in all sectors; more effective capacity development processes; a frank dialogue about patronage, the rule of law and respect for human rights; and contributing to more coherent development cooperation in support of the national agenda.

4 Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 I Introduction

1.1 Purpose of this Document A Common Country Assessment (CCA) is prepared by United Nations Country Teams (UNCT) as part of the overall process of developing a United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF), which is designed to guide the action of all UN agencies with programmes and projects in the country within a united, focused and coherent framework for action. A CCA is intended to contribute to the analytical framework of the country and can take several forms, ranging from a full-blown exercise of data collection and national consultation to supporting existing national analytic processes. In reviewing the analytical framework for Cambodia in preparation for the 2011-2015 UNDAF, the Cambodia UNCT determined that this framework was already quite explicit and sufficient to understand the current situation and trends and that it only needed to be complemented by a UNCT led unified analysis. The purpose of this document is, therefore, to present the results of this ’complementary’ CCA. It is intended to establish a common analytical foundation for key issues affecting national development, and act as a basis for advocacy, policy dialogue and preparation of the UNDAF. In doing so, the CCA provides: • An overview and summary of the national development situation in Cambodia in the context of Cambodia’s own national priorities, the Cambodia Millennium Development Goals (CMDG) and its commitment to various international conventions; • An analysis of key development challenges in Cambodia; and • An identification of potential priorities for UN attention, for inclusion in the 2011-2015 UNDAF. The remainder of Section I presents the process of CCA development and the conceptual framework that has guided its development. Section II presents a summary of the civil, cultural, economic, political and social context and major trends. Section III provides a strategic analysis of the key national development issues, trends and capacity gaps in relation to progress made towards national priorities. In Section IV, the various analyses of the previous section are brought together in a common causal framework which provides an overview of the relationships and dynamics of various identified causal factors. Finally, in Section V, the main issues that arise from the analysis are briefly presented and discussed as a bridge towards the development of the UNDAF.

1.2 Process of CCA Development This CCA is the collective endeavour of all 23 UN agencies with programmes and projects in Cambodia. In light of the large number of existing national analyses of various aspects of the development situation in Cambodia, which are themselves outcomes of extensive participatory processes involving RGC agencies, donors, the NGO community and national research institutions, this complementary analysis has consisted mainly of a desk review of approximately 100 documents (listed in Appendix E) and several working sessions with members of the UNDAF Steering Group (USG) representing UN agencies present or implementing projects or programmes in Cambodia.

Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 5 At a preliminary workshop held on 20 April 2009 with the UNCT, the causal analysis was presented for discussion and possible development areas to be addressed in the CCA were identified, which included livelihoods, education, health, social protection and governance with gender, youth, population, HIV, equity and human rights as cross-cutting issues as indicated in Appendix A. Based on this preliminary discussion and review of all the documents listed in Appendix E, the preparation of the CCA prioritised the development of fact sheets for each key development area containing a summary of the policy context, current status of key indicators, current challenges, cross-cutting issues and a preliminary causal analysis in each area. These fact sheets were presented and discussed with the USG on 25 May 2009 and received extensive comments. Members of the USG also participated in a causal analysis exercise for each of the key areas, which served to consolidate and refine the initial analysis. Additional interviews were conducted with selected individuals to address areas that were found to be weak or incomplete and this, as well as the comments received on the fact sheets, helped to substantially modify the information contained in the fact sheets. The common causal analysis presented in Figure 7 was also presented and discussed with the USG on 4 June 2009 and modified accordingly. A first draft of this document was circulated and received detailed comments resulting in this final document.

1.3 Conceptual Framework of the CCA Analysis cannot be neutral: all analysis is done in the context of an implicit or explicit conceptual framework with specific underlying values, guiding principles, approaches and methodologies. The UN Country Team adopts a human rights-based approach in undertaking country analyses and advocates for priorities in the national development framework. It must take as its reference the commitments, goals and targets of the Millennium Declaration and other relevant international conferences and summits, as well as human rights treaties and conventions. These instruments, and the principles of universality, equality, non- discrimination, equity, participation, accountability, and justice that are enshrined in them, provide an agreed upon and universal lens through which to perceive and define development problems. The focus of development intervention, from a human rights perspective, is the marginalised, the disadvantaged and the excluded. Human rights based approaches aim to reduce disparities, and the motivation for such intervention is an obligation to act. The poor, the vulnerable, the excluded, or the oppressed, thus become ’rights holders’ and must be empowered to claim their rights. Those who, by virtue of their authority, position or social function, have a responsibility to respect, protect and facilitate the realisation of these rights, the ’duty bearers’, should see it as their primary concern to support these rights holders as they strive to rise to the challenge of realising their rights.

Figure 1. Triple A Diagram

Assessment

Human Rights Action Analysis

6 Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 The realisation of these rights requires decisions and choices to be made. All decision-making can be seen as an iterative process of assessment, analysis and action (Jonsson’s ’Triple A’ concept1 illustrated in Figure 1, where the heart indicates that the motivation for the whole process is a feeling of responsibility towards human rights). Strengthening the capacity of all actors to engage in this process is at the heart of a human rights approach to development. When rights holders are left out of the decision-making process, the decisions will not be enriched by their perspective, experience and resources and therefore, decisions are less likely to result in equitable and sustainable outcomes. Inclusion will generate creative and lasting solutions to these problems. It is in light of these principles and concepts that the analysis was conducted for this CCA. In every key area of development, an effort was made to identify those who are excluded or marginalised, to analyse the causes that prevent the realisation of their rights and to identify the attitudinal, human, financial and organisational capacity gaps that must be addressed.

1 Jonsson 2003

Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 7

Overview II country context and major trends

Historical Background Cambodia has recently entered its fourth legislature (2008-2013) since the Paris Peace Accord of 1991, having successfully completed the most recent National Assembly election held on 27 July 2008, which gave the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), the leading political party, a clear and comfortable majority to lead the ambitious programme of reforms it has embarked upon in recent years. This development marks an important step in a long and difficult process of rebuilding devastated physical, social and human capital after almost three decades of conflict, insecurity and instability, beginning with a civil war in 1970, culminating in the darkest chapter in Cambodian history with the Khmer Rouge regime (1975-1979), followed by a period of low intensity conflict and international isolation until 1991, and continued insurgency and political uncertainty until 1998. Since then, the country has seen tremendous progress in the normalisation of life, rapid economic growth and integration in the regional and global communities. This process of normalisation is still ongoing and, while peace and stability have returned, the deep effects of this historical trauma continue to underlie development processes in more subtle ways. The UN has a long history of association with Cambodia, actually commencing operations in the 1950s with UNESCO, UNICEF, WHO and UNDP. While all UN programmes in Cambodia were suspended between 1975 and 1979, early relief assistance began in 1979 and later, in the 1980s, the UN’s work shifted to a rehabilitation phase. In 1992, the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) assumed temporary authority until free elections could be held in May 1993 and a new Constitution adopted. UN agencies once again commenced operations, and in 2009 the UN had 23 agencies operating in Cambodia.

Development Context Since the Third Legislature (2003-2008), the political platform of the RGC has been the ’Rectangular Strategy’ which articulates four priority areas: enhancement of the agriculture sector; further rehabilitation and construction of physical infrastructure; private sector development and employment generation; and capacity building and human resource development; with good governance as the centre of the strategy as a prerequisite to sustainable development. This strategy has recently been reaffirmed, refined and extended into Phase II, which calls for continued reform, an enabling environment for investment and an average annual growth rate of 7 percent to achieve a continued reduction in the poverty rate of 1 percent per year and continued improvements in the social sectors. The Rectangular Strategy is operationalised by the National Strategic Development Plan (NSDP) which is also the country’s poverty reduction strategy, initially designed for the period 2006-2010, but currently extended to 2013 to correspond with the term of the Fourth Legislature. With the formulation of its Rectangular Strategy, and more recently the NSDP, the RGC has taken firm ownership of the national development agenda and has taken steps to coordinate external assistance worth

Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 9 about USD950 million for 2009 (excluding US assistance2), which amounts to about 50 percent of the total national budget and 9 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The dynamics of external assistance are changing with the entry on the scene of emerging donor countries such as China, Korea, Kuwait and Qatar. The coordination mechanism which has been put in place includes the Cambodia Development Cooperation Forum (CDCF) and the Government-Donor Coordination Committee (GDCC) assisted by the Council for the Development of Cambodia (CDC)/Cambodian Rehabilitation and Development Board (CRDB). Nineteen joint Donor-Government Technical Working Groups (TWG) are mandated to prepare joint strategies for their sectors, consistent with the NSDP, mobilise resources and jointly monitor progress.3 Each TWG is intended to operationalise an aspect of the NSDP by developing a sector strategic plan and a common sector support programme. In some sectors, such as Public Financial Management (PFM), Health, Education, Planning and Poverty Reduction, Trade, and Decentralization and Deconcentration (D&D), the support programme has developed, or is in the process of development, into a Programme-Based Approach (PBA) or Sector-Wide Approach (SWAp). While this process has resulted in a substantial improvement of alignment and harmonisation of aid, and while a number of development partners (such as the WB, JICA, DfID and the EC) do provide budget support to the RGC, the aid environment is still highly fragmented, resulting in duplicated studies and technical assistance, taking away from needed ’net transfer of resources’ for Cambodia’s priorities,4 and reducing the overall performance in aid effectiveness.5 The volume and design of technical assistance (TA) has been a particular point of contention with the proportion of Official Development Assistance (ODA) that is spent as TA remaining high.6 Tension therefore currently exists between the RGC’s desire for changes in donors’ operating modes and donors’ desire to see improved RGC accountability, transparency and effectiveness. This tension underlies the current context within which UN action in the country will have to be defined.

Macro-Economic Environment

Cambodia has embraced economic liberalisation and integration in the global economy as a means to stimulate economic growth and reduce poverty. The main policies for economic growth in the RGC’s Rectangular Strategy and the NSDP have been a focus on rapid growth in the industrial and service sectors as the keys to employment creation and income generation (relying on the private sector as the true engine of growth), and an increase in agricultural production and productivity (especially in rice). To achieve these goals and enhance inward investment, a number of structural issues must be addressed, including compliance with international food, safety and trade standards. Over the past decade, this strategy has resulted in robust economic growth, driven by an open economy and a stable macroeconomic environment, growing at an average of 6 percent from 1993 to 2003, reaching 11.1 percent over the period 2004-2007, while maintaining low inflation (below 6 percent per annum) and a stable exchange rate. Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) has also increased more than seven-fold over the same period (from USD121 million in 2004 to USD867 million in 2007). Most of the growth over the past decade has been driven by the garment, tourism, and construction industries, with textiles constituting almost 90 percent of exports. Cambodia has not only generated high economic growth, it has sustained this rapid growth over an

2 This amount is pledged, see details in Appendix B 3 The coordination structure is illustrated in Appendix C 4 NSDP MTR 2008 5 CDC 2008 6 Reported in both NSDP MTR 2008 and CDC 2008

10 Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 extended period of time and more than doubled its income per capita over the period 1997 to 2007 (from USD285 to USD593).7 Over this period, the Cambodian economy has experienced a profound structural transformation: integration into the global economy; a shift of jobs from agriculture to manufacturing; a demographic transition; and migration from rural to urban areas. This high economic growth has reduced overall poverty figures at the national level from 47 percent in 1993 to 30 percent in 2007. As further described in Section 3.1.1, however, poverty rates remain very high, with increasing inequality between and within urban and rural areas, among regions, and among social groups.

Impact of Current Economic Crisis Since late 2007, Cambodia, like many other countries, has been impacted by the combined effect of a series of global crises related to sharp increases in oil, food and commodity prices which translated into a higher inflation rate in 2008. Cambodia was severely affected by the global economic crisis in 2008. These crises have highlighted the vulnerability of Cambodia’s export-led growth, especially because Cambodian exports are not as competitive as those of neighbouring countries. The fragility of this growth has been demonstrated first-hand by the significant deterioration of economic performance as reflected by a decrease in orders in the textile industry, a drastic drop in the number of tourists and a substantial decline in the building sector. This has contributed to significant job losses in these three sectors – an estimated 70,000 since the end of 2008 in the garment sector alone.8 The combined crises have eroded household incomes and livelihoods and are pushing families into extreme coping strategies, which can have devastating effects on women and children. Even when economic recovery begins, there is likely to be an appreciable lag before it positively impacts Cambodia. The only sector which will provide any meaningful cushion as a short-term crisis buffer and a medium-term recovery and growth engine is agriculture, which currently accounts for some 30 percent of GDP and is the only sector of the four that is not contracting.

Figure 2. Real GDP Growth (Y/Y percent change)9

7 World Bank (WB 2009a) 8 Recent estimate by ILO 9 Source: IMF, March 2009

Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 11 While differing estimates for growth in 2008, and projections for 2009 and 2010 exist, the general consensus is that the recent rates of growth and projections of 7 percent growth for 2010 will be substantially reduced. Growth for 2008 is now estimated at 5.5 percent, with various sources predicting a contraction of 0.5 percent to 1 percent for 200910 and a more conservative growth of around 3 percent for 2010. This now makes it impossible for the country to achieve the RGC’s target of continued growth of at least 7 percent per annum over the period of the NSDP, which has implications for further accelerated poverty reduction. The new UNDAF then, rather than building on a history of strong growth, will commence in an economy recovering from a severe crisis. Crisis also provides opportunity and the environment is now more open to a fundamental rethink of the economic growth path that the country has chosen, highlighting the need for a more diversified, broad-based and inclusive economic growth plan and for increasing agricultural productivity, value added from primary and processed products, and from increased employment opportunities in agro-based industries.

Population Trends The RGC adopted its first National Population Policy in 2004, a progressive, rights-based policy that gives couples the right to decide if and when to have children and includes the information and services to do so. The policy also highlights the dynamic balance between population growth and population structure, poverty, infrastructure, services and the environment. Preliminary results of the 2008 general population census reveal that the population has been growing at a slower rate than projected (1.54 percent instead of 1.8 percent), slightly above the regional average of 1.3 percent, resulting in the 2008 total population figure of 13.4 million, about 5 percent (800,000 people) less than the 14.6 million estimated earlier, with a lower average family size (4.8, down from 5.2 in 1998). This reflects a potential increase in nuclear families and a relative breakdown in extended family structures, which has important implications for coping mechanisms in times of crisis. The sex ratio, which was at the low level of 86 in the early 1980s, owing to heavy mortality among men during the Khmer Rouge years, has been steadily increasing and has reached 94.2 in 2008. The census also shows an increase in urbanisation with the urban population share rising from 17.7 percent in 1998 to 19.5 percent in 2008. The current rural population is 80.5 percent. The population density for the country as a whole increased from 64 to 75 in the last decade. This is much less than the average population density in Southeast Asia (126). The population density map reveals that the provinces most in need are those with the lowest total population and population density, posing a particular challenge for inclusive development. While statistics do not yet show how these changed population dynamics translate into differences in age groups, it is clear that they will affect the denominators of many development indicators and force revisions in the values of current indicators. Of particular importance is the fact that half the population is under 20 years of age and the population wave of baby-boomers that followed years of conflict is now moving up the age pyramid. A large number of youth (about 250,000) with changed values and aspirations are currently entering the workforce every year. This presents both opportunities and threats. An increased availability of workers can have a substantial positive impact on future growth and poverty reduction, but the threats include limited educational opportunities, limited employment prospects and exposure to unhealthy and risky lifestyles.

10 Sources: ADB/IMF and WB respectively

12 Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 The current population trend is also increasing domestic and international migration, which contributes to poverty reduction through remittances, but also brings a different set of problems related to increased vulnerability, human trafficking, exclusion from services, fragmentation of families, vulnerability of children left behind by one or two parents and an increased burden on women left alone to manage households. Current population trends include an increase of women moving to the capital of Phnom Penh and Kandal province, particularly the urban areas, because of opportunities with garment factories. Oddar Meanchey province, on the other hand, has attracted many male workers in connection with its large scale construction and demining activities. Rubber plantations and gold mining activities in Rattanakiri have also drawn labourers from other provinces. These population movements have an effect on the sex ratios in these provinces.

Figure 3. 2005 Age Pyramid

These migratory movements have been affected by the current economic crisis; significant repercussions have occurred because of the decline of income remittances from far-off income earners to their farmer families, the return of workers laid-off in the garment and construction sectors to the rural areas and the increase in unemployment in the urban areas with labourers searching for alternative occupations. The impact of these changes on food security and poverty are significant. HIV prevalence in the adult population aged 15 to 49 was estimated at 0.9 percent in 2006, down from 1.2 percent in 2003. The estimated number of people living with HIV (PLHIV) was 67,200 in 2006 (35,000 women and 32,200 men). Projections show that HIV prevalence is expected to further decline and to stabilise at 0.6 percent after 2010, with a total PLHIV of 51,200 (See Figure 4). The highest proportions of new infections are among married women (43 percent), and mother to child transmission (30 percent). Populations at high risk, such as injecting drug users and men who have sex with men (MSM), have a considerably higher prevalence of HIV.11

11 NCHADS 2008 report

Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 13 Figure 4. PLHIV Projections

Social and Cultural Context Recurrent themes in all analyses of the overall situation in Cambodia, which partly reflect Cambodia’s traditional culture and partly reflect more recent history and underlie progress in the national development agenda, are the hierarchical nature of society, and the continued prevalence of traditional gender norms. • Hierarchical nature of society: All relations in Khmer society are organised hierarchically. Everyone is thus classified according to rank based on age, sex, ethnicity, wealth, political position and religious piety. This set of hierarchical social relationships which permeate all levels of society. When this traditional informal type of power relationship mixes with formal bureaucracy, it yields a hybrid form of governance with complex patronage relationships that extend to all levels of civil service and beyond. Any reform of the governance system cannot succeed if this hierarchy is not explicitly taken into account.12 As a result, “Cambodians have become increasingly conscious of being poor or powerless, either inside or outside the ranks of the powerful and privileged” and are therefore “torn between acquiescence and action, between the urge to move up in the ranks of the privileged and protect personal or family interests, and the moral obligation to challenge perceived injustices.”13 • Gender Norms: The same value system that denies equality and promotes hierarchy in social relations determines that women have a lower status than men. Despite new emerging perceptions of the ’modern woman’, gender attitudes and relations enshrined in the ’Chbap Srey’ – the traditional code of conduct for women, which is still taught to children through families, and religious and educational institutions – remain obstacles to achieving gender equality in all aspects of social, economic and political life.14 While Cambodian women are the most economically active in Asia, and while gender attitudes are changing, significant gender inequalities continue to persist in Cambodian society. These inequalities are reflected in the low rankings Cambodia received on both the Gender Related Development Index

12 VBNK 2006 13 For further discussion on this theme, refer CDRI 2007, VBNK 2006, EIC 2005, CDRI 2007b 14 MoWA 2008, Kasumi 2006

14 Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 (GDI) and the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM), prompting the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women to recommend in 2006 that Cambodia “undertake a comprehensive assessment of the prevailing traditional code of conduct so as to identify those elements that discriminate against women and are the root causes of women’s disadvantaged position in areas such as education, employment and public and political life, and are determining factors in the prevalence of gender-based violence” and that the RGC “refrain from disseminating and teaching those elements of the traditional code of conduct that discriminate against women”, calling instead for educational campaigns to eliminate “stereotypes associated with men’s and women’s traditional roles in the family and in society at large.”15 • Participation: Trust and social cohesion were destroyed by years of oppression and war and people are still generally suspicious of all forms of organisation because of the painful experiences of forced collectivisation of recent history. The society is hierarchical, limiting people's opportunities to participate. Decades of authoritarianism and militarism have shaped the attitudes, beliefs and expectations of the majority of the people. Trust remains low and it will take a long time to rebuild, which has implications for the levels of genuine participation that can be realistically expected.

Human Rights Issues Economic, social and cultural rights, such as the right to employment and decent work, education, health and social protection, are to be progressively implemented by the RGC, ensuring that scarce resources are used in the most effective and equitable way to support steady progress in the enjoyment of rights by all rights holders, particularly the most marginalised. Important issues include: budgetary allocations, oversight and accountability in the delivery of health, education and other social services. Civil and political rights and the weak rule of law are other sources of concern. The rapid development in the last few years and the increased awards of Economic Land Concessions (ELC) to large corporations has provided a small and powerful elite with limitless opportunities for enrichment. This has contributed to an increase in the number of evictions, forced resettlements and land grabs, thus increasing the gap between rich and poor, leaving those affected with little or no access to the law or recourse to compensation. The strategic analysis of the current situation in Cambodia is carried out in five major areas: economic growth and poverty reduction, education, health, social protection, and governance, and the cross-cutting themes of gender, equity, youth, rights and HIV. Cross-cutting population issues have already been addressed in Section II.

15 CEDAW 2006b

Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 15

strategic analysis III of THE current situation

3.1 Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction The overall rates of economic growth and poverty reduction achieved over the past 10 years, and the impact on growth of the current economic crisis, have already been described in Section II. Cambodia currently faces a number of formidable challenges as it attempts to maintain a path of sustained economic growth while fulfilling the right to a decent livelihood for a large portion of its population. The situation in terms of poverty and food security and the main issues in terms of further economic growth and poverty reduction are examined below.

3.1.1 Poverty and Food Security

Figure 5. Urban and Rural Poverty and Inequality16 Poverty Headcount (%)

1994 2004 2007 1994 2004 2007

47 0.47 0.440.44 0.43 40 0.39 0.40 0.37 35 35 0.34 0.340.36 0.35 30 0.27 25 22

11 5 1

Phnom Penh Other Urban RuralCambodia Phnom Penh Other Urban RuralCambodia

Continued High Poverty and Increasing Inequality While poverty has decreased substantially over the last 10 years, a third of the population still lives below the poverty line and the recent economic downturn, combined with high food and gas prices, is already causing a reversal of some of the recent gains. Cambodia is among the 36 countries with the highest burden of child under-nutrition in the world and one of the 33 ’alarming or extremely alarming’ countries in terms of hunger and under-nutrition. Cambodia has one of the highest child mortality rates in the region with poor nutritional status of women of child-bearing age and high maternal mortality rates. Poverty is associated with high dependency rates, with many large families with children living in chronic poverty or remaining highly vulnerable to shocks and distress.

16 WB 2009d

Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 17 Poverty reduction in Cambodia has occurred thus far through the trickle-down effect of a growing economy largely centred on urban activities. However, even with the high rate of economic growth in recent years, the benefits have not been equitably distributed, which has exacerbated the inequality already present in the country. The increase in living standards has been more pronounced in urban areas and among the richest quintile, while the extreme poor (the bottom 20 percent who fall below the food poverty line) have experienced significantly slower growth in real consumption than those normally considered poor. From 1994 to 2004, poverty fell in rural areas by 22 percent, in urban areas, other than Phnom Penh, by 44 percent and in Phnom Penh by 60 percent. The difference in share of consumption between the richest 20 percent of Cambodians and the poorest 20 percent reveals a dramatic and widening gap in wealth. Figures show that almost half of the country’s total consumption is enjoyed by the richest 20 percent of the population. This is reflected in increases in the Gini Coefficient, which has increased from 0.35 to 0.40 for the country as a whole (and to 0.43 in 2007), and significantly from 0.27 to 0.36 in rural areas, indicating that inequality has increased not only between rural and urban areas, but also within rural areas. Even though the direct impact of the world financial crisis on the Cambodian economy may not have been so great, the indirect and long-term effects of the economic downturn and the negative impact of high food and fuel prices suggest that it is unlikely that the country will achieve its CMDG targets of reducing overall poverty levels to 25 percent by 2010 and 19.5 percent by 2015, especially if equity indicators are taken into consideration.17 According to the 2008 census, 80 percent of the population is rural. Of the total poor, 91 percent live in rural areas. Self-employed farmers form the largest group within the poor and account for 48 percent of the total poor. Poverty in Cambodia has largely been a rural phenomenon and essentially an issue of rural livelihoods although, as discussed below, urban poverty is an increasing phenomenon that must be addressed.

Food Insecurity Food availability and access in Cambodia is predominantly driven by weather-dependent rice production. Although Cambodia has produced a national surplus of rice since 1995-1996, access to rice at the household level has fluctuated because of unstable rainfall patterns and a lack of productive means or purchasing power. This situation has a negative impact on livelihoods, and has led to the adoption of negative coping strategies to meet food requirements. These strategies include increased seasonal migration, child labour, withdrawal of students from school (especially girls), changed food patterns to less expensive and often less nutritious food and reduced intake of food, especially for women and older girls, perpetuating a cycle of health issues, debt, deforestation and sale of livestock and land. A combination of factors has further reduced poor households’ access to food. These include: inadequate economic opportunities in rural areas, limited access to land for small farmers, mine/unexploded ordinance contamination, low agricultural productivity, poor infrastructure, limited access to productive employment opportunities and decent work, and increased food prices over the last several years. According to the 2008 Cambodia Development Research Institute (CDRI) high food price study,18 about 12 percent of households, or 1.7 million individuals, were food insecure and most of these households were affected by increases in food prices. About 50 percent of such households reported cutting back on food as their coping mechanism while school drop-out rates increased from 13 percent in January 2008 to 22 percent in June 2008. The study also indicated that the number of food insecure could increase to up to 20 percent of the population, or 2.8 million, in the 2008 lean season.

17 NSDP MTR 2008 18 Impact of High Food Prices in Cambodia – Survey Report, CDRI, November 2008

18 Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 The impacts of the high food and fuel price crises and the current economic crisis are likely to be worse for the poorest and most vulnerable groups, women and children. Findings of the Cambodia Anthropometric Survey (CAS 2008) reveal that the percentage of children classified as acutely malnourished (wasted) and underweight did not change from 2005. The survey also found that wasting among poor urban children increased from 9.6 percent in 2005 to 15.9 percent in 2008.

3.1.2 Current Challenges A number of challenges will be faced when addressing the situations described above. The challenges include: the need to diversify the sources of growth; the need for expansion of the growth potential of the agriculture sector through productivity gains and value addition; improvement of the safety of food and agricultural products to enable the country to meet stringent international trade standards and improve food-based health and nutrition; the need for land tenure and better natural resource management; improvement and enhancement of the investment climate; the low level of skill in the workforce; addressing trade and market barriers; improving access to water and sanitation; the potential impact of climate change mitigation and adaptation and lack of disaster preparedness. The absence of effective social safety nets is examined fully in Section 3.4. Each of these challenges is addressed briefly below.

Diversifying Growth As indicated in Section II, the majority of economic growth over the past decade has been driven by the garment, tourism, and construction industries, with textiles constituting almost 90 percent of exports. Cambodia has not diversified the source of its growth over the last decade. The growth in the textile sector is slowing with the rise of competition in the region and the potential loss of Cambodia’s comparative advantage because of limitations imposed by the low skilled workforce and perceptions of the cost of doing business in Cambodia. The loss of jobs due to the recent economic downturn has forced many workers to return to their villages, but they continue to seek a way to return to urban areas. Other workers remain in the cities looking for new opportunities rather than return to their villages. The narrow industrial base and low skills of the workforce have resulted in large numbers of unemployed workers and an increase of workers in the informal economy, i.e. where earnings are low, working conditions poor and rights and voice absent. As families struggle with a loss of income, the absence of formal coping strategies has pushed vulnerable households into poverty. This has also led some families to change the household division of labour, with children often being involved in paid or unpaid work. The present crisis has also had a major impact on women’s work as many of the workers laid off in the garment factories are young women, who traditionally have fewer opportunities for employment. In the context of the current crisis, it is estimated that persons with disabilities will be less likely to reintegrate in the labour market or to transfer their skills to other sectors (e.g. agriculture or more vulnerable and insecure jobs) and at the same time, less job opportunities will be available to them. It is clear that the engines of growth which have thus far been relied upon will not fully deliver on their initial promise. While diversification in industry and services is a must, accelerating poverty reduction in Cambodia requires improving the rural economy. The RGC is now turning with increased urgency and vigour to agriculture as a source of sustained growth and livelihood enhancement. With approximately 250,000 new labourers seeking employment every year, the majority of them unskilled and from rural areas, the need for private sector development and employment creation (especially in rural areas) cannot be overestimated. Challenges remain in informal urban economies, especially for many poor urban dwellers who are struggling in the cities.

Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 19 Agriculture Productivity, Land Tenure and Natural Resource Management Since Cambodia is well endowed agriculturally, the agricultural sector will be the main source of growth in the short- and medium-term; however, growth is dependent on weather conditions, whether or not agro- investment remains moderate, and the fact that economic performance is sensitive to unstable price levels. Crops, especially paddy crops, are the main source of income for farmers. Rice yields are the lowest in the region (about 2.7 meters per hectare), even though they have increased over the past few years. Nevertheless, there is great potential for agricultural growth. The immediate challenges and changes needed in the sector are: land allocation and land titling; increased productivity in rice and other crops; increased and improved access to extension services, credit and inputs; use of better quality inputs, especially seeds; increased irrigation; ensuring benefits for farmers through marketing; improved post-harvest management; promotion of export and domestic markets for agricultural products (including rice, not just paddy, and fruits and vegetables); promotion of agro-industry, including post-harvest processing; improved agricultural product quality standards to ensure adequate plant and animal protection; organising farmers’ organisations for better bargaining power; working toward optimum use of land and other resources; and encouraging and increasing private sector investments and participation. The majority of Cambodia’s population lives in rural areas and depends heavily on agriculture for food and livelihoods. How Cambodia manages and distributes its land and natural resources, and for whose benefit, is one of the most pressing issues facing the country today. It is also critical that all Cambodians benefit from equitable and sustainable development which respects and promotes their human rights. The issue of land ownership is particularly crucial. Most farmers still do not have legal title to their land, which makes them vulnerable to losing the land and gives them little or no incentive to invest in or improve the land. Many others are landless (20 percent), either having never owned land, or having lost it due to population growth, indebtedness or illness. Others (45 percent) are land poor as they do not have sufficient or fertile enough land to earn a decent living. An alarming trend is the increasing amount of land and property which is being acquired by private interests in violation of the 2001 Land Law. The goal to reduce poverty in rural areas requires significant investment to stimulate sustainable agricultural (on and off farm) growth. This will require a concerted effort to shift from subsistence to more market-oriented agriculture and key investments in improved technologies, financial services, enhanced animal health services, better plant protection and quality control, and effective extension services. Poverty, internal migration and the unsustainable use of land have added to the rapidly diminishing natural resources. Poor farmers derive 20 percent of their income from the common areas, streams, lakes and forests which serve as a natural ’safety net’ for hunting small game, foraging and collecting to supplement the rice harvest. With these natural safety nets, the potential for Cambodia’s forests, fisheries (inland and coastal) and livestock are enormous, but sustainable strategies are needed to use these resources for poverty reduction and increasing economic growth. In the absence of sustainable strategies, the increased degradation of fisheries, lack of protection of forests, ineffective enforcement against large-scale commercial interests and over-exploitation, and threats to biodiversity and protected areas will put the farmer’s natural ’safety net’ in jeopardy.

Investment Climate The investment climate covers a range of indicators that determine whether it will be viable and profitable to invest in a country. These include contextual issues (such as macroeconomic management or concerns about security); regulatory issues (such as levels of tax, unofficial fees, incidence of land disputes); and the need for infrastructure, skills, and access to finance.

20 Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 A recent World Bank and International Finance Corporation assessment of the business climate in Cambodia19 found that it has not changed significantly over the past four years. Entrepreneurs still have major concerns which hold them back and the private sector remains largely informal, while firms are generally small, reflecting a lack of conviction amongst owners and managers of the net benefits of becoming formally registered. There is a lack of diversification due to the economy’s limited capital intensity, with the economy being impacted by risk avoidance, the high cost of electricity, and the lack of skilled workers, where productivity is often low and variable. Additionally, local entrepreneurs face difficulties in accessing sufficient financing and lack connections to international markets. It is the combination of these factors which discourages investment. Firms are concerned about corruption at the service-delivery level, at the regulatory level, in public procurement and at the adjudication level; regulatory uncertainty and informal practices; macro-economic stability (due mostly to the inflation experienced in 2008); cost and reliability of electricity; and poor industrial relations. Initiatives to encourage investment and much needed diversification include facilitation of entry through simpler and more transparent processes; improved standards, information and logistics; lower uncertainty; improved vocational skills; and improved labour relations and social dialogue.

Skills for Livelihoods and Employability One of the major constraints for rural productivity and poverty reduction is the low level of skills in the workforce; about 75 percent of rural workers have a primary education or less and no skills training other than family tradition in agriculture. High levels of illiteracy, especially among older women in rural areas, are a barrier to expanding skills training. As is the case elsewhere in the region, a prevailing concern is the mismatch between the skills of those looking for work and the types of opportunities available in either self-employment or paid jobs. Skills that are needed include core work capabilities, such as basic communication skills and income generating skills, which are seen as major interventions to address rural poverty. Youth need to be supported with skills training and income-generating activities as their employability is rather limited. Youth also face severe job shortages. Young females with children are also an important target group, especially now that many have lost their jobs in the garment and associated sectors due to the effects of the economic crisis. Training programmes will have to address the specific needs of these target groups, particularly women, and offer greater access through alternative approaches, such as mobile training units. Curricula and materials should be reviewed and revised to meet current market demand. Training institutions also need to offer better services for job placement and self-employment. The National Training Board approved a National Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Plan in March 2006 to address these and other issues. The plan proposes a two-track approach, with one track providing skills training for the rural poor to help raise family incomes through higher farm productivity and self-employment opportunities. The other track is focused on confronting the changing demands of enterprises in a global economy to provide a workforce that is skilled and adaptable. Self-employment is a more viable option than formal employment for newly trained unpaid family workers in both rural and urban areas. However, most institution based training has little curriculum dedicated to self-employment or micro-enterprise management. Few trainees in basic level TVET will receive instruction in starting and running their own small business or micro-enterprise management. This has important implications for TVET policy, suggesting that micro-enterprise instruction should be part of all rural based entry level TVET.

19 WB 2009c

Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 21 A national promotion campaign for TVET and for career development is required to change the perception of TVET and overall enrolment. TVET institutions need to develop a marketing strategy which places them clearly in front of the market as a good choice for both full-time and part-time education. Linked with education and vocational training, is the need to further expand agricultural extension services for improved farming and market integration. The extension and technology transfer strategy needs to focus, in particular, on the vital role women play in the food chain.

Trade and Market Barriers Trade is one of the most important factors contributing to the macro-economic performance of Cambodia today and a major source of economic growth with significant impact on poverty reduction. In 2000, Cambodia was designated as a pilot country under the Integrated Framework – a programme supported by a number of bilateral and multi-lateral partners that assists Least Developed Countries (LDC) to integrate more effectively into global trade and turn trade into a driver of national development. Under this programme, the first Diagnostic Trade Integration Strategy (DTIS) was prepared. Subsequently, following its accession to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in 2004, Cambodia further committed itself to significant regulatory and legal reforms in trade governance to improve its competitiveness in the global economy. The DTIS concluded that garments, footwear, rice, cassava, rubber, and tourism, followed by fish products and cashew nuts, fruits and vegetables, wood products, light manufacturing and labour services, are sectors offering high opportunities for export development. The assessment takes into consideration existing exports and markets as well as socio-economic factors (i.e. employment creation, rural development and poverty reduction). As part of the legal and institutional reforms proposed in the Cambodia Trade Integration Strategy (CTIS), the Sub-Committee of Trade Development and Trade Related Investment under the Ministry of Commerce (MoC) has been identified as the focal point that will provide oversight for all the trade related activities. A Trade SWAp has been developed as the mechanism for coordinating all trade related assistance (of various development partners) in Cambodia. The Trade SWAp mechanism is expected to facilitate a more effective use of limited human, institutional and financial resources and will mark a shift from a piecemeal approach to trade activities to a more comprehensive and coordinated programme approach, with potential for a wider and deeper impact on poverty reduction. The CTIS also recognises that export diversification is imperative to ensure broad-based and inclusive growth. It highlights that expanding demand by exploring new markets and expanding supply by developing new product lines and enhancing value adding for existing product lines, will give rise to additional employment opportunities for the poor, and possibly result in poverty reduction. However, to truly have an impact on the poverty profile and livelihood security of the poor and the excluded in the selected value chains, a number of risks and vulnerabilities have to be managed over a reasonably long period of time (at least five years) to ensure the target group has actually been lifted out of poverty once and for all. Unless all the major risks are managed concurrently, the probability of one unmanaged risk or vulnerability jeopardising the viability of the entire value chain is high. A key challenge, which is sometimes overlooked or insufficiently addressed, is Cambodia’s capacity to respond to market needs or requirements as well as sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) standards in conjunction with technical barriers to trade. These are commonly known as constraints of the supply side. A number of UN agencies and development partners are currently working to enhance capacity of the supply side to overcome trade barriers (standards, quality, sanitary and phytosanitary requirements of foreign markets). Lack of compliance with quality and sanitary standards does prevent entry to foreign markets.

22 Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 Poor products also cause problems related to health (e.g. malnutrition, stunting, and ability disorder among children). It is estimated that more than one-third of agri-food export volume is associated with high SPS risk, mostly plant health-related given the predominance of plant products in Cambodia’s export basket (64 percent of total exports in 2004 were phytosanitary risk sensitive). Measures to overcome these barriers include strengthening the legislative framework for SPS management, enhancing capacity for diagnosis and enforcement, promoting greater awareness and information for senior and provincial government officials, enhancing awareness and skills of food producers and processors, enhancing awareness of consumers on food safety risks, and developing coordinated surveillance programmes for plant and animal pests and diseases and food-borne disease.

Water and Sanitation Access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene can make or break human development. They extend opportunity, enhance dignity and help create a cycle of health and wealth. The economic losses associated with the lack of sanitation and water supply disproportionately affect the poor. Limited legal rights and public policies perpetuate this disadvantage. In 2004, access to an improved sanitation facility for the poorest quintile was less than 5 percent, while access by the richest quintile reached 24 percent (which is still very low). Similar discrepancies existed in access to water supply as the richest quintile is 22 times more likely to have piped water than the poorest quintile. The absence of water and sanitation facilities increases living costs for the poor, particularly in urban poor communities, reduces income earning potential, damages well being and makes life riskier. Investment in this sector could, therefore, disproportionately benefit the poor and support poverty reduction efforts.

Climate Change Climate change is expected to affect Cambodia significantly as it is one of the most vulnerable countries in the region.20 At stake are recent gains in the fight against poverty, hunger and disease, and the lives and livelihoods of the majority of Cambodians. Climate Change will lead to higher temperatures, changes in precipitation patterns, rising sea levels, and distribution and frequency of weather-related disasters, posing risks for already vulnerable agriculture, food, and water supplies. Cambodia’s vulnerability to climate change is linked to its characteristics as a post-civil war, least developed, agrarian country with 80 percent of the population living in rural areas, and combined with its low elevations on the central plain. Climatic events such as floods and droughts are already recognised as one of the main contributors to poverty. Between 1998 and 2002, floods accounted for 70 percent of production losses of rice – the single major agricultural crop of the country – while drought accounted for 20 percent of losses. Climate variations are anticipated to further increase the severity and frequency of flood and drought events. It is estimated that Cambodia’s average temperature could increase by up to 2 degrees Celsius by 210021 (yet estimates of up to 4.3 degrees Celsius by 2090 have also been proposed22) and annual rainfall could increase by up to 35 percent from current conditions, with lowland areas more affected than highland areas. Rainfall increases are anticipated predominantly in the central agricultural plains stretching from southeast

20 Yusuf, A. A. and H. Francisco, Climate Change Vulnerability Mapping for South East Asia, January 2009 (www.eepsea.org) 21 Ministry of Environment of Cambodia, Initial National Communication to UNFCCC, 2002 22 McSweeney, C., M. New, and G. Lizcano, Cambodia Climate Change Profile, Oxford University, 2008 (http://country-profiles.geog.ox.ac.uk/)

Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 23 to northwest, a high population area historically with low rainfall yet known to be vulnerable to flooding and drought. In general, wet seasons will be shorter and dry seasons will be longer and both seasons will be more intense with the timing of onset more variable. This translates to reduced predictability in crop yield, changing irrigation demand and a growing risk of pest infestation, particularly in areas surrounding Tonle Sap Lake and the Mekong River. Ground and surface water supply will become more volatile in volume, quality and distribution with the change in seasons. While flooding is a natural phenomenon in the region, destructive floods are becoming more frequent, not only destroying infrastructure and disrupting agriculture, but also increasing the risk of water quality degradation and water-related diseases such as malaria and dengue. Ecosystems in the Cambodian forests are likely to be significantly altered. Cambodia’s forests are presently composed of dry forests (60 percent), wet forests (20 percent) and moist forests (20 percent). The effects of climate change are predicted to contribute to a decrease in the areas of dry and wet forests and an increase in moist forests. Given the degraded nature of Cambodia’s forests in general, increased rainfall is expected to increase soil erosion leading to accelerated degradation and the associated loss of watershed protection, agricultural production and potential hydroelectricity output. Changes in soil water availability caused by increasing temperature and changing rainfall patterns will also impact on forest composition and biomass production. Coastal areas, while traditionally low in population, have recently experienced substantial development of port facilities and transport infrastructure, trade, oil and gas, tourism and fisheries which are all vulnerable to the potential impacts of climate change. The agricultural sector contributes around 31 percent of GDP and engages 84 percent of the population. The high dependence on agriculture with 80 percent of farmers growing rice (60 percent for subsistence) but with only 7 percent of crop area being irrigated makes this important sector extremely vulnerable to any change in rainfall patterns. The lack of processing capacity and dependence on a single rice cropping cycle means food security is highly climate dependent. The combination of high poverty levels and great dependence on agriculture are the main mechanisms attributed to the country’s extreme vulnerability to climatic events. Cambodia’s fisheries are also highly vulnerable to climatic variations.23 The Tonle Sap fishery alone accounts for a significant 7 percent of GDP and as a sector contributes between 9 and 12 percent of GDP and contributes substantially to incomes, jobs and food security. Women’s livelihoods are particularly at risk in this sector due to their significant post-harvest participation. Cambodia’s fishery sector is almost all capture fisheries with very limited aquaculture thereby making the sector highly vulnerable to flow changes in the Mekong (notably, the flood pulse), particularly if exacerbated by hydropower development. It is expected that climate change will increase the incidents of infectious, water-borne and vector-borne diseases, heat stress and mortality and will raise public health costs. Tropical diseases, a weak health care system and limited technical, financial and institutional resources further increase vulnerability. Climate induced migration and conflict (typically due to land grabbing) is already taking place in Cambodia as uncertainty in seasonal patterns has resulted in reduced reliance on traditional cropping and fishing practices leading to changes in seasonal movements as well as increased urban drift. Cambodia has recently become a net emitter of greenhouse gases (GHG).24 This is primarily as a result of increasing deforestation, agriculture and energy consumption giving rise to increasing GHG emissions and decreasing GHG sinks.25 Less than 20 percent of the population have access to electricity and the country is almost entirely reliant on imported fossil fuels, mainly diesel and heavy oil, for electricity generation. The main form of energy for most households is wood and wood charcoal accounting for approximately 80 percent of total national energy consumption. This dependence on wood, as well as large-scale logging for sale

23 Johnston, R. et al. Scoping Study on Natural Resources and Climate Change in Southeast Asia with a Focus on Agriculture, International Water Management Institute South East Asia, May 2009 24 Ministry of Environment, DRAFT Second National Communication to UNFCCC, July 2009 25 Forests are natural carbon sinks as they store carbon in the form of biomass which would otherwise be released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide

24 Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 and export, is a major driver for deforestation and contributes to a low level of household energy security. The lack of access to modern clean energy in rural areas is a barrier to livelihood development and security. Despite substantial potential (in particular for biomass energy, small-scale afforestation and reforestation, and protection of existing forests through reduction of deforestation and degradation), Cambodia does not have the necessary policy, financing or institutional arrangements in place to enable access to carbon markets; for mitigation of GHG emissions using renewable energy or energy efficiency; or for reducing deforestation. The Rectangular Strategy II recognises climate change as a threat to Cambodia’s economy and growth prospects and commits to mobilise resources, support and financing to tackle climate change. However, despite these policy statements, obtaining high level commitment to mainstream climate change issues into sector programmes continues to be a challenge. The primary policy framework is the National Adaptation Plan of Action (NAPA) produced in 2007 which details the RGC’s priority actions; however it does not establish the institutional or financing arrangements necessary to translate into real action. Inter-ministerial linkages are weak, in particular the Ministry of Environment (MoE) and the Forestry Administration (FA) are not effectively addressing areas of common interest, such as community-based natural resource management. A contributing factor is the very limited capacity within the National Climate Change Committee and the Climate Change Office to coordinate these efforts and facilitate the development of a cohesive policy environment.

3.1.3 Cross-Cutting Issues

Youth Employment Unemployment in Cambodia overwhelmingly impacts youth. Of every 100 job seekers in Phnom Penh, 72 are 15-24 year olds. Cambodia’s youth population makes up 23 percent of the total population, around 3.5 million people. The ILO estimates that this number will grow from 3.2 million in 2005 to 3.6 million in 2011. Of the total workforce, youth represent 32 percent, of which 51 percent are male and 49 percent are female, with the majority concentrated in the urban areas of Phnom Penh. Since 1999, between 200,000 and 250,000 youth have entered the job market each year, but only 67,000 new jobs were created yearly from 1999 to 2004, absorbing only 27 percent of new job market entrants. The low job growth and high number of entrants into the workforce has serious implications for youth unemployment and increased poverty. According to a recent survey by the Cambodia Federation of Employers and Business Associations (CAMFEBA), the low absorption rate is due to a skills mismatch due to a lack of data and information on the labour market. Employment, or gainful occupation, both in the formal and informal sectors, arises from investments, largely in the private sector, which respond to market impulses. Employment and youth should be at the heart of policies for social and economic growth and development and should be combined with targeted interventions to overcome specific disadvantages faced by young people entering the labour market. Youth employment issues cannot be separated from child labour, adult employment and old age. The intended increased focus on policies and programmes to generate more rural, productive employment opportunities and decent work for this group of the population would help facilitate the transition of young people, especially disadvantaged youth, from school to work. These programmes are needed to provide assistance in skills training and career guidance; develop methods to provide youth employment opportunities in rural and local economic development and agricultural productivity; address the quality of jobs and conditions of work through steps to improve occupational safety and health; prevent the worst forms of child labour; address challenges related to HIV; reduce gender inequalities; and support social dialogue in policy debates. Since the demand for labour is less than the number of new entrants in the workforce, with net unemployed workers, well-managed international labour migration can provide another safety net for workers who cannot be absorbed in the domestic labour market. International labour migration can also contribute to a reduction in poverty and enhanced welfare through remittances and improved skills.

Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 25 Gender Issues The shift from agriculture to industry and services, with women predominantly working in the garment industry, has increased women’s share of waged employment. Gender disparities in employment and decent work still remain, primarily because of traditional attitudes about ’appropriate’ occupations for women and men, girls’ and women’s access to education, training and support services, and the barriers women face as entrepreneurs. Due to low levels of literacy and education of women currently in the work force, there are limited livelihood alternatives for most women workers and low representation of women in higher level occupations and decision-making positions. Women working in rural areas are disadvantaged in terms of access to markets and services. Rural women account for 80 percent of food production, and more than 65 percent of all women are farmers. Half of the women farmers are illiterate or have less than a primary education. For the most part, women in agriculture are unpaid family workers. Rural women are at a disadvantage if they seek to improve productivity in farm jobs and non-farm employment because they are not the focus of research activities and extension services, and they have limited access to credit, land and other resources. While the Land Law includes measures to ensure the rights of women, low levels of literacy can limit their access to entitlements. A lack of information about markets and technology limits opportunities to increase production and improve livelihoods. Training opportunities are limited and inappropriate. Training is often delivered in centres not convenient for women who have additional responsibility for unpaid work caring for a household and children. In some cases, training programmes reinforce gender stereotypes in career choices. In the context of revitalising TVET, care should be taken to ensure that it is appropriate to the needs of women, especially young women. Additionally, institutions which in the past have catered almost solely to the needs of men must be made more women-friendly. Training can no longer focus solely on traditional ’women’s occupations’ of hairdressing and dress-making, but should assist women in other areas where they are predominant, e.g. micro-enterprises and the informal sector, and help them to enter newly developing areas of tourism (still dominated by men in all but the most unskilled work), food processing, marketing, and computer skills. Women’s Development Centres provide vocational and entrepreneur skills and business advisory services in 11 provinces. These centres need ongoing support and technical assistance (TA) to ensure that the range of courses, their quality, methodology and curriculum are best practices. Many women work in the informal economy, and it is this sector that constitutes a safety net for people losing jobs. Women entrepreneurs face gender-based barriers to starting and growing their businesses, including discriminatory property, matrimonial and inheritance laws and/or cultural practices; limited mobility, voice and representation; and an unequal share of family and household responsibilities. These factors, combined with social exclusion based on sex, mean that women entrepreneurs are in a less favourable position compared to men when it comes to accessing commercial credit from formal financial service providers; working in more lucrative markets, rather than the traditional local markets; accessing technology and information to establish and grow their businesses; receiving national incentives in small enterprise development through gender blind private sector development, fiscal policies, legislation, training and education for small enterprise development. Women entrepreneurs are, however, not a homogenous group. Often treated as such, groups of women entrepreneurs with less power and voice are often overlooked in small enterprise development initiatives. Women entrepreneurs operating micro- and small businesses in the informal economy make a strong contribution to the economic well-being of the family and communities. If they remain outside the scope of SME development policies and programmes, their chances of developing lucrative businesses remain slim. The lack of adequate productive job creation and decent work in rural areas is contributing to increased migration into urban areas and neighbouring countries. While much of the internal migration has been related to employment in the garment industry, it has included high-risk occupations such as commercial sex work and beer promotion. Internal and cross-border trafficking of women and children linked to the commercial sex industry, indentured servitude and begging rings are a growing concern. The need for men to migrate to

26 Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 find work is also affecting women in terms of leaving them to cope with child-raising and household duties on their own, while also working to supplement household income, exposing them to further risk when some returning husbands bring HIV home to their partners.

HIV Reduced economic options increase vulnerability and risk of HIV infection, including infection through drug use (i.e. injecting drug use). There is anecdotal information that women and girls are moving from the garment sector into the entertainment sector (non-brothel and brothel based). While these claims need to be investigated further, recent data does point to a rapid increase in the number of females working in beer gardens and karaoke bars, and changes in the nature of transactional sex from brothel to non-brothel settings. These changes all have implications for increasing vulnerability to HIV. People living with and affected by HIV (PLHIV) are among the poorest and most vulnerable groups and are more at risk of economic shocks and loss of assets. Eviction and resettlement is more problematic for them than for others and results in reduced access to treatment and other support services as well as livelihood opportunities. Even in situations of relative economic stability, PLHIV face discrimination and segregation. PLHIV have little access to micro-finance and stigma and discrimination play an important role in restricting their access to livelihoods. There is also a need to ensure their access to food security, nutrition, vocational training and income generating opportunities. Ways to achieve greater access to livelihood opportunities include mainstreaming PLHIV into business skills and livelihood programmes and taking affirmative action to support PLHIV and households with orphans and vulnerable children (OVC).

Equity and Human Rights Indigenous people are considered to be one of the most vulnerable groups in Cambodia. The country adopted a progressive Land Law in 2001 which recognises the rights of indigenous communities to obtain collective land titles, and interim protective measures were to be put in place to safeguard their lands until land titling issues could be resolved. However, in reality, indigenous communities have faced increasing instances of land grabbing, illegal land sales and allocation to ELC and mining concessions in areas eligible for communal land title, all of which threaten their traditional livelihoods. The current eviction of urban poor communities in various cities such as Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville has also become an emerging concern. These urgent issues, which are not being properly addressed, continue to undermine the capacity of Indigenous Peoples to determine their own path of development.

3.1.4 Implications Traditional interventions targeting rural infrastructure and agricultural productivity are likely to be of most benefit to better off households, as are opportunities for trade and skilled employment and affordable, flexible credit. Chronically poor households require interventions that address poverty traps and help them cope with current circumstances. Interventions such as food security programmes, locally available free or heavily subsidised health care and education, options for productive local employment, decent work and basic labour protection help address the needs of the poor households. In the medium term, vocational training and re- training schemes that focus on self-employment and meeting market needs and provision of micro-finance are needed to empower people to be more self-sufficient. Stronger and more accountable local government is essential to protect the interests and address the needs of poorer and more vulnerable households such as PLHIV.

Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 27 3.2 Education

3.2.1 Policy Context The education policy in Cambodia is articulated in the Education Strategic Plan (ESP) 2006-2010, which sets out the strategies to reach and operationalises the targets established in the National Plan for Education for All (EFA) 2003-2015, developed after an in-depth assessment in 2000. A proto26 SWAp has provided a framework for negotiation and coordination among stakeholders while the Education Sector Support Program (ESSP) is the main tool for the implementation of goals and policies. Recent key policy achievements include the promulgation of the Education Law (2007); approval of a revised National Curriculum and Learning Standards (2006) and development of guidelines for their implementation; the Child Friendly School Policy and Master Plan (2007); the Policy on Education for Children with Disabilities (2008), mid-term reviews of progress on EFA (2007) and ESP (2008), drafting of a National Inter-Ministerial Early Childhood Care and Development Policy (ECCD) (2008), with an ECCD National Plan of Action to be developed in 2009; and increased funding from the national budget for the education sector.

3.2.2 Current Status of Key Indicators Significant progress has been made in key education indicators in recent years.27 The National Primary Net Enrolment Ratio (NER) has risen from 83.8 percent in 2000 to 94.4 percent in 2008, close to the CMDG target of 100 percent with a convergence of urban (94.0 percent) and rural areas (94.7 percent), with tremendous progress being made towards closing the gap in remote areas28 (90.3 percent) through the deliberate policy of building schools and encouraging enrolment in these areas. The Lower Secondary School (LSS) NER has almost doubled from 18.9 percent in 2001 to 33.89 percent in 2008, still much lower than the CMDG target of 100 percent and with much more marked differences between urban (54.0 percent), rural (30.9 percent) and remote (11.3 percent) areas. The rate is lower in part because of large over-age enrolment numbers in primary schools. Gender parity at the national level has been achieved at both the primary (with a Gender Parity Index, GPI, of 0.99) and lower secondary levels (GPI 1.06), albeit at very low levels of net enrolment in LSS. The national Youth Literacy Rate (15-24 yrs old) has increased from 76.3 percent in 1998 to 84.7 percent in 2007. This increase reflects the expansion of access to primary education nationwide in the last 10 years.

3.2.3 Current Challenges While there are substantial achievements in education, there is still a great deal which must be done to achieve the CMDG and EFA targets, particularly at the lower secondary level. The key challenges include: Reaching the unreached: With primary net enrolment rates now above 90 percent, the challenge in meeting the 2015 CMDG and EFA targets of 100 percent will be in reaching the children – in all provinces, urban and rural – who are not coming to school, and to retain them in child-centred learning until grade nine. Bridging the remaining 6 percent gap in primary net enrolment will be difficult, as it is made up mostly of disadvantaged populations including child labourers, those living in remote areas, ethnic minorities, poor and disabled

26 Though there is an Education Sector Support Programme, only one development partner (the European Commission) presently provides direct budget support, while all others operate according to their own aid modalities with no pooled funding mechanisms 27 All indicator values are from MoEYS 2009 except for the literacy rate which is taken from NSDP MTR 2008 28 School districts located in isolated areas where communication with and transportation to the schools are difficult are grouped as remote

28 Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 children, all requiring special interventions, including increased focus on Bilingual Education (BE) for official and unofficial minority groups. For Lower Secondary, increasing enrolment will be especially challenging for girls in remote areas. Over-age Children: The NER is a statement on enrolment of children of the appropriate school age. It does not accurately reflect the real situation in Cambodian schools which is indicated by the Gross Enrolment Rate (GER).

Figure 6. Primary gross and net enrollment rates (both sexes, 1997-2008)

130

120

110

100

70 Gross enrollment Net enrollment 60

1997-98 1998-99 2000-01 2001-02 2002-03 2003-04 2004-05 2005-06 2006-07 2007-08 1999-2000

Figure 6 shows the large proportion of over-age children in primary schools. The gap between the GER and NER is not closing. In 2008-2009, almost half the children admitted to first grade in remote areas were over- age (45 percent); in urban areas this was less than one-third (29.5 percent), and in rural areas it was about one- third (32.3 percent). The national average rate was 32.5 percent. The current trend of over-age entry and enrolment in the primary level in Cambodia can only be remedied with specific policies. It will remain a reality that the school systems and teachers must accommodate for the foreseeable future, and will require appropriate modifications of classrooms and pedagogy. The high level of grade repetition (referred to below) is also a significant barrier to achieving the internal efficiencies that are necessary to reduce the proportion of over-age children in primary education. Completion Rates: While admissions and enrolment have increased substantially, child survival rates have not risen proportionally. The students’ survival rate for grades one to six in the academic year 2007-2008 was 59.3 percent and for grades one to nine it was only 33.1 percent. These indicators have not substantially increased over time. High repetition rates at the primary level, especially in lower grades, and high dropout rates at upper primary and lower secondary levels are major issues that require urgent measures. Early Childhood Education (ECE): ECE is an important element in education as it develops cognitive abilities that will later contribute to students’ progress in school and reduce drop-out and repetition rates. The national ECE strategy has set a target for 50 percent of children to attend pre-school before entering primary education by 2010. The Strategy calls for increased support from the private sector, communities, NGOs and developmental partners, with Communes responsible for the programme administration with policy guidance and technical support from the MoEYS. It is a unique opportunity, in the context of decentralization, to empower Communes to claim and deliver social services for children. Nationally, the ECE enrolment rate increased from 10.8 percent in the 2004-2005 school years to 15.6 percent in the 2007-2008 school years. Parent and Community Participation: Cambodia has recently adopted a Child Friendly School approach, striving to foster greater community involvement in school level planning and decision-making through School Support Committees (SSC). Overall, there is a need to strengthen the accountability of school management to parents and community members at the primary and lower secondary levels. Measures to empower parents by providing them with the necessary information to monitor school performance and participate in the management of schools could reduce the risk of funds misuse and could improve service delivery. Parents

Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 29 and communities need information on school finances and other aspects of school performance, including teacher performance, and have the ability to use this information to voice their expectations or concerns. Parental and community participation is another excellent entry point for improved governance at the local level. Quality of Education: Low completion rates are also due in part to the low quality of education. Academic qualification of teachers is still very low. Only 24 percent of teachers in primary schools in rural areas and 12 percent in remote areas have completed upper secondary education. Teachers’ salaries are also very low, making it difficult to attract and keep qualified teachers. Community participation as described above also has a bearing on the quality of education. Relevance: The issue of the direction of education in Cambodia – whether it leads to employment in the civil service, the modern urban sector or provides rural children with the capabilities needed to participate meaningfully in the development of their communities – still needs to be fully resolved. In particular, as discussed in Section 3.4.1, while vocational education is considered a social protection initiative and operates under the Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training (MoLVT), the crucial importance of skill training for agricultural and rural development highlighted in Section 3.1.2 requires a rethink of vocational options in the context of the education sector. In addition, given increased risky behaviours by youths, a comprehensive life skills education, including sexual, reproductive health/HIV, gender equality, gender-based violence and drug related education, is of critical importance to improved health, gender equality and other societal outcomes.29

3.2.4 Cross-Cutting Issues

Human Rights Three key rights in the area of education include the right of access to education, the right to high quality education and the right to respect within the learning environment. While no one is intentionally deprived of these rights in the context of the Cambodian education system, a large number of children are de facto discriminated against by not having access to quality education, particularly children in remote rural areas, children of ethnic minorities, children with disabilities, street children and working children.

Equity According to most studies and indicators, certain regions of the country, such as Rattanakiri and Mondulkiri, are consistently at a disadvantage in terms of ensuring access to education. Children living in poor areas, with an underdeveloped school infrastructure, face greater challenges in gaining access to and completing school.

Gender Issues While gender parity has been achieved at the national level at both primary and lower secondary levels, there is evidence of gender inequality in primary education among remote rural populations, particularly in those areas where there are ethnic minorities. Retention rates, on the other hand, are more problematic, with gender disparity in lower secondary more pronounced in provinces closer to Phnom Penh and the coastal provinces.

29 These issues are elaborated further in the Youth Situation Analysis (UNCT 2009)

30 Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 Factors preventing a vast number of girls from going to school include families’ economic and financial constraints, the necessity to work to help their family, parents’ and girls’ perception that education lacks value, poor quality of teaching and learning in schools and inadequate school facilities. Low levels of literacy and education hurt women’s employment and livelihood opportunities. • 23 percent of young women age 15-24 are illiterate (vs. 16 percent of young men) and 40 percent of women age 25-44 are illiterate (vs. 22 percent of men). • 33 percent of women age 15-24 and 35 percent of women age 25-44 have less than a primary school education. • Attitudes to girls’ education remain a significant constraint to achieving gender equity in education; 45 percent of women believe that it is better to educate a son than a daughter.

HIV Low levels of literacy and education and high drop out rates among females push girls and women to work in sectors where they are vulnerable to and at greater risk of HIV infection. High drop-out rates, in general, also contribute to the persistence of child labour, an unskilled workforce, and lead youth into risky behaviours with implications for greater HIV transmission. Rising drug use (especially amphetamine type stimulants) among young people and adolescents (particularly out-of-school youth, including street children) is also a concern, with implications for HIV, as drug abuse lowers inhibitions. Increased retention of children in school, and reaching out to children outside of the school system, are protective strategies to help protect children from the spread of HIV. Out-of-school youth, including street children, have less access to HIV/STI/reproductive health (RH) education. There is no adequate link between education and HIV/STI/RH services with sex and sexuality education lacking in schools. While HIV life skills education has been integrated into primary and secondary curricula and general awareness of HIV among young people is high, a comprehensive knowledge of HIV remains limited in this group. HIV education in tertiary education establishments is largely missing.

3.2.5 Causal Analysis The discussion so far has identified the most vulnerable populations, those whose rights are not realised. The factors which prevent children from having access to a quality education have been presented, the immediate causes linked to economic constraints for both the government and parents. Economic constraints lead to the lack of availability of education (insufficient number of schools, incomplete and ill-equipped schools) and to the lack of access to education, even if available, such as primary education, which is theoretically free, but still carries a cost to the family. Underlying causes preventing the realisation of children’s right to education include: the low quality of education, which is characterised by the scarcity of teachers and their low qualifications and skills, high pupil- teacher ratios and low hours students spend in the classroom; high repetition and drop-out rates; and capacity gaps in the coordination and management of education. An important factor for high drop-out rates and low completion rates is the reliance on child labour in poor households. While the direct costs of keeping children in school are falling, the opportunity costs for poor families are high as children can contribute their labour in both income-earning work and subsistence-oriented activities.

Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 31 Finally, root causes are related to perceptions of the value of education, particularly when it comes to girls, and the absence of a culture of human rights that would naturally welcome children’s rights and embrace the principles of universality, non-discrimination and equality, accountability and participation which are recognised in the Convention of the Rights of the Children (CRC). Duty bearers include the State, as well as parents, teachers, representatives of the school administration, parents’ associations, and local authorities, such as village chiefs and members of Commune Councils. While State actors are now, by and large, aware of their duties, this is not necessarily the case with other actors. However, Commune Councils have recently been actively involved in encouraging parents to enrol children in school at the appropriate age. Incentives are needed to address drop-out issues. Furthermore, a major effort needs to be made to educate parents, communities and local authorities about their responsibilities. Other major reasons for key duty bearers not fulfilling their roles include poor professional skills for teachers, lack of coordination or management skills for other state actors and participation skills at the parent and community levels. The deconcentration of services, as proposed for implementation in 2009, has the potential to address some of the key issues. ECE is an important and empowering entry point.

3.3 Health

3.3.1 Policy Context RGC policies and strategies in the health area are articulated by the Second National Health Strategic Plan (HSP2) 2008-2015, giving prominence to five health system cross-cutting themes, which are health service delivery, health care financing, human resources for health, health information system, and health system governance. These themes aim to: reduce newborn, child and maternal morbidity and mortality, with increased reproductive health; reduce morbidity and mortality due to HIV, malaria, tuberculosis, and other communicable diseases; and reduce the burden of non-communicable diseases and other health problems. This key document is supplemented by a large number of other policies and strategies related to child survival, nutrition, immunisation, reproductive health, occupational health, health system financing, drug procurement and quality control, HIV, disabilities, demining, and water supply and sanitation. A SWAp has provided a framework for negotiation and coordination among many stakeholders30 and the Health Sector Support Program (HSSP) is the main tool for implementation of goals and policies.

3.3.2 Current Status of Key Indicators Significant progress has been made in key health indicators between 2000 and 2005:31 • Infant mortality has decreased from 95 to 66 deaths per 1,000 live births (with a 2010 CMDG target of 60) and under-five mortality has decreased from 124 to 83 deaths per 1,000 (with a 2010 CMDG target of 75). This progress has been attributed to the strong performance of the national immunisation programme, successful exclusive breastfeeding promotion, improved access to basic health services, an overall reduction of poverty levels and improved access to education and better roads. • The proportion of children age 12 to 23 months fully immunised against six preventable diseases increased from 40 percent to 66 percent (with measles coverage up to 90 percent in 2008).

30 These include Agence Française de Développement (AFD), Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID), Belgian Technical Cooperation (BTC), United Kingdom Depart- ment for International Development (DfID), UNFPA, UNICEF and the World Bank 31 All 2000 and 2005 values are taken from CDHS 2005. More recent values are from the MoH HIS

32 Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 • Feeding practices have improved, with an increase in babies being breastfed early and exclusively, from 11 percent to 35 percent and from 11 percent to 60 percent, respectively (exclusive breastfeeding up to 66 percent in 2008).32 • Coverage of Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI), critical to reducing under-five mortality, has increased substantially. • The proportion of women receiving antenatal care (ANC) from trained health personnel at least once during their last pregnancy increased from 38 percent to 68 percent (and up to 89 percent in 2008).33 • 58 percent of births were attended by trained birth attendants in 2008, an increase from 33 percent in 2000. • Access to improved water supplies in the dry season has exceeded its 2015 CMDG target of 50 percent in rural areas (53.7 percent). • Innovative financial schemes have been developed to protect the poor from the costs of public sector user fees. • The number of casualties from mines and unexploded ordnance (UXO) has decreased considerably and there is more RGC commitment towards improving the situation of children with disabilities through the adoption of new laws and policies. • Earlier 100 percent condom campaigns in brothels contributed to a significant decrease in HIV prevalence to 0.9 percent in 2006, although there remain concerns around the possibility of resurgence in the epidemic among the most-at-risk populations. • Anti-retroviral therapy (ART) coverage for AIDS patients is now at least 90 percent (2008). Notwithstanding the progress to date, Cambodia still faces major challenges in several areas in order to achieve its MDG targets. These challenges include: • The urgent need to reduce the high maternal mortality ratio, which stands at 472 deaths per 100,000 live births and is among the highest in the region, making it unlikely that it can reach its CMDG target of 243 by 2010 and 140 by 2015. It is imperative that all Cambodians, in particular the women, have greater access to quality reproductive health care services. Although there has been a decline in neonatal mortality, it has been slower than the decline in post-neonatal mortality. The high maternal and newborn mortality rates are attributed to a number of factors: • The shortage, weak capacity and poor deployment and retention of midwives (only 58 percent of women have access to a skilled birth attendant). • 57 percent of pregnant women have anaemia. • Emergency obstetrics and newborn care (EmONC) is not accessible to many women and newborns (the caesarean section rate is below one percent, against the CMDG target of 4 percent and the minimum recommended by WHO level of 5 percent). The most recent 2008 Emergency Obstetrics and Newborn Care assessment revealed that there are only 1.6 facilities providing EmONC services per 500,000 people, which is significantly lower than UN recommended standards. • Inadequate family practices and care-seeking during pregnancy and childbirth, such as the reliance on traditional birth attendants and unclean cord care.

32 2008 Cambodia Anthropometric Survey 33 Ibid

Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 33 • (Unsafe abortion) limited access to safe termination of pregnancy services. While ante-natal care (ANC) usage has increased dramatically, increases in family planning have been limited (only 27 percent out of a CMDG target of 60 percent) making it unlikely that this target will be achieved. As family planning has the potential to reduce maternal mortality by up to 30 percent (reducing unwanted pregnancies, unsafe abortions, etc.) it is critical this be addressed. The outlined issues relating to ANC are a rights issue given that the population policy and unmet demand for family planning remains high. Child malnutrition remains a significant problem, with indications that improvement in the nutritional status of children has stagnated as a result of last year’s high food prices. Findings of the Cambodia Anthropometric Survey (CAS 2008) reveal that the percentage of children classified as acutely malnourished (wasted) and underweight did not change from 2005. The survey also found that wasting among poor urban children increased from 9.6 percent in 2005 to 15.9 percent in 2008. Poor nutrition in young children is primarily caused by inadequate complementary feeding practices, poor hygiene and the high prevalence of diseases, including diarrhoea. Other contributing factors are widespread micronutrient deficiencies and anaemia, which is common among children under age five. Maintaining the gains made in HIV education and prevention and addressing the risks of a second wave epidemic due to behaviours among groups at particular risk of HIV infection and other communicable diseases (e.g., drug users, men who have sex with men (MSM), entertainment workers in brothel and non-brothel settings and their clients and sexual partners, populations in prisons and drug rehabilitation centres). Emerging health challenges include: the rise of non-communicable diseases; road traffic injuries; drowning; anti-malaria drug resistance along the Cambodia-Thai border; and an epidemiological change of the transmission of HIV/AIDS from husband to wife and mother to child. Water, Sanitation and Hygiene: although classified as environmental indicators in the CMDGs, and not under the authority of the MoH, access to safe water and sanitation and the associated hygiene behaviours remain considerable health challenges, with 11,000 deaths a year (30 per day) due to diarrhoea alone. While, as indicated above, the CMDG target for access to improved water source has been reached for rural areas (but not for urban areas where at 67 percent, it remains below the CMDG target of 80 percent), this does not mean that the population has actual access to and uses safe water. In addition, access to sanitation is dismal (16 percent in rural areas with CMDG of 30 percent; 56 percent in urban areas with CMDG of 74 percent). The situation has been described as a crisis and action is being taken to address it.

3.3.3 Current Challenges A number of important challenges face the health sector as it addresses the issues identified above. These are detailed below, with equity of access to health services discussed separately as a cross-cutting issue. Health Services Delivery: The quality of services among both public and private providers is often below standard due to staff shortages, low skill levels of heath professionals, inadequate quality assurance systems, and low-levels of staff motivation leading to a high absenteeism rate and often a dual public/private practice, the latter to the detriment of the former. Availability and access to health services are also constrained by difficulties of physical access to health facilities for rural and remote populations and prevailing discriminatory attitudes, practices and behaviours amongst healthcare providers. Addressing these issues requires adopting a continuum of care strategy for women and children, as a backbone of the health care service delivery system, linking other service delivery programmes with this continuum of care, upgrading infrastructure according to the disease burden and strengthening referral pathways. Human Resources for Health: Improving the capacity of health, medical and para-medical professionals working at all levels of the health system from remote areas to the central levels of health policy and planning

34 Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 requires improvement and harmonisation of education curriculum and working conditions, the creation of salary incentive packages (e.g. Merit-Based Performance Incentive Scheme), incentive-based deployment of health professionals in underserved areas, appropriate mix of competencies by level of care, and regulation of private practices. The weak capacity and deployment/retention issues of midwives are important concerns as these issues constitute major obstacles to improving access to reproductive health care services with the low maternal and neonatal health outcomes noted above. Health Financing: Out of pocket spending on health care, particularly among the poor is one of the primary causes of continued or deepened poverty. Around 40 percent of cases of families losing land involve health crises. Current health financing strategies focus on social safety nets, with the establishment of Health Equity Funds (HEF) which are still highly donor-dependent, although there are plans to achieve universal access to HEF by 2015 by increasing Government’s financial contribution to this scheme over that period of time. Aid Effectiveness and Governance: Despite positive trends in the RGC’s role and leadership, the health sector remains highly fragmented with multiple implementing partners (22 donors, over 100 NGOs active, 122 projects in 2006). Further progress towards health-related MDGs in Cambodia and strengthening of the country’s health care system will depend on RGC and development partners’ ability to tackle this fragmentation challenge. Ongoing efforts include: health sector resource allocation increasingly consolidated using the existing Ministry of Health (MoH) budget and planning system; joint annual performance reviews involving RGC and DPs; and technical working groups at national and provincial levels. Cambodia is also among the first wave of countries piloting the International Health Partnership initiative, which places particular emphasis on harmonisation and alignment. Sector unification will continue to pose serious challenges. The health system stewardship function which is associated with the ’governance’ cross-cutting priority of the HSP2 will translate into improved capacity of the MoH to set norms and make them implementable throughout all health system constituencies, public and private, governmental and non-governmental, at central and peripheral level. Participation and accountability of local authorities and communities will also have to be developed. Envisaged developments in health financing, decentralization, increased autonomy of service providers and the needed increase for engagement with private sector all require new approaches, systems, skills and institutions. As a result, the MoH role will transform from a hierarchical management and direct delivery of services model towards a policy, regulatory and oversight model. Epidemiological Transition and Double Burden of Diseases: In the next several years, the challenge for the health sector in Cambodia will be to develop a health system able to absorb and be responsive to the needs of a population in epidemiological transition, meaning a population displaying a double burden of diseases. The demand of care covers a large span of interventions generated by a variety of communicable and non- communicable diseases – consisting of both simple course therapeutic and long-term complex multi-course interventions, including a variety of accompanying preventive measures. Occupational Safety and Health: As industrialisation progresses, the safety and health of workers becomes an emerging issue in Cambodia. In response, the Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training (MoLVT) launched the First Master Plan of Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) of Cambodia in 2009. The major challenges in occupational safety and health programmes in Cambodia will be to strengthen legislative frameworks and develop and expand functioning OSH mechanisms at the workplace.

3.3.4 Cross-Cutting Issues

Equity Significant inequities persist between rural and urban areas, across provinces and among people with different educational levels and economic status. Considerable financial barriers prevent the use of services,

Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 35 with out-of-pocket expenditures representing about 70 percent of total per capita health spending. Access to a skilled birth attendant is an example of the greatest social inequity, with the wealthiest women being 10 times more likely to give birth in a health facility than the poorest (67.4 percent of the quintile, compared to merely 6.5 percent of the poorest quintile). Similarly, only 10 percent of women with low education levels or no schooling at all are likely to give birth in health facilities or benefit from antenatal care, compared to 90 percent of women with a secondary or higher education. Additionally, disparities between provinces and different socio-economic groups are disturbingly large.

Gender, Youth and HIV Issues The persistence of maternal mortality has already been recognised as a major issue. While an epidemiological fact, it is nonetheless due to a range of social factors related to: perceptions of women’s health; the nutrition of girls and women; women’s educational levels; systemic barriers to addressing maternal health, such as the shortage of midwives, low levels of antenatal care and lack of knowledge of its benefits. Other factors include low level of childbirth in health facilities due to geographic distance and lack of transport, lack of family planning to prevent unwanted pregnancies and lack of safe abortion services. The proportion of new HIV infections through spousal and mother-to-child transmission is increasing. Currently, more than half of new HIV cases are among newborns and their mothers. Despite significant improvements, PMTCT coverage remains low and more work is needed to link sexual transmitted infections, reproductive health, voluntary confidential counselling and testing and other HIV services so women can have access to a comprehensive package of health services. Female household members are usually the main caretakers for family health issues, which creates additional burdens and often prevents them from securing decent livelihoods. Promiscuous male sexual behaviour, which indicates values placed on women (formal and informal sex workers, as well as their wives), is a manifestation of increasingly unbalanced gender values in the country. Stigma and discrimination prevent universal access of PLHIV to health services (especially for MSM and transgender) and male sexual health is also not sufficiently prioritised, again especially for MSM. With regard to addressing HIV, a chief concern is the high-risk groups, including sex workers (a distinction is made in Cambodia between brothel and non-brothel based entertainment workers: non-brothel based include women and girls working in beer gardens, karaoke bars, massage parlours, etc.), men having sex with men, and injecting drug users (IDUs), who have a 24 percent HIV prevalence. A significant proportion of these key populations are adolescents and young people. In particular, a worrying trend is the increase of illicit drug use among street children between 12 and 18-years-old. The presence of high risk behaviours and the lack of adequate health services in prisons and in compulsory drug treatment centres present additional challenges.

3.3.5 Causal Analysis Causes of non-realisation of human rights in the health sector include: the immediate medical causes of maternal, infant and child deaths; the economic, institutional, and capacity constraints associated with the health sector; and behavioural and background factors preventing disadvantaged children and women from exercising their right to health, particularly the low level of education and economic status of mothers. The root causes are mainly attributed to poverty, harmful traditions and persistent patterns of gender inequality. The State, through its agents, is the principal duty-bearer responsible for fulfilling the right to health. This includes all the pertinent authorities representing the commune, district, provincial and central government,

36 Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 such as members of the National Assembly and line ministries, who have the responsibility for creating the broad normative and institutional contexts for the enjoyment of the right to health, as recognised in the international human rights treaties to which Cambodia is a signatory, and national laws. Beyond this, parents, midwives, nurses, doctors and all other healthcare providers also have duties and responsibilities with regard to ensuring the wellbeing of children. Most of the latter duty-bearers do not appear to understand their rights and duties with regard to the realisation of the right to health. The rights to health of key vulnerable populations are further undermined through the arbitrary use of policy and legislation related to drugs and human trafficking and the criminalisation of these groups without access to due legal process.

3.4 Social Protection34

3.4.1 Policy Context Social protection consists of a broad set of instruments designed to assist individuals, households and communities to better manage risk, shocks and extreme poverty and to help build their resilience from falling into poverty. Social protection typically includes social assistance, social security and insurance, a supportive legal and regulatory framework, including labour policies and social welfare services.35 Safety nets are a subset of social protection policy and include interventions such as direct income support to individuals and households (unconditional and conditional cash transfers), workfare programmes (i.e. food- and cash-for work), and, under some definitions, health, education and other subsidies for the poor. The right to an adequate standard of living, including social security, is recognised in multiple international human rights instruments to which Cambodia is a party.36 A social protection system seeks to ensure these rights are met and can be used as a tool to promote equity in society. An efficient and effective social security system goes beyond protecting the poor. To the extent that it encourages prudent risk-taking and enhances opportunities for the poor, it is beneficial for growth. Social protection, in particular well-designed safety nets, can also help governments embark on reforms that have long-term benefits in economic efficiency but high short-term social and political costs, by providing effective compensation to those negatively affected by the reform. The RGC policies implicitly recognise that social protection measures need to be commensurate with Cambodia’s level of development, which may require greater initial emphasis on establishing basic social safety nets rather than on developing a full-fledged social protection system. The RGC also views ensuring peace and safety within the country and building trust between civil society and government as important elements of its role in social protection. The policy framework currently includes a social security law for private-sector workers (2002) and an employment injury insurance scheme (2008) with plans to introduce a contributory social security scheme for civil servants and two community based health insurance schemes with substantial donor support, as well as scholarships for poor children to access secondary education. The Ministry of Planning, with support from German Technical Cooperation (GTZ), has instituted a programme (IDPoor) to identify and pre-qualify poor families for poverty alleviation and other social protection schemes, but coverage is constrained by limited funding. The framework is still limited and requires further development of a legislative base for social security and links to future national schemes to ensure sustainability. The RGC has allocated some of its limited resources to social protection and safety net programmes. Support for civil service pensions and veteran benefits receive the largest allocations of this budget. The RGC budget for safety nets remains low, with the majority of funding provided by Development Partners (DP). The lack of resources has considerably hindered the RGC’s ability to develop an effective safety net system. Additional

34 The discussion on Social Protection presented here is based on WB 2009d, WB 2008a, WB 2008b,WB 2006b and comments by WFP and ILO 35 Grosh, Margaret C. del Nimmo, E. Tesliuc, and A. Ouegerhi, For Protection and Promotion: The Design and Implementation of Effective Safety Nets,World Bank 2009 (p. 24) 36 ISCESCR Articles 9,10 and 11, CRC Articles 26 and 27

Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 37 ways to incorporate successful and impact producing programmes into the RGC’s own agenda, led by DPs, should be explored as an important part of the process of developing a comprehensive safety net strategy. Within the RGC’s limited social protection support aimed at the general population, vocational training receives a relatively significant share of resources. As reflected in the National Policy on Vocational Training for Poverty Alleviation, the RGC’s objectives in supporting vocational training are to help minimise unemployment and to develop new skills in the population which will meet production process needs in new areas. Toward this end, the MoLVT is mandated with strengthening existing vocational training centres, establishing five regional vocational centres and implementing training programmes in remote communities. While vocational training is considered a social protection initiative, it has been discussed in the CCA under economic growth and poverty reduction as it is perceived to be a critical aspect of a human resource development policy designed to reinforce economic activity. There is a need to change the perception of vocational training as a social protection activity aimed at school drop-outs to an essential ingredient in a revised and more relevant education and human resource development policy. There are a number of areas where gaps remain in the current social protection coverage, including in addressing early childhood and maternal poverty, reaching urban poor households and reaching poor families with large numbers of children where poverty levels are the highest.

3.4.2 Overview of the Social Protection Situation According to a recent Asian Development Bank (ADB) Study,37 the Cambodian social protection index is 0.18, which ranks Cambodia 25th out of the 31 Asian and Pacific countries included in the study. Vulnerability levels are high, and the absence of appropriate safety nets leads to negative coping mechanisms which exacerbate poverty.

Vulnerabilities As discussed in Section 3.1.1, despite relatively strong economic growth in recent years, poverty continues to be widespread, particularly in rural areas. In addition, a large proportion of the population is considered to be vulnerable to shocks, as the distribution of households by consumption levels is heavily concentrated around the poverty line. Even minor shocks to household productivity or consumption can push non-poor households into poverty and poor households further into desperate circumstances. Formal and informal safety nets which could help the poor and vulnerable manage such risks, as well as encourage a degree of productive risk-taking, remain weak. Cambodian livelihoods are exposed to a number of risks and remain vulnerable to a range of shocks. These sources of risk include: • production/harvest failures due to natural disasters such as drought or flooding; • macroeconomic and trade shocks such as inflation (increasing food and fuel prices) and job losses in export sectors; • loss of assets including homes and livestock due to natural disasters (which may be increasing due to climate change) as well as disease and death; • health shocks due to high morbidity and limited access to quality health care and other idiosyncratic risks such as loss of a family member;

37 ADB 2007b

38 Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 • limited access to affordable credit; • high costs of accessing services, due to remote location or high informal counter payments; and • fragile social fabric and low social capital among the poor. The vulnerability of poor and near-poor households to these and other risks is exacerbated by the trends identified in Section 3.1.2 that undermine a households’ ability to cope with shocks when they occur and are further compounded by household size and composition and underlying social vulnerabilities within the family. These underlying trends include land concentration (20 percent of rural households are landless and 40 percent are smallholders owning less than 0.5 hectares) and declining access to common property resources (such as fisheries and forests) which have traditionally served as social safety nets for the poor. Increasing pressure on land and common property resources would be easier to manage if non-agricultural employment opportunities were expanding at the same time. However, the growth in off-farm employment is slow, and inadequate to absorb the approximately 250,000 young Cambodians entering the labour market each year. Finally, the vulnerability of Cambodian households also reflects the lack of diversification in the economy. Non-agricultural employment has been heavily reliant upon a small number of sectors (garment manufacturing, tourism and construction), all of which had grown rapidly in recent years in the face of rising external demand. Conversely, all three of these export and FDI dependent sectors are now vulnerable to contraction as external demand is now falling as the global economic crisis unfolds. Children, by their very nature, are especially vulnerable to the livelihood shocks described above. This vulnerability is further intensified for children in marginalised communities and for those who are additionally excluded due to gender norms, disability, illness or exploitation. Children are also less able to claim their rights without the support that social protection can offer them.

Coping Mechanisms The lack of available safety nets to mitigate the impact of these shocks is manifest in negative coping mechanisms. These include withdrawing children from school (especially girls); increased incidence of child labour; reducing expenditure on health services; changing food patterns to less expensive and often less nutritious food; reduced intake of food (especially for women and older girls), which perpetuates a cycle of health issues; selling assets; labour migration of parents, leading to the separation of children from their caregivers; or more extreme behaviours such as trafficking of women and children. Poor young Cambodian children today are more at risk of being given up for illegal adoption or being abandoned or placed indefinitely in orphanages by parents who cannot afford to raise them. Hundreds of thousands of poor children engage in economic activity at a young age and many become involved in hazardous child labour to help their families make ends meet. Poor children are also at risk of commercial sexual exploitation, begging and vending and some are prey to being trafficked for sexual and labour exploitation. The RGC has developed a national strategy for Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC), but to date, interventions to protect children remain fragmented. An unknown number of Cambodians end up crossing the border to neighbouring countries in search of work. The precarious circumstances of adult sex workers and children in prostitution greatly contribute to their risk of contracting STIs and HIV, or of becoming victims of drug abuse. PLHIV are particularly vulnerable as no specific protection measures, such as micro-finance and employment generation schemes, are available to them.

Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 39 Current Safety Net Strategies To date, safety net interventions have addressed some key sources of vulnerability in Cambodia. With support from DPs, health fee waivers (backed by health equity funds) and scholarships have helped households deal with health costs and keeping their children in school. Other safety net interventions include food distribution, labour-intensive public works and other targeted transfers. Despite these efforts, many sources of vulnerability have not yet been tackled, as safety net interventions do not reach many population groups and regions in need of assistance. The urban poor, those who have become poor recently, and those who dip in and out of poverty over time (the transient poor), are often left out of current safety net interventions. Most existing programmes have limited geographical coverage and may not be covering regions that most need them. Geographically disaggregated analysis which links programme coverage to sources of vulnerability may be necessary, to allow better identification of coverage gaps and more targeted use of existing resources to reach the most vulnerable population groups. Disaggregation of data by age and gender is critical in informing appropriate social protection interventions. Transfer programmes in Cambodia have thus far mainly been in the form of food transfers. These play a valuable role in directly addressing food shortages (providing immediate relief from hunger), particularly when local food markets do not work smoothly, with the advantage that the content of the transfers can be tailored to address specific problems, such as micronutrient deficiencies and be somewhat ’self-targeting’ as well as possibly less exposed to risks of diversion. While in-kind transfers do offer fewer options for recipients and may create distortions in the food market that undermine local agricultural production, they are appropriate and needed in a variety of circumstances, for example, when fortified blended foods are not available in local markets. However, there is a role for cash-based interventions, which also have advantages (including lower logistical costs and less chance of undermining efforts to improve agricultural productivity). In building up a safety net system, cash-based interventions could be piloted and evaluated as a complement to in-kind assistance. A combination of cash and food-based approaches is deployed depending on local circumstances of food production and distribution, disposable household income, and demographic characteristics, among other things. The fact that few cash-based interventions have been piloted to date may reflect the fiduciary challenges faced by the country as potential risks of large-scale cash transfer schemes should not be underestimated. Nonetheless, as the successful implementation of Health Equity Funds (HEF) shows, solutions to these challenges exist. In developing transfer programmes, there is a reasonable fear that distribution may be distorted in favour of the non-poor. However, both international experiences and successful experiences from schemes in Cambodia suggest there are strategies to mitigate these risks through good programme design (with particular attention to targeting mechanisms, community oversight, beneficiary awareness, and procedures for enrolment, monitoring and auditing). Given Cambodia’s high poverty rates and its limited resources, it is a priority for the country to focus on developing a sound safety net system, as the first stage in the long-term task of creating an effective and affordable social protection system. The unfolding global crisis makes people, particularly the poor and other disadvantaged groups of the population, more vulnerable. This points to the need for having appropriate social protection programmes in place that would help families avoid the effects of the crisis when it occurs, rather than only help them cope with its devastating effects. Social safety nets are thus needed more in times of crisis. Coordination of scattered interventions by different government departments and by international and local communities needs to be strengthened, strategy and policies for social safety nets as well as for social protection as a whole have to be developed to guide their future development. Institutionally, safety net implementation often reflects immediate priorities (such as the need to respond to the food crisis), rather than a longer-term vision for safety net development and prevention interventions that help mitigate the impact of crises on vulnerable households. Frequent changes in priorities driven by events

40 Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 can prevent the development of a longer-term vision that would eventually allow longstanding protection of the poor and vulnerable, and also more effective rapid responses. In many countries with a large number of DPs, safety net spending reflects priorities dictated by their interests and earmarked funding sources. This leads to relatively large sums available for safety net interventions in some sectors, while other equally important areas (such as malnutrition and early childhood poverty) remain largely uncovered. A major constraint for addressing these institutional challenges is the lack of a Government body with a clear mandate to coordinate and implement cross-sectoral interventions. At present, safety net interventions are scattered across several ministries. The Ministry of Social Affairs, Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation, the Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training and the Ministry of Women’s Affairs are all mandated with managing state social services for the wider population, and helping to protect specific vulnerable groups against risks. However, no government body has the mandate to coordinate safety net interventions across ministries and DPs, or to implement cross-sectoral interventions. The lack of a clear designated agency impedes the development of a comprehensive social protection and safety net strategy and large-scale cross-sectoral interventions.

3.4.3 Cross-Cutting Issues

Gender Women in Cambodia are arguably more vulnerable to poverty and other risks than men. While women in Cambodia are generally among the most economically active in the region, Cambodia still has the lowest levels of gender equity in Asia as measured by the Gender-related Development Index (0.567 in 2005) and the Gender Empowerment Index (0.364 in 2005), as they have relatively less access to health and education services, productive employment opportunities and decent work, land ownership and other property rights. • Violence against women is widespread. • The incidence of domestic violence remains high, affecting 20 to 25 percent of women. The reported incidence of rape and sexual assault is increasing, particularly involving young girls and children. • While reliable data on trafficking and sexual exploitation is unavailable, sexual exploitation appears to be entrenched in Cambodia. • Sexual harassment is more prevalent in informal, vulnerable occupations, particularly commercial and indirect sex workers, beer promotion girls and karaoke hostesses. • Violence against women is widely accepted and tolerated. • Levels of acceptance of domestic violence are high, with 55 percent of women agreeing with at least one reason justifying a husband’s violence, although young, urban, educated women are less likely to see domestic violence as acceptable. • Violence against women is perpetuated by poverty, gender inequality and a culture of impunity. Rape, sexual exploitation and sexual harassment are supported by attitudes which blame the victim. • Gang rape is commonly practiced by clients of sex workers and gang members, and is viewed as a form of ’sport’ involving older as well as younger men. The lack of legal or social sanctions or penalties, together with the attitude that ’bad’ women deserve such treatment, supports and perpetuates these crimes.

Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 41 • Use of violent, hard-core pornography appears to be relatively widespread among young men in rural and urban areas and is linked to an increased incidence of domestic violence and rape by both young and adult men. • Prevention and protection efforts, support options and redress for victims of violence against women are limited. • Most victims of violence do not seek help due to shame and stigma, and the weak response available from the authorities and social services. Only 31 percent of women who experienced domestic violence sought help, half of these women sought help from their own family members. • The most common way of addressing domestic violence is the traditional one of telling women to go home and to be nice to their husbands and not provoke violence (blaming the victim). This is by reference to the Chbap Srey, as mentioned in Section II. • At the commune level there is some evidence that the intervention of Commune Councillors, sometimes accompanied by police, has the desired ’social control’ effect. However it seems likely that there are many cases where justice is not done by these informal methods. • The policy framework is improving, but implementation remains uneven. • Although the policy framework has improved considerably in recent years, legal protection for victims of violence against women is primarily constrained by poor law enforcement. In cases of domestic violence and rape, it is difficult for victims to gather the evidence necessary for a criminal case and prosecution of perpetrators remains rare.

HIV The increased incidence of rape, sexual assault and domestic violence, mentioned above, within a social context of increasingly desperate economic situations, results in increased vulnerability of women to the risk of HIV infection. It should be noted, however, that the greatest risk posed to women, in terms of transmission, if they are not sex workers, comes from their own husbands/partners, not assailants. Families with orphans and vulnerable children often have limited coping mechanisms to deal with income shocks and require strong social safety nets.

3.4.4 Implications The vulnerability linkages suggest that helping households manage the potential impoverishing effects of health expenses, diversifying sources of income and improving labour market opportunities in rural areas could have a meaningful and longer-term impact, particularly given the large proportion of young people entering the workforce with poor employment prospects. Protecting Cambodia’s children and youth are priority areas for social protection-related interventions. Such interventions, however, in line with the conceptual framework presented in Section 1.3 should not see vulnerable populations as passive recipients of social protection measures, but as human beings with potential and capacity who must be empowered to understand and claim their rights. In particular, when it comes to breaking out of poverty, safety nets should be designed in such a way that they encourage risk- taking (adoption of new technologies, seeking new markets, developing new products, building circles of trust for collective endeavours, investing in improved production, upgrading of skills).

42 Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 Just as there is a lack of mandate for coordination and implementation of cross-sectoral interventions in government, so too there is need for leadership among development partners, with high expectations of the UN system in view of its global experience and the relevance of the mandates of many agencies.

3.5 Governance

3.5.1 Policy Context The achievement of good governance, the centrepiece of the Rectangular Strategy, is delineated in the Governance Action Plan38 which covers four cross-cutting areas of reform: combating corruption; judicial and legal reform; civil service reform covering decentralization and deconcentration; and reform of the armed forces, especially demobilisation. A large number of policy and legislative steps have been taken over the past few years in the context of implementing the Governance Action Plan. These include: • The drafting of an Anti-Corruption Law (which has yet to be passed into law) and various policy measures to fight corruption, with the realisation that “eradicating corrupt practices is a long-term and challenging endeavour that requires adequate means including appropriate institutional framework, and enhanced human and financial resources.”39 [The anti-corruption law has since been passed and is set to be implemented in 2011.] • The adoption of the Civil Procedure Code (2006), the Code of Criminal Procedure (2007) and the Civil Code (2007), the Counter-Terrorism Law (2007) and the Law on Suppression on Human Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation (2008); and the adoption of a Code of Ethics for Judges and Prosecutors (2007). The challenge still remains to speed up the judicial reform process; in particular, enactment of the eight remaining fundamental laws, including the Penal Code as well as continued capacity building for legal and judicial professionals and increasing public awareness and access to the justice system. • As part of public administrative reform, the adoption of a medium-term strategy for remuneration of civil servants (the low average monthly remuneration of civil servants has increased by 114 percent from USD30 in 2004 to USD64.2 in 2008) incentives to enhance civil servants’ performance and accountability, the Priority Mission Group (PMG) and Merit-Based Pay Initiative (MBPI) schemes and an Access to Information Framework to help facilitate easier public access to RGC records and data. • The Organic Law on the Administrative Management of Capital, Provinces, Municipalities, Districts and Khans was approved in 2008 and is now beginning to be implemented. In addition, a 10-year implementation programme for D&D, called the National Programme for Sub-National Democratic Development, is under formulation for implementation commencing in 2010. • Reform of the Armed Forces is proceeding according to plan through demobilisation and establishment of more effective armed forces. The share of Defence and Security in GDP has stabilised at around 2 percent (1.8 percent in 2005, 2006 and 2007) and is expected to be 1.7 percent by 2010. This share in the national budget has been steadily declining (from 22.93 percent in 2005 to 18.87 percent in 2007).

38 RGC undated 39 NSDP MTR 2008

Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 43 3.5.2 Overview of Governance Situation Governance, as described here, includes democratic processes, national and sub-national decision-making processes, including the participation of citizens, the operation of the machinery of the Government, the upholding of Human Rights and the Rule of Law. The status of each of these is reviewed briefly here.

Democratic Processes The RGC is committed in principle to multi-party democracy as “the only path for Cambodia towards the rule of law and to provide equal opportunity for all people”40 and has increased its capacity to manage elections by establishing a viable National Election Committee (NEC) to operate and oversee elections. However, the NEC must enhance its constitutional and financial independence in order to contribute to the goal of providing ’checks and balances’41 on the executive power. All recent legislative and commune council elections have been held peacefully and are considered to have been free and fair. The Cambodia People’s Party (CPP) emerged further strengthened from the July 2008 election winning 90 out of 123 National Assembly seats (an increase from 73 in 2003). While the campaign was generally conducted in a more peaceful, open and transparent environment compared to previous elections, this election was judged as falling short “on a number of key international standards for democratic elections”, including impartiality of the electoral administration, use of state resources by the governing party and unequal access to media.42 More needs to be done to address the critical need for the National Assembly and Senate of Cambodia to deliver their three core functions: representation, law making and oversight. The Parliament remains closed off to the public and there is little access to information, with no engagement with civil society. The Parliament needs to be open to create a demand side of accountability and to ensure that there is transparency in the conduct of the legislature’s business.43

Decision-making and Citizen Participation The RGC’s D&D strategy44 aims to provide a local voice in governance and improved public service delivery to the rural population through the devolution of administrative and political powers to sub-national administrations. The nationwide elections in 2002 established the Commune Council as the first tier of sub- national government. The second election of Commune Councils, held in April 2007, reinforced the process and also resulted in a 74 percent increase in female councillors, a welcome result, even though women still comprise only 15 percent of the total. Despite having limited powers and functions, the Commune Councils are largely accepted as having contributed to bringing local development and opening up positive dialogue between citizens and the state. To date, the Commune Councils have observed their role mainly in terms of planning and budgeting infrastructure projects, but more needs to be done to expand the opportunities for citizens to influence and participate in local governance. The recently established Commune Committees for Women and Children (CCWC) and for Disaster Management (CCDM) have been delegated the responsibility of addressing social and disaster management issues respectively. The social issues include: registration of births; registration of children in school at the

40 RGC 2008 p. 3 41 UNDP 2008b 42 See for example EU 2008a and UNDP 2008b 43 UNDP 2008b 44 RGC 2005

44 Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 appropriate age; encouragement of pregnant women to seek medical attention; awareness and sensitisation of community members on key population, reproductive health and gender issues; empowering women to participate in local planning processes; and intervention at the household level in domestic violence cases. While they are underfunded and lack support from the District level, some of these Committees are beginning to function and hold promise for increased participation of local communities in the planning and delivery of social services at their level. The Organic Law, passed in 2008, sets out the administrative and management structure of sub-national administration. This marks the second phase of reform and is expected to involve a significant devolution of power from the centre to the provincial and district levels to improve the delivery of services (health, education, roads, water and sanitation, etc.) and strengthen the state’s regulatory functions (land, forestry and fisheries). Provincial and District Councils are in the process of being established (elections were held on 17 May 2009) and by the end of 2009 the RGC will have formulated a National Programme for Democratic Development to operationalise the Organic Law. This law foresees a major exercise in deconcentration; large numbers of line Ministry employees will be transferred downward or be newly hired to work at the provincial and district levels. This is expected to provide much needed support to Commune Councils in the provision of services and in expanding the space for Commune Chiefs to dialogue with line departments, health centres and schools. The implications of decentralization and deconcentration for the sectors and for attainment of expected outcomes must be understood and appropriate decentralization mechanisms must be put in place to ensure resources, capacity and accountability. However, decentralization and deconcentration also provide additional challenges. Downward accountability is still limited and the districts have historically had a supervisory role over the communes, rather than the collaborative role that is outlined in the Organic Law. Notions of popular participation are limited and the district officials currently fulfil more technical roles with respect to security. At the national level, while modest attempts are being made at including civil society in RGC policymaking, and while there is growing involvement of civil society in the governance arena, the culture of participation is still weak and there are few institutionalised mechanisms for the participation of civil society in decision-making. Civil society itself suffers from low levels of citizen mobilisation and association; lack of internal democracy and downward accountability; lack of confidence in expressing themselves; and needs greater development to effectively represent local constituencies in a coherent way at the national level.45 A World Bank report found that “a role for donors may be to provide for bringing the Government and civil society together, where civil society would obtain a better understanding of government policy positions and the reasons for them, while policy- makers would obtain a better sense of how policies and outcomes are seen to be changing (or not) at the local level. This is a difficult role to play, but one well worth the effort.”46 The private sector too lacks appropriate mechanisms and procedures to ensure harmonious industrial relations at workplaces, which are an important element contributing to the enhanced governance system at national and community levels and can allow workers and employers to work together towards national development. Unfair labour practices by both workers and employers are common in the workplaces and mistrust between workers and employers hinders corporate competitiveness. Workers’ rights and trade union rights should be respected and collective bargaining should be conducted in a fair manner to avoid industrial action and any form of violation in the workplace. Analyses of democratic processes in Cambodia generally agree that, while the emerging governance system still operates largely outside accepted democratic norms, values and procedures,47 the decentralization process has provided opportunities for participation, decision-making and experience in leadership roles for both men and women at the local level and is beginning to open up democratic space at the local level. The

45 WB 2009b 46 WB 2006 47 See for example Ojendal 2007, EU 2008b, IMC 2006, GTZ 2008

Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 45 decentralization process is sufficiently genuine, with support and commitment at the community level. If it is properly managed and supported, this bottom-up approach to the opening of the democratic space could eventually impact the national democratic processes. The challenge for the donor community is to seize this opportunity and effectively coordinate action in its support for D&D. Most observers also agree “there is less coherence among donors to support decentralisation than in similar countries – and other development sectors within Cambodia.”48 This has significantly reduced the effectiveness of the donor contribution to the process, and in a few cases has actually harmed it.

Administrative and Financial Reforms The operation of the RGC is being strengthened through a number of reforms in key sectors including, as mentioned above, corruption, legal and judicial reforms, public administration reform, public financial management reform and armed forces reform. While some progress is being made in these areas, in the words of the Prime Minister, “the quality, efficiency and delivery of the public service still remain as challenges and could not yet respond fully to the real needs of the people.”49 The budgeting and fiscal mechanism supporting the delivery of basic services must be strengthened, including support for the decentralization and deconcentration reform. Some of the lack of reform may be attributed to a lack of capacity and the enormity of the task. However, much of the problem is due to the fact that reform challenges the entrenched patronage system described in Section II, and is therefore resisted. This situation is not unique to Cambodia. Many developing and transitional countries have set up a superstructure of rational-legal administration, which nonetheless continues to rest on a deep foundation of patrimonial rule. Because these systems are deeply entrenched, seldom authorised or openly acknowledged, these parallel informal systems of governance are difficult to address. As a result, there is a distortion in the delivery of public services and an environment that discourages investment, undermines economic progress and stifles popular participation.50 While donors increasingly recognise that patron-client systems are an impediment to development, addressing the issues through frank and open dialogue with national partners may open the door to the acceleration of effective reform.

Justice and the Rule of Law In 2003 the RGC adopted its strategy on Legal and Judicial Reform (LJR), which aims to: improve the protection of fundamental rights and freedoms through rights awareness at the local levels, particularly for women and indigenous peoples; modernise the legislative framework; strengthen legal and judicial services and improve access to them; introduce alternative dispute resolution mechanisms; and strengthen justice sector institutions (see figure below). Overall, progress in legal and judicial reform has been incremental. The number of legal and judicial professionals has steadily increased and a number of capacity development interventions on the new laws and policies have targeted lawyers, judges, prosecutors, court clerks and police. Capacity building support has been given by the Royal Academy for Judicial Professions. However, the level of understanding of the new laws and policies is still low.51

48 EU 2008b 49 RGC 2008 50 For a full discussion see for example CDRI 2007 and USAID 2002 51 Situational Analysis of Women and Children in Cambodia, op cit.

46 Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 Legal and Judicial Reform of Cambodia

The courts are still characterised by low competence, under-funding and corruption.52 In addition to the lack of capacity and resources, the justice system is affected by lengthy delays, a shortage of legal aid and difficulty in enforcing judgments.53 The courts are thus generally unable to provide citizens with a remedy for violations of human rights, including economic, social and cultural rights. Though Cambodia has made strides in improving its human rights record, violence (public and domestic), weak law enforcement, impunity and corruption remain as challenges.54 The trafficking of women and land grabbing in indigenous areas continue to be pressing areas for reform in the context of human rights. These problems undermine Cambodia’s development and its ability to meet its obligations under the human rights treaties to which it is a party.55 The lack of effective separation between the branches of government results in an absence of checks and balances and contributes to the perception of an absence of accountability in governance institutions. Human rights observers have noted that, despite the many public pledges by the RGC of its commitment to judicial and legal reform, there has not been any meaningful progress regarding the lack of independence of the courts from political and financial influence.56 In a recent speech, the Prime Minister noted, “The judiciary could not yet gain full confidence from the public. The development of legal framework has not yet been comprehensive, while law enforcement is still to improve.”57 While continuing to implement the LJR, the RGC’s priorities for the Fourth Legislature are to: disseminate knowledge of laws and procedures to the public and provide legal training to law enforcement officials; enhance the competency and accountability of judges and prosecutors; develop support mechanisms and staff qualifications and professionalism to serve the judicial sector; provide legal aid to poor citizens to help protect their rights and interests at court; and further promote the mechanisms for dispute resolution outside of the court system. Though legal and judicial reform is a critical area that requires support in Cambodia, only a few development partners have provided support because of the significant challenges in engaging in the sector. The main challenges are: the lack of an independent judiciary; slow-moving passage of fundamental laws; lack of implementation of existing laws; failure of courts to meet international standards; and issues related to corruption and capacity challenges within justice institutions. In addition, the legal and judicial reform sector is inherently more complex than other sectors. It involves four government institutions rather than the traditional single allocated Ministry; the institutions are the Council on Legal and Judicial Reform, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Interior, and the courts. Engagement with all four institutions is required to address

52 See for example SRSG 2007a, SRSG 2007b, SRSG 2008 53 World Bank 2007, Cambodia Sharing Growth: Equity and Development in Cambodia, Equity Report 2007, p. 170 54 Cambodia-European Community Strategy Paper for the Period of 2007-2013, p. 7 55 See for example SRSG 2007a, SRSG 2007b, SRSG 2008 56 Situational Analysis of Women and Children in Cambodia, op cit, p. 28 57 RGC 2008

Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 47 effective legal and judicial reform. While there is a Technical Working Group for Legal and Judicial reform (TWGLJR), there is general consensus that a more holistic and coordinated approach to reform is needed. Such engagement would have to focus on strengthening the sector review process with more systematic planning, information sharing, monitoring and evaluation. Currently, a number of initiatives are ongoing and others are under development. These include a monitoring system to measure justice sector performance, including administration of justice, which is under development, and a Model Court Project is also being carried out in five provincial courts.58 The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is piloting the use of a court registry for criminal cases with a database and tracking system for cases involving child victims, children in conflict with the law, sex crimes and human trafficking in selected courts. The MoJ leads an inter-ministerial Child Justice Working Group, which is finalising the draft Juvenile Justice Law.59 Access to legal aid and the promotion of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms is another area where critical support has been provided. Fifty-six ’Commune Dispute Resolution Committees’ have been set up in six provinces to mediate cases between citizens, but only 20 are fully functional at this point. At the district level, Maisons de la Justice have been established in 20 districts, to mediate cases that cannot be resolved at the commune level.

3.5.3 Cross-Cutting Issues

Gender Issues During and since the preparation of the NSDP, efforts have been made to promote gender mainstreaming in the entire spectrum of Cambodian society, including national policies and programmes, sectoral plans, commune development, investment planning and budgeting. The efforts to promote women’s rights and roles will continue to be implemented in earnest. However, the awareness of and national capacity to analyse gender equality issues, including literacy rates among adult women, and the financial resources needed to enhance gender equality at the sector level, are still limited. This requires firm commitment and close collaboration among all stakeholders. Some important developments have been: • Gender Mainstreaming Action Groups (GMAG) have been established in 25 ministries and institutions, of which 15 have established their sectoral plans and six of them have received national budget and/or support from development partners to implement their plans. This focus on the sector level is appropriate and the GMAGs are a constructive mechanism for mainstreaming gender, which should be technically supported by all DPs working in sectors, as evidenced in the health and education sectors. These two sectors are beginning to carry the GMAG mechanism down to the sub-national level where assistance with capacity building will be needed. • An increasing number of women are being directly elected to the National Assembly and Commune Councils, but women remain greatly under-represented in the executive and judicial branches of government. • Women directly elected to the National Assembly have increased significantly from 5 percent in 1993 to 11 percent in 1998 and then to 19 percent in 2003. Women directly elected to Commune Councils increased from 8 percent in 2002 to 14.6 percent in 2007. • The RGC is in the process of appointing a female deputy and district governor in all provinces and municipalities. In addition, a ’Guideline on Quotas for Women in Recruitment to Civil Servants” has been issued.

58 Development Partner Activities in the Legal and Judicial Reform Sector, Council for Legal and Judicial Reform, March 2009 59 Situational Analysis of Women and Children in Cambodia, UNICEF Cambodia, 2009, p. 181

48 Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 • The percentage of women appointed to the Senate in 2004 was 21 percent. With the shift to an indirectly elected Senate in 2006, the percentage of seats held by women decreased to 15 percent. • In the Executive branch, at central and provincial levels, women hold between 0-20 percent of senior positions, and in the judiciary they number less than 15 percent. • Appropriate strategies and adequate resources are needed to fully implement commitments made in policy documents and plans. • Although progress has been achieved in integrating gender into key policy documents (e.g. CMDGs, NSDP, JMIs, Organic Laws on D&D) the challenge now is to ensure that appropriate strategies are developed and adequate resources are allocated at the sectoral level to achieve the gender-responsive goals included in these documents, and meet Cambodia’s obligations under the Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). • Institutional linkages between gender mainstreaming mechanisms and mainstreaming planning, budgeting and monitoring processes at the sectoral level and national capacity for gender analysis and evidence-based advocacy need strengthening.

HIV The Law on Suppression of Trafficking in Humans and Sexual Exploitation was adopted in late 2007, consistent with the UN Palermo Protocol. This, however, has negative public health implications because the closure of brothels has driven sex workers underground where they offer transactional sex in non-brothel settings. Thus, they are harder to reach for HIV prevention and treatment. The 100 Percent Condom Use programme, a major factor in Cambodia’s success in reversing the epidemic, has been made obsolete. New strategies must be designed to reach out to entertainment workers. In 2002 the National Assembly adopted the Law on Prevention and Control of HIV/AIDS, and its implementing guidelines were adopted in 2005. The National AIDS Authority (NAA) was created by Royal Decree in the same year. Programmes targeting key populations having difficulty accessing HIV services should not be judgmental, but should be pragmatic and offer people information and services that they need in order to protect themselves and others against HIV infection. Finally, a major challenge is mainstreaming HIV into commune and provincial development plans and developing the capacity to plan, coordinate and manage HIV interventions at the sub-national level.

3.6 Summary of CMDG Achievement The sections above have highlighted both the achievements and the challenges in each of the areas considered. Table 1 below, provides a summary of the status of CMDG achievement for selected indicators. This table contains only selected indicators. A complete table of CMDGs and their current status can be found in Appendix D.

Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 49 Table 1. Status of Achievement of Selected CMDG Targets

Cambodia MDGs Benchmarks Most Recent Available Targets DISTANCE TO TARGET Value Year Value Year Source 2010 2015 TOTAL CURRENT Progress WEIGHT* SCORE Cambodia MDG1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger 100 41 1.1 Proportion of people 47 1993 30.1 2007 P. Profile 25 19.5 27.5 16.9 61% 20 12 whose income is less than the national poverty line 1.4 Prevalence of 38.4 2000 28.8 2008 CAS 24.6 19.2 19.2 9.6 50% 15 7.5 underweight (weight for age <2 SD) children < 5 yrs of age (2) 1.5 Proportion of people 20 1993 18 2007 P. Profile 13 10 10 2 20% 20 4 below the food poverty line 1.6 Prevalence of stunted 49.7 2000 39.5 2008 CAS 31.2 24.5 25.2 10.2 40% 13 5 (height for age <2 SD) children under five years of age 1.7 Prevalence of wasted 16.8 2000 8.9 2008 CAS 11.2 10.1 6.7 7.9 118% 13 13 (weight for height <2 SD) children under 5 yrs of age Cambodia MDG2: Achieve universal nine-year basic education 100 38 2.2 Net enrolment ratio in 87 2001 94.4 2008 EMIS 100 100 13 7.4 57% 20 11 primary education 2.3 Net enrolment ratio 19 2001 33.9 2008 EMIS 75 100 81 14.9 18% 20 4 in lower secondary education 2.6 Survival rate from grade 51 2001 59.3 2008 EMIS 100 100 49 8.3 17% 0 0 1 to 6 (last grade of primary cycle) 2.7 Survival rate from grade 33 2001 33.1 2008 EMIS 76 100 67 0.1 0% 0 0 1 to 9 (last grade of basic cycle) 2.8 Literacy rate of 15-24 82 1999 84.7 2007 CSES 95 100 18 2.7 15% 20 3 years old Cambodia MDG3: Promote gender equality and empower women 100 33 3.1 Ratio of girls to boys 48 2001 72.9 2008 EMIS 80 100 52 24.9 48% 5 2 in upper secondary education 3.2 Ratio of females to 38 2001 57.5 2008 MoEYS 70 85 47 19.5 41% 5 2 males in tertiary education Cambodia MDG4: Reduce child mortality 100 83 4.1 Under-five mortality rate 124 1998 83 2005 CDHS 75 65 59 41 69% 50 35 (per 1,000 live births) 4.2 Infant mortality rate (per 95 1998 66 2005 CDHS 60 50 45 29 64% 0 0 1,000 live births) 4.3 Proportion of children 41.4 2000 90 2008 HIS 85 90 48.6 48.6 100% 25 25 under 1 year immunised against measles 4.4 Proportion of children 28 2000 79 2008 HIS 85 90 62 51 82% 0 0 aged 6-59 months receiving Vitamin A capsules

50 Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 Cambodia MDGs Benchmarks Most Recent Available Targets DISTANCE TO TARGET Value Year Value Year Source 2010 2015 TOTAL CURRENT Progress WEIGHT* SCORE 4.5 Proportion of children 43 2000 78.3 2008 HIS 95 95 52 49 94% 25 24 under 1 year immunised against DPT3 4.6 Proportion of infants 11.4 2000 65.9 2008 CAS 34 49 37.6 54.5 145% 0 0 exclusively breastfed up to 6 months of age Cambodia MDG5: Improve maternal health 100 31 5.1 Maternal mortality ratio 437 1997 472 2005 CDHS 243 140 297 -35 -12% 20 0 (per 100,000 live births) 5.2 Total fertility rate 4 1998 3.4 2005 CDHS 3.4 3 1 0.6 60% 20 12 5.3 Proportion of births 32 2000 58 2008 HIS 70 80 48 26 54% 0 0 attended by skilled health personnel 5.4 Proportion of married 18.5 2000 26 2008 HIS 44 60 41.5 7.5 18% 0 0 women using birth spacing methods 5.5 Proportion of pregnant 30.5 2000 81 2008 HIS 75 90 59.5 50.5 85% 0 0 women with 2 or more ANC with skilled health pers. 5.8 Proportion of women 58 2000 47 2005 CDHS 32 19 39 11 28% 20 6 15-49 years with iron deficiency anaemia Cambodia MDG6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases 100 51 6.1 HIV prevalence rate 3 1997 0.7 2008 NCHADS 1.9 1.8 1.2 2.3 192% 12.5 13 among adults aged 15- 49 6.2 HIV prevalence rate 2.5 1998 2.1 2003 NCHADS 2 1.5 1 0.4 40% 12.5 5 among pregnant women, 15-24 yrs visiting ANC clinic 6.7 Proportion of people 3 2002 94 2008 NCHADS 60 75 72 91 126% 0 0 with advanced HIV infection receiving antiretroviral combination therapy 6.8 Malaria case fatality 0.4 2000 0.36 2004 NMC 0.25 0.1 0.3 0.04 13% 12.5 2 rate reported by Public Health Sector 6.13 Dengue case fatality 1.5 2003 0.74 2004 MOH 0.5 0.3 1.2 0.76 63% 12.5 8 rate reported by Public Health Sector 6.14 Prevalence of smear 428 1997 234 2007 NSDP MTR 214 135 293 194 66% 12.5 8 positive TB per 100,000 population Cambodia MDG7: Ensure environmental sustainability 100 36 7.1 Forest cover (% of total 60 2002 59.09 2006 FA 60 60 0 0.91 -2% 10 0 area) 7.6 Proportion of fishing 56 1998 56.46 2005 FiA 60 60 4 0.46 12% 5 1 lots released to local communities 7.7 Number of community 264 2002 487 2009 FiA 464 589 325 223 69% 5 3 based fisheries 7.9 Proportion of 92 1993 82.3 2007 CSES 61 52 40 9.7 24% 5 1. households dependent on fuel wood

Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 51 Cambodia MDGs Benchmarks Most Recent Available Targets DISTANCE TO TARGET Value Year Value Year Source 2010 2015 TOTAL CURRENT Progress WEIGHT* SCORE 7.10 Prop. of rural population 24 1998 53.7 2005 CDHS 40 50 -26 -29.7 114% 10 10 with access to safe water source (dry season) 7.11 Prop. of urban 60 1998 67.3 2005 CDHS 74 80 -20 -7.3 37% 10 4 population with access to safe water source (dry season) 7.12 Proportion of rural 8.6 1998 15.7 2005 CDHS 20 30 -21.4 -7.1 33% 10 3 population with access to improved sanitation 7.13 Proportion of urban 49 1998 56.1 2005 CDHS 67 74 -25 -7.1 28% 10 3 population with access to improved sanitation 7.14 Proportion of land 15 2000 20 2008 NSDP MTR 32 65 -50 -5 10% 10 1 parcels having titles in both rural and urban areas Cambodia MDG9: De-mining, UXO and Victim Assistance 100 66 9.1 Annual numbers of 1691 1993 271 2008 CMVIS 200 0 1691 1420 84% 40 33.59 civilian casualties recorded 9.2 % of severe/high/ 10 1995 70.8 2008 CMAA 77 100 90 60.8 68% 40 27.02 medium/low suspected contaminated areas cleared

*Notes: The values for nutrition indicators reported here are different from the values reported in the main text, which are derived from the CAS 2008. Because of a change in standards by WHO in 2006, values have been recalculated for 2000 and 2005 to allow for comparison with reported values for 2008. However, since recalculated values for CMDG targets were not available at the time of writing, the older CDHS values are reported in this table.

As can be seen from this table, achieving the CMDGs remains a challenge in most areas. A more graphic way of visualising this can be obtained by computing the percentage ’distance’ travelled to date on the journey from benchmark to target. This computation requires assigning weights to all indicators, as is done in Appendix D. While this is not an official calculation and the assigning of weights requires agreement and many values are still missing or not up to-date in the table in Appendix D, Figure 7 below provides an approximate picture of the level of progress in each of the CMDGs which is thought to sufficiently reflect the reality of the situation.

52 Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 Figure 7. Summary of Progress in Achieving Key CMDG Targets (in terms of % ’Distance’ travelled from Benchmark to 2008)

CMDG 1: Poverty/Hunger 1000 90 CMDG 9: 80 CMDG 2: De-mining/UXO 70 Basic Education 666 60 4141 50 40 388 30 20 10 CMDG 7: CMDG 3: Environment 363 0 333 Gender Equality

511 3131 833 CMDG 6: CMDG 4: HIV/AIDS and Child Mortality Other Diseases

CMDG 5: Maternal Health

As can be seen from the figure, with the caveat that the picture could change with availability of missing or updated data, the greatest progress to date has been made in the areas of child mortality, demining, and HIV/AIDS, and the areas which are lagging behind are maternal health, poverty and hunger, environment and basic education. What the picture also shows is that about two-thirds of the distance still remains to be covered in key areas in the remaining seven years before 2015.

Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 53

Causal analysis of major development IV problems: rights holder perspective

Achieving substantial progress is constrained by factors that are tightly interrelated and have numerous mutual interactions, as illustrated in Figure 8 on the next page.

4.1 Duty Bearer Perspective From the duty bearer side, the most obvious immediate barriers to progress are the uneven availability, targeting, relevance and quality of services. These are due to: • Budget constraints (which are exacerbated by loss in revenue due to corruption); • Poor allocation of resources, which is partly due to rent seeking, lack of planning and coordination capacity, fragmentation of external assistance, low civil society participation in decision-making processes and gender norms, which do not encourage redressing gender inequalities and protecting women’s rights; and • Poor programme implementation, which is partly due to low staff motivation because of low salaries (which is itself locked in a vicious cycle that fosters corruption and a further loss of revenue making it difficult to raise salaries), over-centralisation, lack of capacity in line agencies to translate policies into concrete actions at the grassroots level, fragmentation of external assistance which reduces aid effectiveness, and mainly due to lack of accountability. Lack of staff capacity is due to deficient educational backgrounds, poor recruitment policies (where nepotism and other patronage relationships play a role, so that staff members are more relationship oriented than task or performance oriented) and capacity substitution in the haste to achieve results within the short time span of most development programmes. Lack of accountability is due partly to de facto centralisation and the absence of effective mechanisms of accountability, which are features consistent with the dominant patronage system, and partly to the low demands of rights holders in the area of accountability. The lack of accountability enables corruption and contributes, as described above, to low staff motivation and poor programme implementation. Corruption is an outcome of low salaries, personal profit motivations and the pressures of patronage obligations. Low civil society participation in decision-making is also due to the same factors (de facto centralisation, absence of effective mechanisms of dialogue and low demands of rights holders), and as seen above, contributes to non-optimal allocation of resources and poor programme implementation. The patron-client system also results in a reduction of the democratic space. It explains the difficulty in completing the legal framework and ensuring the rule of law, thus perpetuating impunity in illegal and unsustainable resource utilisation and land grabbing, both of which have impacts on poverty and food security through natural resource depletion and landlessness. As illustrated from this web of connectivity, the patron-client system plays a major role in determining a large number of duty bearer and rights holder behaviours and is therefore bound to cause the failure of any

Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 55 Figure 8. Cambodia CCA Causal Diagram

fragmentation Associated with rights holders Associated bearers with duty Development outcomes Rule of Law Short-term of aid focus and Patron-client rule of law Impunity system Low Low and accountability patron obligations Low staff capacity democratic space Incomplete legal No or ineffective motivation and and regulatory and regulatory Personal profit centralisation mechanisms substitution of dialogue framework Nepotism Reduced Capacity Capacity De facto De Lack of role models Cultural norms

investment climate Rent seeking/ Key underlying constraints, as well as priority entry points of intervention, as described in Chapter points constraints, as described of intervention, Key underlying entry as well as priority V factors External bearers between duty and rights holders Interface accountability corruption Lack of Poor Low demands by rights holders participation revenue Fear of Lost resource allocation Non-optimal Non-optimal Poor programme decision-making implementation Low civil society Low motivation participation in participation Low salaries constraints Budget infrastructure Low access to markets Poor of rights holders social cohesion Low awareness Gender norms Gender in institutions Low capacity Low trust of rights Low Organisational availability and undiversified of services of services of services of services relevance targeting competition quality quality Regional Poor investment Low Low Low Low Low Low Low Historical trauma gender, social Poor health, education, protection outcomes Low access to services and decent work productivity and productivity Illegal and unsustainable Illegal opportunities opportunities employment of risk taking of risk workforce Unskilled resource utilisation Fear Low depletion resource Natural constraints economic and poverty Family insecurity insecurity Food External shocks Landlessness social safety grabbing

Land Dynamics of Poverty nets Climate change No Global crises

56 Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 intervention strategy that does not explicitly take it into account. External assistance may also be contributing to the maintenance or reinforcement of the patron-client system. Several strategies for addressing it explicitly have been identified, including containment, information dissemination and civic education, pockets of reform or islands of integrity, increased competition, and counterbalancing power. These strategies can help to fine tune approaches, and improved and more realistic programme and project design.60

4.2 Rights Holder Perspective Two complex sets of dynamics constrain the capacity of rights holders to avail themselves of services to extract themselves from the trap of poverty and participate meaningfully in governance processes, which are the key to their success in both of these endeavours. Although these dynamics are part of the same complex web of relationships, for the sake of analysis and presentation, they are analysed individually as the dynamics of poverty and the dynamics of participation.

4.2.1 The Dynamics of Poverty Even if services are available, they are often not available to the poorest segments of society because the services entail a cost (real or due to informal fees being levied). This lack of access to services perpetuates the families’ poverty and food insecurity. Lifting themselves out of poverty would require finding full and productive employment and decent work or improving their own productivity. • Opportunities for productive employment and decent work are limited by their own deficient educational and health backgrounds, which translates into an unskilled workforce. Investment in the country, in all sectors, is also constrained by the poor investment climate due to the incomplete legal and regulatory framework, the absence of rule of law, the prevalence of corruption and the low skill levels in the population, which make investment in Cambodia cost more than in neighbouring countries. It is also affected by poor infrastructure and low market access (due in part to technical barriers to trade and in part to incomplete regulatory frameworks). • Improving productivity requires the poor to take risks they cannot afford to take in the absence of focused and effective security nets. They will therefore settle for the more secure choices, which are not the most productive and which will keep them in poverty. Since most live in poverty or at the edge of poverty, the slightest shock, internal (like sickness or death of a family member) or external (due to the global crises – rises in food and oil prices – and the impacts of climate change), will push them into poverty or deeper into poverty. These dynamics are exacerbated for many natural resource dependent communities when there is a depletion of the natural resources upon which they depend due to population pressures, land grabbing and illegal and unsustainable resource utilisation.

60 See for example USAID 2002

Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 57 4.2.2 The Dynamics of Participation

Modifying the above poverty dynamics in their favour would require the poor to claim their rights, raise their voices and ensure that services are responsive to their needs, which means resources are allocated accordingly and are not diverted through corruption. Unfortunately, their capacity to do so is also constrained by another set of factors. These include: low awareness of rights and low capacity of rights holders (a consequence of poor educational levels), low trust in institutions, low social cohesion, and fear of participation. These factors are a result of: legacies of historical trauma; the patron-client system; gender norms, which both prevent women from speaking up and cause others to put lower priority on the fulfilment of their rights; cultural norms; and a lack of role models, which causes people to accept the prevailing unequal patron-client relationships. While this is true at the national level, it is no longer true at the local level. One of the acknowledged successes of the decentralisation process to date is increased participation in local decision-making with village households being brought into the purview of the administration. These successes will continue with additional deconcentration of services.

58 Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 V Conclusions

Over the last decade Cambodia has made remarkable progress in maintaining high levels of economic growth which have generated jobs, increased services and made improvements in health, education and other development indicators. This growth and improvement has resulted in significant reductions in poverty and has underscored the country’s positive drive to achieve key CMDGs. Notwithstanding these notable achievements, Cambodia today, similar to many countries in the world, faces a number of emerging global challenges – global economic slow down, the renewed risks of rising food and energy prices and the looming threats of climate change. Cambodia is particularly exposed to these threats given its narrow economic base, largely subsistence led agriculture, and its vulnerability to climate change and natural disaster risks as a result of its low adaptive capacity. By bringing together its unique and collective comparative advantages, the UN system must play an instrumental role in helping Cambodia face these global challenges while helping the country maintain momentum in meeting CMDGs and continuing the progress it has already made in gender, youth, HIV, equity, justice and the rule of law. In setting UNDAF priorities, therefore, the following will be important considerations: 1. There is an imperative need to support the Royal Government of Cambodia efforts at fosteringeconomic recovery and growth as three out of the four main economic sectors (garments, tourism and construction) are in recession. Agriculture has a crucial short- and medium-term role to play as an economic driver and food security cushion. To effectively harness its potential, however, agriculture must be made more market oriented, efficient and competitive and less subsistence oriented. There will also be a need to enhance productive employment, focusing particularly on youth employment (including young women) in both rural and urban areas, without losing sight of growing urban poverty. This focus requires addressing not only macro issues of investment climate and policy coherence to promote large-scale diversified investment in agriculture, industry and services resulting in productive employment and decent work, but also empowering the rural and urban poor to take advantage of diversified employment options, and to take steps to improve agricultural productivity and investment in agri-business to stimulate the rural economy. Closely related to the above is the need to empower the poor to take risks to improve their lives and their income generation opportunities by shielding them from the effects of external shocks and reversals of fortune. This will require designing and implementing a coherent, dynamic, focused and sustainable safety net strategy. An important component of such a strategy is ensuring access to health services and shielding the poor from the devastating effects of illness. 2. Additionally, ensuring the relevance of education and vocational training and making it available to the large majority of youth to expand their opportunities for acquiring productive skills will support employment and self-employment options, and technology and skills transfer in agriculture and manufacturing industries. The UN has in-depth experience in education, including vocational education and has a comparative advantage in this sector. 3. With the growth of the youth population in Cambodia, the emerging change in values and aspirations of the youthful population, not necessarily shared by the older generation, cannot be ignored. The nascent work already begun by the UN in Cambodia should be further developed in cooperation with the RGC, with substantial financial support devoted to such a national strategy.

Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 59 4. The need for an effective and institutionalised dialogue between rights holders and duty bearers to achieve improved service delivery, particularly in health, education and social protection, is necessary to capitalise on the unique opportunity offered by ongoing decentralization efforts and reinforcement of this dialogue. This will require building social capital and re-establishing trust at the local level; increasing the ’voice’ of local organisations; creating a receptive ’ear’ among duty bearers; training both rights holders and duty bearers together for improved dialogue; understanding planning, budgeting and accountability processes; and working more significantly and closely with the private sector. In order to implement the decentralization efforts, mainstreaming participation and governance issues in sectoral programmes and fostering a national discourse on human rights that is grounded in the people’s actual experiences must occur in order for these rights to be understood and internalised. This highlights the importance of focusing as much on how things are done as on what is done and developing measures to determine the extent to which the dialogue is institutionalised at both national and sub-national levels. 5. Since gender issues have been shown to be at the root of many of the development problems faced by the country, in terms of the lack of availability of economic and educational opportunities for women, lack of access to health services and their lack of opportunities to participate more fully in decision- making processes, while being protected from the negative impacts of migration, domestic violence and exposure to various risks, a strong gender focus and specific gender strategies need to permeate all sectoral interventions. Attention needs to be given to long-standing UN gender policies and their implementation. 6. Further capacity development for service delivery in the context of deconcentration, particularly at the district level, is needed and will strengthen nascent institutions such as the commune level Committee for Women and Children and the Commune Committee for Disaster Management. However, such capacity development efforts cannot simply replicate past unproductive approaches. New strategies should include flexible and transformative training designs using appropriate experiential learning processes based on systematic capacity assessments, followed by consistent mentoring processes. The UN is well-placed to build on research already conducted on capacity building in Cambodia and can lead on coordinated efforts to move to more sophisticated approaches to building individual, institutional and systems’ capacities. 7. Climate change and its consequences are significant emerging issues that need to be addressed now and in the period of the next UNDAF. The current UN research should be ongoing and used as an advocacy tool to influence not only the government, but also other development partners to see this as an opportunity as well as a threat and to seek imaginative responses to climate changes challenges. This emerging issue may well force all stakeholders to re-prioritise their programmes. The implications for economic development and poverty reduction, especially for agriculture and fisheries, demand serious risk assessments. Such assessments will also have to address other sectors, including health. The UN is well placed to pool knowledge from various sources and sectors to help all concerned to address the issue. 8. The need to address difficult issues of patronage, rule of law and human rightsmust be done through an open, constructive and societal dialogue on these issues. There are no simple or short-term solutions to addressing issues related to the underlying patron-client system and such solutions cannot be imposed from the outside. However, it is possible to acknowledge explicitly and publicly its effects on good governance, as yet another element in the development equation, and engage key government and civil society actors in a positive and constructive dialogue from which nationally owned solutions can merge. It is important to create a space where those who are willing to experiment with alternatives are enabled and assisted to do so. When the benefits of alternative approaches are demonstrated and perceived by all stakeholders, the alternative approaches are more easily adopted. 9. There is also a clear need to address fragmentation of aid and to enhance the coherence of development partners’ contributions to development in Cambodia. The UN system has to become a leader in

60 Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 harmonisation and alignment, engaging more in productive partnerships with government, civil society and other development partners, supporting further development of and, therefore, confidence in government systems. This must be done through a careful analysis of the areas of development where the UN system and its agencies are best placed to provide leadership, many instances of which are identified in this CCA.

Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 61

APPENDIX a Initial areas and ideas to Guide the CCA analysis

Please note that these priority cross-cutting areas and issues were identified in the UNCT planning and visioning workshop held on 20 April 2009 to guide the CCA complementary analysis and do not pre-empt the final structure of the UNDAF 2011-2015. Vision Statement: Expanded choices and protected rights, including for the most vulnerable, for a just, equitable and prosperous Cambodia.

Priority Cross -Cutting Areas Gender Youth Rights Equity HIV Population Issues Good Governance Democratic development Land Access, choices, rights Accountability Participation – local, youth, minorities Livelihoods Economic growth and poverty reduction Agriculture Private sector Employment Indigenous, minority peoples Land management, reform and rights Natural resource management Climate change Environmental sustainability Market access and micro-credit Social protection Food security and nutrition Rural and urban poverty Social safety nets Education Vocational training Participation Health Health services Maternal mortality

Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 63 Livelihoods

Rights

Youth

Equity Health Education HIV Livelihoods Social Protection Good Governance Population

64 Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 APPENDIX B structure of coordination of external assistance in cambodia

CAMBODIA DEVELOPMENT COOPERATION FORUM The CDCF is an annual meeting between the Government and development partners to review development and to pledge development aid. Development Partners present statements on progress and challenges in key sectors.  Government-Donor Coordination Committee The GDCC coordinates the TWGs, provides policy guidance, sets priorities and resolves problems raised by the TWGs.   Cambodia development and rehabilitation Board / Council for the development of cambodia The CDC compiles reports to the GDCC on the TWGs three times each year and prepares Joint Monitoring Indicators. It also coordinates the TWGs and provides support to Harmonisation and Alignment for Results implementation.   Royal government TECHNICAL development of Cambodia WORKING GROUPs Partners Ministries, Ag e n c i e s There are 19 TWGs covering priority sectors and thematic areas. Each TWG is chaired by a a n d De p a r t m e n t s senior Government official and supported by a lead donor facilitator.   Secretariat Coordinates and manages TWG administration and drafts reports. Secretariat supports and coordinates TWG sub-groups. Staff: RGC / Ministry   SUB-GROUP 1   SUB-GROUP 2 e.g. cross-cutting issues e.g. specific technical issue

Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 65

APPENDIX c cmdg indicators and targets

Cambodia MDGs Benchmarks Most Recent Available Targets DISTANCE TO TARGET Value Year Value Year Source 2010 2015 TOTAL CURRENT Progress WEIGHT* SCORE

Cambodia MDG1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger 100 41 1.1 Proportion of people 47 1993 30.1 2007 P. Profile 25 19.5 27.5 16.9 61% 20 12 whose income is less than the national poverty line 1.2 Share of poorest quintile 8.5 1993 6.6 2007 P. Profile 10 11 2.5 -1.9 -76% 20 0 in national consumption

1.3 Proportion of working 16.5 1999 22.3 2004 CIPS 10.6 8 8.5 -5.8 -68% 0 0 children aged between 5-17 years 1.4 Prevalence of 38.4 2000 28.8 2008 CAS 24.6 19.2 19.2 9.6 50% 15 7.5 underweight (weight for age <2 SD) children < 5 yrs of age (2) 1.5 Proportion of people 20 1993 18 2007 P. Profile 13 10 10 2 20% 20 4 below the food poverty line 1.6 Prevalence of stunted 49.7 2000 39.5 2008 CAS 31.2 24.5 25.2 10.2 40% 13 5 (height for age <2 SD) children under five years of age 1.7 Prevalence of wasted 16.8 2000 8.9 2008 CAS 11.2 10.1 6.7 7.9 118% 13 13 (weight for height <2 SD) children under 5 yrs of age 1.8 Proportion of 14 2000 71.5 2008 CAS 90 90 76 57.5 76% 0 0 households using iodised salt Cambodia MDG2: Achieve universal nine-year basic education 100 38 2.1 Net primary admission 81 2001 91.9 2008 EMIS 100 100 19 10.9 57% 0 0 rate 2.2 Net enrolment ratio in 87 2001 94.4 2008 EMIS 100 100 13 7.4 57% 20 11 primary education 2.3 Net enrolment ratio 19 2001 33.9 2008 EMIS 75 100 81 14.9 18% 20 4 in lower secondary education 2.4 Proportion of 6-14-year- 35 1999 18.7 2004 CIPS 11 0 35 16.3 47% 0 0 olds out of school 2.5 Survival rate from grade 58 2001 67.4 2008 EMIS 100 100 42 9.4 22% 0 0 1 to 5 2.6 Survival rate from grade 51 2001 59.3 2008 EMIS 100 100 49 8.3 17% 0 0 1 to 6 (last grade of primary cycle)

Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 67 Cambodia MDGs Benchmarks Most Recent Available Targets DISTANCE TO TARGET Value Year Value Year Source 2010 2015 TOTAL CURRENT Progress WEIGHT* SCORE

2.7 Survival rate from grade 33 2001 33.1 2008 EMIS 76 100 67 0.1 0% 0 0 1 to 9 (last grade of basic cycle) 2.8 Literacy rate of 15-24 82 1999 84.7 2007 CSES 95 100 18 2.7 15% 20 3 years old 2.9 Ratio of girls to boys in 87 2001 90.2 2008 EMIS 100 100 13 3.2 25% 20 5 primary education 2.10 Ratio of girls to boys 63 2001 90.1 2008 EMIS 100 100 37 27.1 73% 20 15 in lower secondary education Cambodia MDG3: Promote gender equality and empower women 100 33 3.1 Ratio of girls to boys 48 2001 72.9 2008 EMIS 80 100 52 24.9 48% 5 2 in upper secondary education 3.2 Ratio of females to 38 2001 57.5 2008 MoEYS 70 85 47 19.5 41% 5 2 males in tertiary education 3.3 Ratio of literate females 87 1998 90 2005 CDHS 100 100 13 3 23% 5 1 to males 15-24 years old 3.4 Ratio of literate females 78 1998 80 2005 CDHS 100 100 22 2 9% 5 0 to males 25-44 years old 3.5 Female share in 35 1998 50.2 2007 CSES 50 50 15 15.2 101% 5 5 wage employment in agriculture (primary sector) 3.6 Female share in wage 44 1998 44.2 2007 CSES 50 50 6 0.2 3% 5 0 employment in industry (secondary sector) 3.7 Female share in wage 21 1998 35.6 2007 CSES 37 50 29 14.6 50% 5 3 employment in services (tertiary sector) 3.8 Proportion of seats held 12 2003 22 2008 NEC 24 30 18 10 56% 5 3 by women in National Assembly 3.9 Proportion of seats held 13 2003 14.8 2007 CGA 14 30 17 1.8 11% 5 1 by women in Senate 3.10 Proportion of female 8 2003 7.7 2008 RD 12 15 7 -0.3 -4% 5 0 Ministers 3.11 Proportion of female 6 2003 8 2008 RD 15 18 12 2 17% 5 1 Secretaries of State 3.12 Proportion of female 5 2003 14.6 2008 RD 17 20 15 9.6 64% 5 3 Under-Secretaries of State 3.13 Proportion of female 0 2003 0 2008 SSCS 6 10 10 0 0% 5 0 Provincial Governors 3.14 Proportion of female 1 2003 16.5 2009 MoI 8 15 14 15.5 111% 5 5 Deputy Provincial Governors 3.15 Proportion of seats held 8 2003 14.6 2009 MoI 15 25 17 6.6 39% 5 2 by women in Commune Councils 3.16 Proportion of pop. NA 2003 4.5 2005 CDHS 50 100 100 4.5 5% 5 0 aware that violence against women is wrong and criminal

68 Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 Cambodia MDGs Benchmarks Most Recent Available Targets DISTANCE TO TARGET Value Year Value Year Source 2010 2015 TOTAL CURRENT Progress WEIGHT* SCORE

3.17 Proportion of domestic NA 2003 NA 50 100 100 0 0% 5 0 violence cases counselled by qualified personnel 3.18 Adoption and 0 2003 50 2009 MoWA 100 100 100 50 50% 5 2.5 implementation of laws against violence against women and children (year) 3.19 Collection of annual 0 2003 0 2009 MoWA 100 100 100 0 0% 5 0 statistics to monitor violence against women (year) 3.20 Adoption and 0 2003 50 2009 MoWA 100 100 100 50 50% 5 2.5 implementation of a prevention plan (year) Cambodia MDG4: Reduce child mortality 100 83 4.1 Under-five mortality rate 124 1998 83 2005 CDHS 75 65 59 41 69% 50 35 (per 1,000 live births) 4.2 Infant mortality rate (per 95 1998 66 2005 CDHS 60 50 45 29 64% 0 0 1,000 live births) 4.3 Proportion of children 41.4 2000 90 2008 MoH HIS 85 90 48.6 48.6 100% 25 25 under 1 year immunised against measles 4.4 Proportion of children 28 2000 79 2008 MoH HIS 85 90 62 51 82% 0 0 aged 6-59 months receiving Vitamin A capsules 4.5 Proportion of children 43 2000 78.3 2008 MoH HIS 95 95 52 49 94% 25 24 under 1 year immunised against DPT3 4.6 Proportion of infants 11.4 2000 65.9 2008 CAS 34 49 37.6 54.5 145% 0 0 exclusively breastfed up to 6 months of age 4.7 Prop. of mothers who 11 2000 35.1 2005 CDHS 45 62 51 24.1 47% 0 0 start breast-feeding newborn within 1 hour of birth Cambodia MDG5: Improve maternal health 100 31 5.1 Maternal mortality ratio 437 1997 472 2005 CDHS 243 140 297 -35 -12% 20 0 (per 100,000 live births) 5.2 Total fertility rate 4 1998 3.4 2005 CDHS 3.4 3 1 0.6 60% 20 12 5.3 Proportion of births 32 2000 58 2008 MoH HIS 70 80 48 26 54% 0 0 attended by skilled health personnel 5.4 Proportion of married 18.5 2000 26 2008 MoH HIS 44 60 41.5 7.5 18% 0 0 women using birth spacing methods 5.5 Proportion of pregnant 30.5 2000 81 2008 MoH HIS 75 90 59.5 50.5 85% 0 0 women with 2 or more ANC with skilled health pers. 5.6 Proportion of pregnant 66 2000 57 2005 CDHS 39 33 33 9 27% 20 5 women with iron deficiency anaemia

Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 69 Cambodia MDGs Benchmarks Most Recent Available Targets DISTANCE TO TARGET Value Year Value Year Source 2010 2015 TOTAL CURRENT Progress WEIGHT* SCORE

5.7 Proportion of women 21 2000 16.1 2008 CAS 12 8 13 4.9 38% 20 8 15-49 years with BMI<18.5 kg/m2 5.8 Proportion of women 58 2000 47 2005 CDHS 32 19 39 11 28% 20 6 15-49 years with iron deficiency anaemia 5.9 Proportion of pregnant 0.8 2000 0.8 2005 CDHS 3 4 3.2 0 0% 0 0 women delivered by Caesarean Section Cambodia MDG6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases 100 51 6.1 HIV prevalence rate 3 1997 0.7 2008 NCHADS 1.9 1.8 1.2 2.3 192% 12.5 13 among adults aged 15- 49 6.2 HIV prevalence rate 2.5 1998 2.1 2003 NCHADS 2 1.5 1 0.4 40% 12.5 5 among pregnant women, 15-24 yrs visiting ANC clinic 6.3 Condom use rate among 91 2002 96.7 2003 BSS 98 98 -7 -5.7 81% 0 0 commercial sex workers during last commercial sexual intercourse 6.4 Proportion of young 82 2002 84.4 2005 CDHS 90 95 -13 -2.4 18% 0 0 people 15-24 yrs. old reporting use of condom during sexual intercourse with a non- regular sexual partner 6.5 Proportion of condom 1 2002 NA 5 10 -9 0 0% 0 0 use reported by married women who identified themselves at risk 6.6 Proportion of HIV 2.7 2002 3.8 2004 NAA 35 50 -47.3 -1.1 2% 0 0 infected pregnant women attending ANC receiving a complete course of antiretroviral prophylaxis to reduce risk of MTCT 6.7 Proportion of people 3 2002 94 2008 NCHADS 60 75 72 91 126% 0 0 with advanced HIV infection receiving antiretroviral combination therapy 6.8 Malaria case fatality 0.4 2000 0.36 2004 NMC 0.25 0.1 0.3 0.04 13% 12.5 2 rate reported by Public Health Sector 6.9 Proportion of 24 1998 49 2004 MoH 95 98 -74 -25 34% 0 0 population at high risk who slept under insecticide-treated bed nets during the previous night 6.10 Number of malaria cases 11.4 2000 4 2007 NSDP MTR 7 4 7.4 7.4 100% 12.5 13 treated in public health sector per 1000 pop.

70 Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 Cambodia MDGs Benchmarks Most Recent Available Targets DISTANCE TO TARGET Value Year Value Year Source 2010 2015 TOTAL CURRENT Progress WEIGHT* SCORE

6.11 Proportion of public 60 2002 NA 80 95 35 0 0% 0 0 health facilities able to confirm malaria diagnosis according to national guidelines with 95% accuracy 6.12 Number of dengue 1 2001 0.84 2004 MOH 0.6 0.4 0.6 0.16 27% 12.5 3 cases treated in the public health sector per 1000 pop. 6.13 Dengue case fatality 1.5 2003 0.74 2004 MOH 0.5 0.3 1.2 0.76 63% 12.5 8 rate reported by Public Health Sector 6.14 Prevalence of smear 428 1997 234 2007 NSDP MTR 214 135 293 194 66% 12.5 8 positive TB per 100,000 population 6.15 TB death rate per 90 1997 92 2006 WHO 45 32 58 -2 -3% 12.5 0 100,000 population 6.16 Prop. of all estimated 57 2002 62 2006 WHO 70 70 13 5 38% 0 0 new smear-positive TB cases detected under DOTS 6.17 Prop. registered 89 2002 89 2005 WHO 85 85 4 0 100% 0 0 smear-positive TB cases successfully treated under DOTS Cambodia MDG7: Ensure environmental sustainability 100 36 7.1 Forest Cover (% of total 60 2002 59.09 2006 FA 60 60 0 0.91 -2% 10 0 area) 7.2 Surface of 23 protected 3.3 1993 3.2 2009 MoE 3.3 3.3 0 0.1 -3% 10 0 areas (millions of hectares) 7.3 Surface of 6 new forest- 1.35 1996 1.44 2009 FA 1.35 1.35 0 -0.09 7% 10 10 protected areas (millions of hectares) 7.4 Number of rangers in 600 2001 910 2009 MoE 987 1200 600 310 52% 0 0 protected areas 7.5 Number of rangers in 500 2001 363 2009 MoE 500 500 500 137 -73% 0 0 forest protected areas 7.6 Proportion of fishing 56 1998 56.46 2005 FiA 60 60 4 0.46 12% 5 1 lots released to local communities 7.7 Number of community 264 2002 487 2009 FiA 464 589 325 223 69% 5 3 based fisheries 7.8 Surface of fish 264.5 2000 NA 581 581 316.5 0 0% 5 0 sanctuaries (thousand hectares) 7.9 Proportion of 92 1993 82.3 2007 CSES 61 52 40 9.7 24% 5 1. households dependent on fuel wood 7.10 Prop. of rural population 24 1998 53.7 2005 CDHS 40 50 -26 -29.7 114% 10 10 with access to safe water source (dry season) 7.11 Prop. of urban 60 1998 67.3 2005 CDHS 74 80 -20 -7.3 37% 10 4 population with access to safe water source (dry season)

Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 71 Cambodia MDGs Benchmarks Most Recent Available Targets DISTANCE TO TARGET Value Year Value Year Source 2010 2015 TOTAL CURRENT Progress WEIGHT* SCORE

7.12 Proportion of rural 8.6 1998 15.7 2005 CDHS 20 30 -21.4 -7.1 33% 10 3 population with access to improved sanitation 7.13 Proportion of urban 49 1998 56.1 2005 CDHS 67 74 -25 -7.1 28% 10 3 population with access to improved sanitation 7.14 Proportion of land 15 2000 20 2008 NSDP MTR 32 65 -50 -5 10% 10 1 parcels having titles in both rural and urban areas Cambodia MDG9: De-mining, UXO and victim assistance 100 66 9.1 Annual numbers of 1691 1993 271 2008 CMVIS 200 0 1691 1420 84% 40 33.59 civilian casualties recorded 9.2 % of severe/high/ 10 1995 70.8 2008 CMAA 77 100 90 60.8 68% 40 27.02 medium/low suspected contaminated areas cleared 9.3 Develop and implement 0 2003 50 2009 100 100 100 50 50% 10 5 a victim assistance framework (Year) 9.4 Number of landmine/ 0 2003 NA 75 100 100 0 0% 10 0 UXO victims receiving assistance package and integrated into society

NOTE: Values in RED indicate unavailable values, baseline values and targets that have been recalculated to reflect changes in definition (Nutrition) or modified targets (in Health Strategic Plan)

BSS Behavioural Surveillance Surveys CAS Cambodia Anthropomorphic Survey CIPS Cambodia Inter-Censal Population Survey 2004 CDHS Cambodia Demographic and Health Survey 2005 CGA Cambodia Gender Assessment CMAA Cambodian Mine Action Authority CMVIS Cambodia Mine Victim Information System CSES Cambodia Socio-Economic Survey 2003-04 EMIS Education Management Information System FA Forest Administration database FiA Fishery Administration recording system MoE GANCP recording system MoEYS Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport MoH Ministry of Health MoH HIS Ministry of Health - Health Information System MoI Ministry of Interior MoWA Ministry of Women's Affairs NAA National Aids Authority NCHADS National Centre for HIV/AIDS, Dermatology and STDs NEC National Election Committee NSDP National Strategic Development Plan (used when the actual source of data is not known) NSDP MTR Mid-Term Review of the NSDP P.Profile World Bank Proverty Profile WHO Country Health Information Profile, 2008 Revision

72 Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 APPENDIX D references

While some of the references below are explicitly quoted or referred to in the text, all of them were reviewed in the preparation of this document. Since all the statements in this document are extracted from these sources, referencing each one would have made the document too cumbersome to read. Some were selected by the UNDAF Steering Group; others were obtained to provide additional information or provided by various UN agencies in the process of reviewing the initial fact sheets and drafts of this document.

ADB 2007 Advisory Technical Assistance on Education Regulatory Reform and Governance for Decentralization: Final Report, A. Reinsch, J. Wood, N. McDonald, Hor Meng Heang, M. Pang, ADB and Ministry of Education Youth and Sport, June 2007 ADB 2007b Scaling Up of the Social Protection Index for Committed Poverty Reduction, Vol. 2: Summary of Country Reports, London: ADB and Halcrow China Limited, 2007 ADB 2008 “Asian Development Bank and Cambodia, A Fact Sheet”, 2008 ADB 2009 “Asian Development Outlook 2009” BROWN 2008 Volunteerism: Harnessing the Potential to Develop Cambodia, Eleanor Brown, Youth Star Cambodia in cooperation with United Nations Volunteers, June 2008 CARD 2008 “Strategic Framework for Food Security and Nutrition in Cambodia 2008-2012”, Prepared by the Council for Agricultural and Rural Development in consultation with the Technical Working Group for Food Security and Nutrition, May 2008 CAS 2008a “Cambodia Anthropometrics Survey 2008: Initial findings of National Survey Power Point presentation”, UNICEF and National Institute of Statistics, May 2009 CAS 2008b Cambodia Anthropometrics Survey 2008: Initial findings, UNICEF and National Institute of Statistics, May 2009 CDC 2008 The Cambodia Aid Effectiveness Report 2008, Cambodian Rehabilitation and Development Board, Council for the Development of Cambodia, November 2008 CDHS 2005 Cambodia Demographic and Health Survey, 2005, National Institute of Public Health and National Institute of Statistics, ORC Macro, December 2006 CDRI 2007 “Accountability and Neo-Patrimonialism in Cambodia: A Critical Literature Review”, CDRI, Working Paper No. 34, March 2007 CDRI 2007b Trends in Community Well-Being and Household Mobility in Nine Cambodian Villages, CDRI, 2007 CDRI 2008a Annual Development Review 2007-08, CDRI, February 2008 CDRI 2008b Impact of High Food Prices in Cambodia: Survey Report, Sponsored by WFP, NGO Forum on Cambodia, Oxfam America, World Bank, UNDP, FAO, CDRI, November 2008

Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 73 CEDAW 2003a “Combined Initial, Second, and Third Report on the Implementation of the International Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women in Cambodia”, CEDAW State Report, CEDAW/C/KHM/1-3, RGC, October 2003 CEDAW 2004 “List of issues and questions with regard to the consideration of reports - Cambodia”, CEDAW, CEDAW/C/KHM/Q/1-3, 5 August 2004 CEDAW 2006a “Responses to the list of issues and questions for consideration of the combined initial, second and third periodic reports, Cambodia”, CEDAW, CEDAW/C/KHM/Q/1-3/ADD.1, 4 January 2006 CEDAW 2006b “Concluding comments of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women: Cambodia”, CEDAW, CEDAW/C/KHM/CO/3, 25 January 2006 CERD 2009 “State Report 1997-2008 on Implementation of the International Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination”, CERD State Report, RGC, CERD/C/KHM/8, April 2009 CESCR 2008a “State Report on the Implementation of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: Cambodia”, RGC, CESCR - E/C.12/KHM/1,2 December 2008 CESCR 2008b “List of issues and questions with regard to the consideration of reports - Cambodia”, CESCR, CESCR - E/C.12/KHM/Q/1, 10 December 2008 CESCR 2009a “Responses to list of issues to be taken up in connection with the consideration of the fourth and fifth periodic reports of Cambodia”, CESCR, CESCR - E/C.12/KHM/Q/1/Add.1,18 March 2009 CESCR 2009b “Concluding Observations of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: Cambodia”, CESCR, CESCR - E/C.12/KHM/CO/1, 22 May 2009 CFA 2008 “Comprehensive Framework for Action: High Level Task Force on the Global Food Security Crisis”, HLTF, July 2008 CIDS 2009 Rapid Assessment on the Impact of the Financial Crisis in Cambodia, Kang Chandararot, Dr. Sok Sina and Liv Dannet, Cambodia Institute of Development Study (CIDS) in collaboration with ILO, March 2009 CRC 2009 “Combined Second and Third Periodic Reports of State Party to the Committee on the Rights of the Child on the Implementation of Convention on the Rights of the Child in Cambodia, 2000-2007”, Cambodian National Council for Children, RGC, CRC/C/KHM/2, Draft, April 2009 EAR 2004, Towards Understanding Social Protection in Cambodia, Sophal Chan and Sophal Ear, Cambodia Development Review, October-December 2004 EFA 2007 Education for All Mid-Decade Assessment 2005, Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport, May 2007 EIC 2005 The Political Economy of Development in Cambodia - How to Untie the Gordian Knot of Poverty?, Economic Institute of Cambodia, October, December 2005 EIC 2008 “Cambodia Economic Watch”, Neou Seiha and Chhun Dalin, Economic Institute of Cambodia, October 2008 EU 2008a Final Report on National Assembly Elections, 27 July 2008, European Union Election Observation Mission, Cambodia, October 2008

74 Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 EU 2008b “Supporting Cambodia’s Decentralisation and Deconcentration Reforms: Issues and Options for Development Partners”, James Manor, December 2008 FAO 2008 “Overview of SPS Needs and Assistance in Cambodia Background paper”, LDC Ministerial Conference, Siem Reap, Cambodia 19-20 November 2008, Standards and Trade Development Facility, FAO, November 2008 GTZ 2008 The Theory and Practice of Decentralisation and Deconcentration Social Sector, Royal Government of Cambodia, Ministry of Interior/Department of Local Administration, and German Technical Cooperation, March 2008 ILO 2007a Promoting Employment in Cambodia: Analysis and Options, Elizabeth Morris, International Labour Organization, Sub-Regional Office for East Asia. Bangkok, 2007 ILO 2007b “ILO Policy brief on Youth Employment in Cambodia”, International Labour Organization, Sub Regional Office for East Asia. Bangkok, 2007 ILO 2008 Youth and Employment – Bridging the Gap: A study about youth and employer perspectives on education, skills, opportunities and the future, Youth Employment and Social Dialogue Project, BDLINK Cambodia Co., July 2008 ILO Undated General Overview of Public Technical and Vocational Training in Cambodia, ILO IMC 2006 “Independent Study of Donor Support for Decentralization and Deconcentration”, Inter- Ministerial Commission to Formulate a Draft of Organic Laws, RGC, Draft Final Report, April 2006 JONSSON 2003 Human Rights Approach to Development Programming, Urban Jonsson, UNICEF, Nairobi, 2003 KASUMI 2006, More Than White Cloth? Women’s Rights in Cambodia, Nakagawa Kasumi, Cambodian Defenders Project, 2006 MAFF/MoWRAM “Strategy for Agriculture and Water 2006-2010”, Technical Working Group on Agriculture and Water, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) and Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology (MoWRAM), RGC, March 2007 MoE 2002 “Cambodia’s Initial National Communication Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change”, Ministry of Environment, Royal Government of Cambodia, August 2002 MoEYS 2005 “Education Strategic Plan 2006-2010”, Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport, RGC, December 2005 MoEYS 2008a “Law on Education Enacted by the National Assembly on 19 October 2007”, Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport, RGC, NS/RKM/1207/032, Unofficial translation , 14 July 2008 MoEYS 2008b “Database on Aid Projects in Education Sector”, Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport, RGC, July 2008 MoEYS 2009 “Mid-Term Review Report of the Education Strategic Plan and Education Sector Support Program 2006-2010 implementation”, Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport, RGC, January 2009

Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 75 MoH 2007 Report of a Consensus Workshop HIV Estimates and Projections for Cambodia 2006-2012, Ministry of Health National Centre for HIV/AIDS, Dermatology and STD, RGC, June 2007 MoH 2008 “Health Strategic Plan for 2008-2015”, Ministry of Health, RGC, April 2008 MoLVT 2008a Report on Achievement of Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training for the Third Mandate (2004-08) and Its Objectives to be Continued (2209-13), unofficial summary translation from the Khmer, Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training, 2008 MoLVT 2008b “National Plan of Action on the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour 2008-2012”, Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training, RGC, 2008 MoLVT 2009 “The First Occupational Safety and Health Master Plan 2009-2013”, Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training, RGC, April 2009 MoSVY/NAA 2007 Orphans, Children Affected by HIV, and Other Vulnerable Children in Cambodia, A Situation and Response Assessment 2007, The National Multi-Sectoral Orphans and Vulnerable Children Task Force, MoSVY/NAA, RGC, Interim Version , June 2008 MoT 2007 “Strategic Plan 2007-2009 on the Promotion of Child Safe Tourism to Prevent Trafficking in Children and Women for Labour and Sexual Exploitation in the Tourism Industry in Cambodia”, Ministry of Tourism and ILO Mekong Sub-regional Project to Combat Trafficking in Children and Women, Second Publication, October 2007 MOWA 2006 “Law on the Prevention of Domestic Violence and the Protection of the Victims”, Royal Government of Cambodia, NS/RPM/1005/031, Ministry of Women Affairs, 24 October 2005 MOWA 2008 A Fair Share for Women: Cambodia Gender Assessment, Ministry of Women’s Affairs, April 2008 NAA 2006 Turning the Tide: Cambodia’s Response to HIV and AIDS 1991-2005, National Aids Authority and UNAIDS, RGC, August 2006 NAA 2007a Situation and Response Analysis of HIV and AIDS in Cambodia: 2007 Update, National Aids Authority, RGC, 2007 NAA 2007b “National Strategic Plan for a Comprehensive & Multi-Sectoral Response to HIV/AIDS 2006- 2010: December 2007 Update”, National Aids Authority, RGC, December 2007 NAA 2008 UNGASS Country Progress Report: Reporting period January 2006-December 2007, The National AIDS Authority, Cambodia, RGC, January 2008 NAPA 2006 “National Adaptation Programme of Action to Climate Change (NAPA)”, Ministry of Environment, Royal Government of Cambodia, October 2006 NEE 2003 Towards Understanding Cambodian Villages Beyond War, Meas Nee and Joan Healy, July 2003 NGO Forum 2006 Indigenous Peoples in Cambodia, NGO Forum on Cambodia, April 2006 NIS 2008a “General Population Census of Cambodia 2008: Provisional Population Totals”, National Institute of Statistics, Ministry of Planning, RGC, August 2008 NIS 2008b “Consumer Price Index, Phnom Penh”, National Institute of Statistics, December 2008 NNP 2008 Nutrition in Cambodia 2008: An Analysis of Nutritional Status, Trends and Responses, National Nutrition Programme, Cambodia Ministry of Health

76 Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 NSDP 2006 “National Strategic Development Plan 2006-2010”, Ministry of Planning, RGC, 2006 NSDP MTR 2008 “Mid-Term Review 2008 on the National Strategic Development Plan 2006-2010”, Ministry of Planning, RGC, November 2008 RGC 2004 “The Rectangular Strategy for Growth, Employment, Equity, Efficiency in Cambodia”, Royal Government of Cambodia, 2004 RGC 2005 “Strategic Framework For Decentralization and De-Concentration Reforms”, Royal Government of Cambodia, June 2005 RGC 2008 “Rectangular Strategy, Phase II” , speech by Prime Minister Hun Sen, 26 September 2008 RGC undated “Governance Action Plan”, Royal Government of Cambodia SR 2006 Report by the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living, Miloon Kothari, E/CN.4/2006/41/Add.3, 21 March 2006 SRSG 2007a “Report by the Special Representative of the Secretary General to the Human Rights Council 2007”, Human Rights Council, A/HRC/4/36, 30 January 2007 SRSG 2007b Economic land concessions in Cambodia: A human rights perspective, Report by the SRSG for Human Rights in Cambodia, OHCHR Cambodia, June 2007 SRSG 2008 Report by the Special Representative of the Secretary General to the Human Rights Council 2008, Human Rights Council, A/HRC/7/42, 29 February 2008 TAF 2009 A Measure of Economic Governance and Regulatory Policy Summary Report, The Provincial Business Environment Scorecard in Cambodia, April 2009 UN 2005 Implementing the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness Action Plan of the UN Development Group, United Nations Development Group, July 2005 UN 2007a Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues: Special theme - Territories, lands and natural resources, United Nations Economic and Social Council, March 2007 UN 2007b World Youth Report 2007 – Young People’s Transition to Adulthood: Progress and Challenges, United Nations Department of Social and Economic Affairs, October 2007 UN 2008 “Triennial comprehensive policy review of operational activities for development of the United Nations system”, Sixty-second session Agenda item 59 (b), United Nations General Assembly, March 2008 UNAIDS 2008 “Epidemiological Fact Sheet on HIV and AIDS: Core data on epidemiology and response, Cambodia, 2008 Update”, UNAIDS/WHO Working Group on Global HIV/AIDS and STI, December 2008 UNCT 2005 “United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) 2006-2010”, UNCT, 2005 UNCT 2008 “UNDAF 2008 Joint Annual Review: Summary of Results”, UNCT Cambodia, 2008 UNCT 2008b Report of UN Country Team Retreat, 17-20 September 2008, Siem Reap, Cambodia, United Nations in Cambodia, 2008 UNCT 2009a Youth Situation Analysis in Cambodia, Catalla, Rebecca F. and Kem Sothorn, CDRI and UNCT, 2009 UNCT 2006 “United Nations Alignment with Cambodia’s NDSP 2006-2010”, UNCT Cambodia, 2006

Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 77 UNDG 2008 “Response to the Changing Aid Environment”, United Nations Development Group, January 2008 UNDG 2009 “Guidelines for UNCT on Preparing CCA and UNDAF”, UNDG, February 2009 update UNDG undated “Good Practice Note on a Human Rights Approach to Common Country Analysis”, UNDG, http://www.undg.org/index.cfm?P=230 UNDP 2008a “Cambodia GSB Strategic Review Final Report”, UNDP Cambodia, October 2008 UNDP 2008b “Project Review: Strengthening Democracy and Electoral Processes in Cambodia (SDEP) Project, Report of Mission”, November 2008 UNDP 2009a “Climate Change in Cambodia Brief Overview of the Impacts, Challenges and Initiatives Development Partner Meeting on Climate Change”, UNDP Cambodia, February 2009 UNDP 2009b “Country Programme Action Plan, Results Assessment 2006-2008”, Thomas Winderl, Consultant for Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, UNDP Cambodia, April 2009 UNDP 2009c “Crisis Impact Watch”, UNDP Cambodia, May 2009 UNDP 2009d “Programming Options for Accountability and Transparency”, Scoping Mission Anti- Corruption-Cambodia, UNDP Cambodia, May 2009 UNEP 2005a “Cambodia Environment Outlook 2005”, United Nations Environment Programme, 2005 UNEP 2005b “Cambodia National Environmental Performance Assessment (EPA) Report”, Ministry of Environment, Cambodia and Project Secretariat UNEP Regional Resource Centre For Asia and the Pacific UNFPA 2005 “Sector Wide Approaches: A Resource Document for UNFPA Staff”, the HLSP Institute, September 2005 UNICEF 2008a “An Analysis of Out of School Children in Cambodia: Demographic and Health Survey 2000 and 2005”, UNICEF, May 2008 UNICEF 2008b “Rapid Assessment of Food Prices and School Attendance”, UNICEF Cambodia, July 2008 UNICEF 2008c “Formative Research on Promoting Health and Social Change in Cambodia through Communication Programming: Final Report”, Crossroads to Development, UNICEF, September 2008 UNICEF 2008e “Report of Mid-Term Review of the Country Programme Action Plan 2006-2010”, UNICEF Cambodia and RGC, October 2008 UNICEF 2009 “Situation Analysis of Women and Children in Cambodia”, UNICEF, Version 19, May 2009 UNJP 2008 “United Nations HIV/AIDS Joint Support Programme Operational Plan and Budget 2007- 2010: 2008 Progress Report”, Joint UN Team on HIV/AIDS, 2008 UNV 2009 “Programming Volunteerism for Development: Guidance Note”, UN Volunteers, February 2009 USAID 2002 “Clientelism, Patrimonialism and Democratic Governance: An Overview and Framework for Assessment and Programming”, Derick W. Brinkerhoff and Arthur A. Goldsmith, U.S. Agency for International Development Office of Democracy and Governance, December 2002

78 Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 USAID 2006 “Contributing to Democratic Development Options for Future Donor Support to Decentralization and Deconcentration”, Rainer Rohdewohld and Douglas J. Porter, U.S. Agency for International Development Office of Democracy and Governance April 2006 VBNK 2006 “Working in Cambodia, Perspectives on the Complexities of Cambodians and Expatriates Working Together”, Leng Chhay and Jenny Pearson, VBNK, 2006 WB 2004 “Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Sector Unit East Asia and Pacific Region”, International Finance Corporation, World Bank Group, April 2009 WB 2005 Cambodia Quality Basic Education for All, Human Development Sector Report, East Asia and Pacific Region, World Bank, January 2005 WB 2006 Cambodia Halving Poverty by 2015? Poverty Assessment 2006, World Bank East Asia and Pacific Region, Report No. 35213-KH, 7 February 2006 WB 2006b Managing Risk and Vulnerability in Cambodia: An Assessment and Strategy for Social Protection, World Bank, June 2006 WB 2007 Sharing Growth: Equity and Development in Cambodia, Equity Report 2007, World Bank East Asia and Pacific Region, Report No. 39809-KH, 4 June 2007 WB 2007 Education Quality and Economic Growth, Eric A. Hanushek and Ludger Wößmann, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank, 2007 WB 2008a “Cambodia: Developing a Strategy for Social Health Protection”, Peter Leslie Annear, January 2008 WB 2008b The Design and Implementation of Effective Safety Nets for Protection and Promotion, Margaret Grosh, Carlo del Ninno, Emil Tesliuc, and Azedine Ouerghi, The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank, 2008 WB 2009a “Sustaining Rapid Growth in a Challenging Environment: Cambodia Country Economic Memorandum”, Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Sector Unit East Asia and Pacific Region, January 2009 WB 2009b “Cambodia: Linking Citizens and the State, An Assessment of Civil Society Contributions to Good Governance in Cambodia”, World Bank, February 2009 WB 2009c “A Better Investment Climate to Sustain Growth in Cambodia: Second Investment Climate Assessment”, World Bank and IFC, Final Draft, April 2009 WB 2009d “Safety Nets in Cambodia: Concept Note and Inventory”, Council for Agriculture and Rural Development, World Food Programme, World Bank East Asia Human Development Unit, June 2009 WFP 2007 “Integrated Food Security and Humanitarian Phase Classification Pilot in Cambodia”, World Food Programme, April 2007 WFP 2008 “Food Security Atlas Executive Summary”, http://www.foodsecurityatlas.org/khm/country WHO 2009 “The sector-wide approach: A blessing for public health?”, Guy Hutton and Marcel Tanner, May 2009

Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009 79 Photo credits

Cover A UNESCAP/Park Kibae

Cover B UNESCAP/Park Kibae

Cover C UNICEF/Thomas Billhardt

Cover D UNOHCHR/R. McCormack

Page iii UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, Cartographic Section

Pafe iv UNESCAP/Park Kibae

Page vii UNESCAP/Park Kibae

Page 7 UN/M. Lamb

Page 8 UNESCO

Page 16 UNESCAP/Park Kibae

Page 54 UNICEF/Thomas Billhardt

Page 61 UN/M. Lamb

Page 62 WFP

Page 66 UNESCAP/Park Kibae

80 Cambodia Common Country Assessment 2009

The United Nations in Cambodia Office of the United Nations Resident Coordinator in Cambodia

No. 53, Pasteur Street, Boeung Keng Kang I, P. O. Box 877, Phnom Penh, Cambodia Tel : (855) 23 216 167 or 217 193 | Fax : (855) 23 216 257 or 721 042 E-mail : [email protected] http: //www.un.org.kh