Cambodia Resident Mission

How ADB Is Helping the Poor in Cambodia

ADB has worked in partnership with the Royal Government of Cambodia in addressing poverty reduction by providing technical assistance grant to finance various policy-based and investment projects.

Find out more about our on-going loan and technical assistance projects.

Education Sector Development Program

This project consists of a policy loan and an investment loan. A $20 million policy loan is supporting sector reforms to:

• increase funds for education and ensure that more is spent on pro-poor education
• increase equitable access to education services
• improve the quality and efficiency of the education sector
• enhance managerial capacity at all levels
• decentralize education service delivery

A $18 million investment loan is for building new schools in poor and remote areas, bringing education within reach of an additional 100,000 children, professional development of 50,000 teachers, and training of 5,000 education officials and commune council members.

The investment project will also encourage more responsibility among provincial authorities to budget and plan their own facilities development programs.

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Health Sector Support

Health indicators in Cambodia are among the worst in the Asian and Pacific region. Average life expectancy at birth is estimated at only 56.4 years and the infant mortality rate is at about 95 per 1,000 live births.

The project aims to:

• boost the planning, finance, and management capacity of the health sector
• develop affordable quality, basic health services for the population
• increase health service utilization
• control and mitigate the effects of infectious epidemics and malnutrition

The $20 million loan for the health sector will improve access to quality health services in nine of the country's poorest provinces, particularly for the poor and disadvantaged, including ethnic minorities, women, and children.

About 4.6 million of the 5 million beneficiaries will be from rural areas. The project is also expected to improve health services for 2.5 million women, through strengthened safe motherhood services and improved antenatal care and emergency obstetric services.

The project design specifically addresses the constraints often faced by the poor on seeking health care services.

The project will

• focus on primary health care, which provides more-than-proportionate benefits to the poor
• invest largely in rural health facilities used by the poor
• focus on prevention and treatment of common communicable diseases, which mostly afflict the poor
• contract out health services in 11 poor operational districts to NGOs, a strategy that has been shown to benefit the poor
• help redress the staff gap and skills of providers working in poor areas
• help establish social protection funds, which will directly help the poor deal with catastrophic and chronic health conditions
• encourage participation of the poor in managing health services through support to health center committees
• mainstream poverty issues into planning, budgeting, and monitoring of health services

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Northwestern Rural Development Project

Rural infrastructure in war-torn Northwestern Cambodia will be rehabilitated with the help of a $27.2 million project to improve access and provide employment opportunities for poor rural residents. Over 500,000 people are expected to benefit from the project.

The project will extend the rural road network to isolated areas. Once access has been established, the project will also fund other facilities for local communities at commune and village levels, such as schools, clinics, markets, water supply and sanitation facilities, rice drying and storage facilities, community buildings, etc.

The beneficiaries will be involved in the project, from identifying and prioritizing pro-poor investments to construction, maintenance, and operation.

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Tonle Sap Environment Management

ADB is promoting management and conservation of the natural resources of Cambodia's Tonle Sap basin, a source of livelihood for more than 1.2 million inhabitants, through a $10.9 million project.

The project aims to:

• strengthen natural resource management coordination and planning
• organize communities for natural resource management
• build management capacity for biodiversity conservation

The Tonle Sap Great Lake, a UNESCO designated biosphere reserve, is the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia. It supports a livelihood of about 11% of Cambodia's population of more than 13 million.

Those living around the lake carry out commercial and subsistence fishing, while land communities rely on low-yield paddy production and supplement this with firewood collection or dry season crop production. In addition, the Tonle Sap is one of the most productive lakes in the world, with fish from the area accounting for up to 70% of the protein intake of Cambodia's population.

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Community-Based Environmental Improvement in Phnom Penh

The $1 million JFPR-financed project supports a community-based environmental improvement project in Phnom Penh.

The project aims to establish sustainable community-based mechanisms to improve living and working conditions and environmental hygiene in low-income neighborhoods.

It will encourage a community-driven approach to improve infrastructure and launch public awareness campaigns on environmental sanitation and hygiene. Through comprehensive community-based solid waste management practices and financing of a revolving fund for civil works, supplies, and equipment, the project further hopes to generate income and employment opportunities for the poor.

It is estimated that more than 30,000 households in 10 districts of Phnom Penh and at a dumpsite will benefit from improved infrastructure and a more hygienic environment.

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Enrolling Poor Girls and Minority Children in Secondary Education

The $3 million JFPR-financed project is to enroll more poor girls and children of ethnic minorities in lower secondary education.

Lower secondary enrollment rates of poor girls and children of ethnic minorities are especially low as their education relies heavily on parental contributions. Once they reach adolescence, girls are traditionally expected to undertake household tasks.

The shortage of school transportation and lodging facilities, long traveling distances, and the lack of secondary schools in rural areas pose additional constraints.

The project will increase awareness of the economic, social and cultural inequalities and biases against girls and minority children. It will pilot test community-managed scholarship programs at selected lower secondary schools. Special scholarships will be offered to ethnic minority children to cover the extra costs for board and lodging.

The project will also build the capacity of central, provincial, district and community level institutions to set up mechanisms to administer and monitor scholarship programs.

It is estimated that the program will reach about 15,000 beneficiaries, of whom about 95% will be girls.

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Improving the Livelihood of Poor Farmers in Southern Cambodia

The $1.8 million JFPR-financed project aims to improve livelihood opportunities for poor farmers in southern Cambodia, thereby enhancing the poverty reduction impact of ADB's proposed Agriculture Sector Development Program.

The project aims to reduce rural poverty by providing farmers with access to agricultural services and resources through NGOs. It emphasizes the participation of women in income-generating activities.

Agriculture has great potential for improving human development and reducing poverty, but many rice-growing areas suffer from decreasing productivity due to the lack of access to improved agricultural technology and inputs. To address this, the project will expand the outreach of agricultural support services to the rural poor in collaboration with civil society organizations.

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Community-Based Livelihood Enhancement of the Rural Poor in Northwestern Cambodia

The $1.8 million JFPR-financed project aims at reducing the rural poverty on a sustainable basis in the four rural northwestern provinces that have been recently affected by war.

It targets female-headed households, war widows, disabled, and displaced soldiers in Northwestern Cambodia to increase their household income and the renewed trust and confidence of the traumatized members of the families. This JFPR project will be implemented in conjunction with the ADB's Northwestern Rural Development Project.