Cambodia asks for more aid as donor meeting opens

Jun 19, 2007, 5:55 GMT

Phnom Penh - Cambodia conceded that land grabs and corruption were issues that needed to be tackled as an annual international donor meeting opened Tuesday, and asked the donors for more aid to tackle the problems.

Addressing the Cambodia Development Cooperation Forum (CDCF), Prime Minister Hun Sen said the government was continuing efforts to weed out some 'bad politicians behind some bad Cambodians' and solve growing inequalities between the rich and poor, especially in rural areas.

'I appeal to Cambodian government partners ... please join with us, especially the World Bank,' Hun Sen told the meeting, previously known as the Consultative Group meeting.

Last year donors pledged 601 million dollars to the heavily aid-dependent nation, at least half the annual budget of which is estimated to rely on international donors after a 30-year civil war.

The meeting comes with the government under a barrage of criticism from non-government groups which have used the banning of a negative forestry report from London-based Global Witness as a focus, and follows a highly critical report from UN human rights envoy Yash Ghai in Geneva last week.

Critics, including New York-based Human Rights Watch, have charged that donors have done little to make the Cambodian government accountable for the vast sums of aid which have poured into the country over the past decade, maintaining that land grabs, human rights abuses and corruption remain rife. They have called on donors to get tough.

World Bank country director Ian Porter was more circumspect in his opening speech, congratulating the government for progress in a number of areas, but noting that other areas were significantly lagging.

'Looking back at what has been achieved since we last met, there has been notable progress in the economic and social arenas, and some progress in government reforms,' Porter, who is the lead development partner coordinator for the meeting, said.

'However, there remain important, and in some cases growing, challenges in each of these areas.'

Although economic development continued to be impressive, in turn driving poverty reduction, 'the government will need to carefully monitor inequality, which increased in the last decade, due mainly to widening inequality within rural areas,' Porter said.

Legal and judicial reform and public administration reform would receive particular attention from donors at the meeting, he said, calling for speedy enactment of a long-promised anti-corruption law.

Minister of Economy and Finance Keat Chhon also acknowledged dialogue would need to focus on some key issues, and said the government had placed a high importance on equitable distribution of economic growth and the development of the agricultural sector, on which 70 per cent of the population depend.

'Although the poverty rate has declined from 47 to 35 per cent over the past 10 years, further improving the living standard of the people, in particular in rural areas, and ensuring an equitable distribution of economic growth among all remains a concern for the Royal Government, and continues to be of high priority,' the minister said.

The meeting comprises key bilateral donors to Cambodia including the US, Germany, Japan and South Korea, and the Asian Development Bank, the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations Development Program and the World Bank. It does not include China. It concludes Wednesday with a press conference.