The Cambodian countryside -province of Svay Riêng, is a lot poorer than those in Vietnam. The great poverty (less than 100 euro/year/person) touches 30-40% of the villagers, compared to  about 10% in the provinces of Bình Thuân and Hâu Giangs in Vietnam.

The political context is now consolidated, the country has oil, the cloathing workshop supported the shock of the entrance in the OMC… but the peasants are left to themselves for a big part of the infrastructure: paths, electricity and irrigation are very insufficient.The local economy stagnates, the peasants estimate that studying is expensive and not very useful in the local employment context.

6 times bigger than Belgium and half of Vietnam, Cambodia is smaller than it was in the past. The khmer culture, in the Angkor empire time (10th-14th centuries), spread on a big part of Vietnam. Today the Khmers are 14 millions. The Tonle Sap is the biggest lake of soft water in south-east Asia  and it is considered as the heart of the country. Its surface is multiplied by 5 in monsoon period. It floads and irrigate the rice fields, and produces 60% of the country’s fishes, the fishing constituting 11% of the GDP, more than rice.

The terrifying troubles that the country lived - near 2 millions people died under the Khmers Rouges (hunted by the vietnamese army), left the country with a weak infrastructure, a ravaged economy and especially a traumatized population. The drought paralyzes every year the agriculture from January to June. Most field only give one harvest per year, due to a lack of irrigation. The deforestation is a major problem.

The Cambodians are mainly farmers, but the big cities grow quickly. 12% of the Khmers live in mine-field regions. The fundamental problems are often the object of conflicts, the poorest are sometimes dispossessed of their fields.

Politically, Cambodia is a constitutional monarchy. The king, Norodom Sihamoni, took the succession of king Sihanouk. The majority party, the one of Prime minister Hun Sen, is the Cambodian People's Party (CPP), with 73 seats out of 126 in the parliament. The Funcinpec and the CPP form a governmental coalition since July 2004. Cambodia is member of the ASEAN and the World Trade Organisation since 2004. The GDP/inhabitant was of $321 in 2002. The economy grew to the rate of 5,5%/year during the last decade, that being very insufficient in relation to the demographic growth of 2,2%/year (250.000 Cambodians join the working world each year).

For more of information: http://www.un.org.kh/undp/index.html

Some numbers

Cambodia is at the 129th rank in the index of human development (IDH, 2006), behind Morocco and a little betterplaced than Bangladesh. Here are other comparative indicators :

Sources: 2002 & 2003, United nations
http://hdr.undp.org/statistics/data/index_countries.cfm

Context of the Programs

Mekong Plus chose to concentrate on the provinces of Svay Rieng and Prey Veng, amongst the poorest (see location). They are situated less than 2 hours of Hô Chí Minh City by car. The lack of water is flagrant in dry season and agriculture produces little. We chose to work with 3 small local NGOs:

·         RADE (Farming Association of Economic Development): it helps very poor families with small loans, in order to buy some cows, and provide some pumps to irrigate the vegetable gardens.

·         CFED: popularisation of agricultural techniques among small peasants

·         PTEA: protection of the villages areas and reforestation

·         We have a contract with the khmer organism VBNK formation to help these small NGOs to improve their management: strong board of directors, good financial management. Our objective is to help these NGOs to master their strategy, and no to remain subcontractors for big foreign NGOs. We bring them a financial support to their global budget, which they use according to their own priorities and emergencies.