Economic development and poverty reduction in rural areas were the discussion topics for national and international experts gathered at Wednesday’s Second Cambodia Economic Forum in Phnom Penh.
The forum—organized by the Supreme National Economic Council, a government think tank, in collaboration with the UN Development Program and the Asian Development Bank—outlined the various problems faced today by Cambodia’s rural poor and offered suggestions as to how to remedy the situation.
The event comes as a follow-up to last year’s forum that tackled the potential influx of oil money into Cambodia’s coffers.
Prime Minister Hun Sen opened the forum by highlighting the basic constraints that are holding back rural development, giving a shopping list of challenges that included vulnerability to the weather, market volatility, irrigation and access to both credit and markets.
UN Resident Coordinator Douglas Gardner praised Cambodia’s progress over the last decade but added that if progress is to be sustained at a similar rate “an unprecedented focus on rural issues and related action will be needed.”
Gardner cited the “land issue” as being a particularly critical one.
“Resolution of this through, among other things, fair implementation of the Land Law would have immeasurable benefits,” he said.
A UNDP funded report created in cooperation with SNEC and the Stockholm School of Economics also addressed the land issue.
The report noted that less than one quarter of Cambodia’s 18 million hectares is used for agricultural purposes.
This meager amount is due in part to geographic conditions, but it is also because large areas have been “set aside for economic land concessions that are largely under-utilized,” according to the report.
The report presents 2006 data from the German development organization GTZ showing that only 20 percent of Cambodia’s entire territory is under private ownership, whereas economic land concessions and forest land concessions account for 6 and 20 percent of the country respectively.
Hing Thoraxy, deputy cabinet chief and adviser to Cabinet Minister Sok An, addressed the forum from the audience suggesting that the government withdraw concession land that is being left unused.
Sar Sovan, deputy director-general at the Ministry of Land Management, replied that the government had already taken back 200,000 hectares of unused land.
But the Stockholm School of Economics report went even further, concluding that an estimated 15 percent of the Cambodia’s entire territory—or 2.7 million hectares—could be reclaimed by the government and distributed to the poor as social land concessions.
A SNEC report presented at the forum, states that Cambodia may have experienced impressive GDP growth, but the benefits of that growth have disproportionately gone to urban areas.
More than 80 percent of the country’s poor rely on agriculture as their main source of income, the report states.
It adds that growth of agricultural production in Cambodia is lagging behind all of its neighbors, despite having similar soil and weather conditions.
“In absolute terms productivity is low and far behind other major agricultural producers and exporters in the region,” the report reads.
