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| >> Regional Overview >> Cambodia Overview | |||||||||||||||||||||
IntroductionThe United States was a key signatory to the 1991 Paris Peace Accord, which ended a decade-long civil war and transformed Cambodia from a one-party Communist state into an emerging pluralistic democracy. Since that time, the highest national interest of the United States in Cambodia has been the promotion of democracy and the continued improvement of human rights. Also of great importance is addressing global problems of infectious diseases including HIV/AIDS and poor maternal and child health. Other important U. S. interests are humanitarian assistance to those still suffering the effects of civil war, genocide and foreign occupation, and improving the lives of the 85% of Cambodia's population in rural areas who remain mired in poverty.Since the early 1990s USAID has been assisting the Cambodian people to rebuild their society. Development and strengthening of indigenous non-governmental organizations (NGOs) has been a cornerstone of this effort, with Cambodian NGOs increasingly stepping forward to deliver services, to provide training, technical assistance, information exchange and advocacy support which international private voluntary organizations (PVOs) previously delivered. During a short period of bilateral engagement (1994-1997), assistance to strengthen technical capacity within the Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC) was underway. During that phase, assistance continued to be delivered through and implemented by PVOs, until such time as the technology transfer was considered completed and the RGC deemed strong enough to administer its own development program. That period was interrupted prematurely when political events in July 1997 led to restrictions prohibiting direct assistance to the RGC, restrictions, which have yet to be lifted. The Development ChallengeDespite progress during this decade, Cambodia was ranked 137th of 174 countries on the human development index by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in its 1999 Human Development Report. Cambodia lags behind most of its neighbors in the region in bringing a higher quality of life to its citizens. Per capita annual income is $280, and this figure is even lower for the majority of people who live in rural areas where cash is scarce and life is hard. Infant, child and maternal mortality rates are among the highest in Asia. Rates of malnutrition in children and anemia in both children and women in reproductive ages are alarmingly high. Life expectancy at birth is only in the mid-50s, and even that level is threatened by Cambodia's fast-growing HIV/AIDS epidemic. Since World War II, Cambodia has been torn by political strife and civil war, the worst of which by far was the brutal Khmer Rouge regime led by Pol Pot in the last half of the 1970s which devastated the country and its people. Years of war and neglect have ravaged the country's physical infrastructure and decimated its human resource base. In this decade, the process of rebuilding has begun. For the first time in 30 years, there is no fighting in Cambodia, and in 1999 the country has witnessed its first full year of stability.Policy successes in Cambodia in progress towards democracy and improved governance within the past 18 months are numerous. A successful election was held in which 93% of eligible voters expressed their choice, followed by the establishment of a carefully negotiated coalition government. Both the elected National Assembly and appointed Senate are seated and enacting legislation, with a vocal opposition party present in both chambers. As promised at the Consultative Group meeting in February, the coalition government has embarked upon an ambitious and comprehensive reform agenda, which is reviewed quarterly with donors and is, to date, progressing according to plan. Examples of reforms include imposition of a value-added-tax and improvements in customs collections which increased tax revenue in the first nine months of 1999 by 58%; increased social sector budget allocations along with decreased military and security allocations, and a decrease of over 2,000 in the number of civil servants. Negotiations continue on establishing an internationally acceptable Khmer Rouge war crimes tribunal. These successes, as well as continued reforms, remain fragile, however, in a climate where there is no reliable rule of law, where trust and loyalties are fluid, where corruption is pervasive, and where democratic institutions are in their infancy. Despite the policy and legal restrictions which remain in place and the reduced program budget over the past three years to approximately 40% of planned strategy levels, USAID has achieved significant progress in helping meet Cambodia's development challenge. U. S. assistance has been invaluable in supporting programs and organizations to protect human rights and to strengthen civil society. A public defender's program now makes legal aid available to the poor in 83% of the country's courts. Human rights monitoring is on-going in 23 of Cambodia's 24 provinces and municipalities. Human rights are improving, and strong Cambodian NGOs are speaking out persuasively for government accountability and to influence public policy. USAID's NGO partners have penetrated the rural areas with high-impact child survival programs through village development committees and increased the proportion of women seeking antenatal care. They have promoted the micronutrient agenda through educational materials and launching of a large-scale salt iodization program, and have provided high quality care for obstetric complications in areas where none was available before. They have trained 900 staff from 46 centers in the public health system in case management of childhood illnesses, and have doubled contraceptive prevalence in areas where family planning services were made available. As Cambodia's largest HIV/AIDS donor, the USAID program strategically targets the population at highest risk to complement the RGC national AIDS program. The NGO social marketing partner sold 12.9 million condoms in 1999, and, 26 community-based organizations have been trained to provide AIDS education and care. To help Cambodian victims of war and mines, U. S. assistance provides over 5,000 prosthetics, orthotics or wheelchairs annually and, importantly, has built the indigenous capacity to produce the devices and provide the services to those in need. USAID-supported NGOs provide technical training and job search help to over 1,000 orphaned, displaced or poor youth annually. With these efforts successfully underway, disabled Cambodians are now better able to reintegrate into society than they were before. To meet the demand of the 85% of the rural poor who do not have access to credit, in 1999, with an investment of less than one million dollars, USAID's NGO partners provided over 90,000 clients with loans totaling over $5.5 million. More than 90% of clients are women. The average loan is less than $200. Other DonorsTotal development assistance to Cambodia has returned to the pre-July 1997 level of about $400 million annually. The United States is the only donor not to have resumed bilateral aid and is now the eighth largest donor, behind Japan, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the European Union, the United Nations Development Program, Australia, and Germany, and only slightly ahead of Sweden and the United Kingdom. Prior to the 1997 aid suspension, the United States was the second largest bilateral donor after Japan. The largest amounts of other donor assistance are primarily for infrastructure projects, rural development and poverty alleviation and for social sector spending.
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