2nd May 2011 Research recently conducted by Susan Rosas of the International Organization for Adolescents (see here) has shown that the system of orphanage care is fraught with perils that most individual foreign donors, especially volunteer tourists, may be completely unaware of. With the best of intentions, a cohort of tourists choose to spend their [...]

Published 17 December 2011 The good news is that nearly all children in Cambodia are now entering school, and far more than before are completing their primary education, according to the Britain’s leading independent think tank on international development and humanitarian issues, Overseas Development Institute, in its recent progress report on basic education in the [...]

Published 11 March 2011 A phenomena familiar to anyone living here in Cambodia is that many of today’s holidaymakers want to do more than just to sightsee. As a result, growing numbers are volunteering their time, energy and skills for free in the comparatively new but burgeoning ‘voluntourism’ sector. From schools to orphanages, they hope [...]

July 2012 There is little in the way of up-to-date statistics on the health impacts of alcohol in Cambodia. This is despite the fact that the local press is full of stories of public and domestic violence as well as mayhem on the roads in which it is clear alcohol plays a major role. The [...]

November 2012 One of the truly remarkable things about Asia is the year-on-year rate of growth at 6 percent or more per annum. Last year, Cambodia’s GDP grew at 6.1 percent, while Laos’ grew at 8.3 percent! Compare this to much of the period of Europe’s Industrial Revolution 1750 to 1850 when annual rates of [...]

November 2012 Cambodia is currently experiencing an investment-lead a boom, most noticeably in its capital, Phnom Penh. The country’s garment export industry is booming, tourist numbers are surging and low-end manufacturing is taking off as many companies seek a cheaper alternative to China. With the economy growing at a steady six percent a year, an [...]

January 2013 David grew up in one of the refugee camps on the Thai-Cambodian border where he learned to speak passable English, which proved very useful later when ferrying foreigner expats around the capital when he worked as a motorcycle taxi driver in Phnom Penh. He and his wife then decided to invest in a [...]

August 2012 Cambodia is, and will likely remain, a net exporter of workers for the foreseeable future because its economy is incapable of absorbing the spike in young workers coming onto the local labour market, a product of the baby boom of the 1980s. Since economic growth and employment in Cambodia have been so narrowly [...]

February 2013 Approaches to build a world free of poverty and achieve sustainable development through aid have evolved over the last four decades in response to the deepening appreciation of extremely complex and multi-dimensional nature of poverty. Increasingly, poverty is seen as the lack of access to and control of such things as health and [...]

October 2012 In the decade and a half since 1995, the Cambodian authorities promised to enact anti-corruption legislation. Every year, donors complained bitterly and delivered threats that their money would be withheld if the government failed to keep its promise. Yet every year the government prevaricated with one excuse after another to explain why the [...]

August 2012 Cambodia’s annual growth rate of both the population and fertility remain higher than its neighbours in South-east Asia (1.2 per cent and 2.2, respectively). Cambodia’s dependency ratio at 61.2 percent is also higher than the average of 50 percent for whole of South-east Asia. While the dependency ratios have declined over the last [...]

February 2013 Non-government organisations have been a major feature of Cambodian life for over two decades, having a profound influence on the county’s development. Yet Chum Samnang, in NGO Coordination and the Changing Aid Environment in Cambodia, has characterised Cambodia’s sector as immature and weak. While identifying cultural, political and institutional challenges, along with poor [...]