A Change of Guard

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Sunday 14 August 2011

Foreign aid in Cambodia




101 East asks if assistance is helping or harming Cambodians.

Last Modified: 22 Apr 2009
Al Jazeera TV

Last year, Cambodia received $687 million in foreign aid - almost half the government's annual budget.

With over 600 local and international NGOs based across the country, money has flowed into projects to improve health, education and infrastructure.

But after decades of foreign assistance, over a third of Cambodia's population still live below the poverty line.

And critics claim that the vast amount of money flooding the country has created a dependency culture and encouraged political irresponsibility and corruption.

On this edition of 101 East we ask if international aid is harming Cambodia more than it is helping?

To discuss the issue, host Teymoor Nabili is joined by Arjun Goswami from the Asian Development Bank, Theary Seng from the Center for Social Development, and Dr Chap Sotharith from the Cambodia Institute for Cooperation and Peace.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

They are exposing themselves not even knowing it. How do you think foriegn aid flow? Very simple, NGO and local agencies used Cambodian government and its citizens as the scapgoat to get more foriegn aid. Here how it works; let say USAAID has money and Cambodia government was the receipient. The government spent money on staffing to implement the progject, the government can subcontract to local NGO or national NGO to operate the program. The NGO spent money on staffing and operating expenses. Whatever left then may be go directly for Cambodian poor depending on the program design and budgeting. These people sitting here blaming the government but they themselves are part of the problem. Tell them to work for free. I am sure they will be the saver like they claimed themselves. Theary Seng, I got to hand it to you; America didn't teach you to scame Cambodia.