Cambodia: UN-backed project to help rural poor

The United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has announced that it will support a new $11.5 million development project in Cambodia aimed at helping the rural poor.

“The project will not only boost incomes, it will also lay foundations for sustainable social and economic development in the future,” said Youqiong Wang, IFAD’s country programme manager for Cambodia, noting that it is the agency’s first to target the poor, ethnic population living in remote areas of the country.

Decades of war and internal strife have made Cambodia one of the world’s poorer countries. The three provinces that the project is targeting – Kratie, Preah Vihear and Ratanakiri – are among the poorest in the country, IFAD said in a news release.

The Rural Livelihoods Improvement Project, set to involve 22,600 rural households in the border provinces, will be financed partly by a grant of $9.5 million from IFAD. It will also receive funding from the Government of Cambodia and the UN Development Programme (UNDP).