Cambodia’s economy is largely based on the agricultural sector and this sector is the main water user in Cambodia (Wokker et al. 2011a: 1-3). Several studies acknowledge that wet season rice farming is crucially important for livelihoods. With such farming being historically dependent on rainfall, the majority of lowland farmers grow just one crop a year. In recent years, increasingly irregular rainfall, generally associated with climate change, has adversely affected crop production. As a result, water shortages have led to […]

Environment and poverty nexus is still a polemical issue. Some schools of thought claim that it is poverty that has the major effect on the environment, while another perspective suggests that the environment has more impact on the poor than vice-versa because the poor have no power to exploit the environment. In the context of Cambodia, there is a general consensus that the poor, particularly those living in rural areas, are heavily dependent on the environment i.e. common property resources. […]

This paper reviews the progress of the decentralisation and deconcentration (D&D) reform in Cambodia. It revisits the conflicting positive and negative views on the achievements of the reform in the literature. The goal of the reform is twofold: promotion of local democracy and improvement of local service delivery. Both of these goals are theoretically related to the assumption that decentralisation brings about various social, economic and political benefits through the enhancement of local government’s accountability and responsiveness, people’s participation in […]

The noticeable rise in foreign direct investment (FDI) in agricultural land in developing countries in Africa, South and Central Asia and Latin America in recent years has sparked concerns among civil society groups and international organisations as to the potential impacts on poor local communities’ access to resources. Growing interest from foreign investors in agriculture in Cambodia, particularly in agro-industrial crops like rubber, cassava, sugarcane and maize, has likewise raised concern about the potential effects of such investments on community […]

Cambodia is currently embarked on a significant programme of irrigation development. The technical design of irrigation projects has generally improved, but there remain a number of challenges in the governance of irrigation that inhibit the schemes from working effectively, equitably and sustainably. This study investigates the extent to which the governance of irrigation matches the requirements of diverse irrigation schemes through detailed ethnographic study of three schemes: Rolous and Stung Chinit in Kampong Thom province and Damnak Ampil (DAP) in […]