Higher education plays a fundamental role in enhancing the intellectual capacity essential to creative leadership in all fields of national activity and in providing a skilled workforce able to respond to changing labour market demands. All citizens, and particularly the poor, need the opportunity and the skills to participate productively in the labour market and other economic activities.Improving the quality of higher education means providing the skills and capacities to think logically and critically for a society’s most talented citizens, including the disadvantaged, so allowing them […]

Several authors (particularly Laundau 2008; Henke 2011) label Cambodian national civil society as a sphere that is neither apolitical nor autonomous, but influenced or co-opted by and blurred with the state. They posit that a Gramscian perspective is relevant to interpreting civil society in the country. This article suggests that the application of a Gramscian perspective also proves relevant to sub-national civil society in Cambodia. The sub-national state has recently politicised and co-opted village development committees and imposed restrictions on […]

 Households in Cambodia derive their income mainly from non-farm self-employment, salaries and wages, agricultural crops and other activities. On average, non-farm self-employment income amounts to 29 percent of total income, but its share was largest during the oil and food price increases and the global financial crisis that occurred in 2008 and 2009. However, household participation rates in non-farm self-employment during the crisis were exactly the same as in 2007 and two percentage points lower than in 2010. This suggests […]

This study applies the growth diagnostic approach, developed by Hausmann, Rodrik and Velasco in 2005, to identify binding constraints on Cambodia’s growth after the crises in 2008 and 2009. Growth was strong during 1999-2009 at an average annual rate of 9.0 percent, but then slowed to 6.7 percent in 2008 and dropped to 0.1 percent in 2009, before rebounding in 2010 posting 5 percent. Average annual inflation rate was between 1 and 7 percent during 2002-2007, but jumped to 25 […]

This paper studies the role of rural credit in Cambodia during the global financial and economic crisis that began in 2008. The paper briefly reviews rural credit in Cambodia during 2008, analyses rural households’ formal and informal credit demand during the crisis and proposes policy options. The results suggest that household demand for credit increased during the crisis. The demand for formal loans was higher than for informal ones, indicating the important role of the formal rural credit market in times of economic downturn. There […]

This paper uses four-period panel data covering the years 2001, 2004, 2008 and 2011 to analyse the roles of rural income diversification during the global financial crisis. Income diversification is commonly defined as a proportion of income derived from non-farm activities or the number of income portfolios. However, the use of such measures is problematic because the income diversification variable is sensitive to assumptions about the thresholds used to assign households to different income categories. To address this concern, following […]

Although economic growth started to show signs of recovery in early 2010, a consumption shortfall was pervasive across Cambodian sample villages and household wealth statuses, reflecting the protracted effect of the global financial crisis up to March 2011. This paper aims to investigate the extent of rural household vulnerability and their use and the effectiveness of risk-coping mechanisms in response to the crisis. We find that groups vulnerable to the global financial crisis include larger households and households with older […]

This report presents new work on the impacts of the global financial crisis on the rural labour market in Cambodia. The analysis uses a combination of descriptive statistics and econometric modelling with data from household surveys in nine rural villages to track labour market changes before, during and after the crisis and then assesses the magnitude of associated impacts. The study produces a number of interesting findings. Perhaps the most important result was that, because of the global financial crisis, […]

This paper investigates the impact of the global financial and economic crisis on Cambodian rural households, mainly focussing on trends in household consumption and poverty, i.e. the poverty headcount ratio, poverty gap and squared poverty gap, using four-period panel data covering the years 2001, 2004, 2008 and 2011. Descriptive statistics reveal that all study villages except Andoung Trach experienced a sharp drop in consumption per capita between 2008 and 2011. As a result, the 2011 poverty headcount ratio shot up […]

This chapter assesses how the global economic and financial crisis has affected employment in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the construction and tourism sectors in Phnom Penh municipality and Siem Reap province.  Key areas of analysis are SMEs’ business performance, fixed assets value, and employment, and support received to cope with the crisis. The methodology involved a survey of 120 SMEs, 60 from each of the two sectors. The global crisis affected the business performance and fixed assets value […]

Although the global economy is recovering from the financial and economic crisis that started in 2008, many countries have not returned to their pre-crisis growth rates. Cambodia is no exception. Despite its rich endowment of natural resources, especially minerals, oil and gas, the country still depends on a narrow growth base of just four sectors: garments and textiles, tourism, construction and agriculture. Agriculture apart, heavy reliance on foreign investment and markets makes these sectors vulnerable to external shocks, which have […]

The commune/sangkat elections in 2002 and 2007 marked a significant step forward in Cambodia’s democratic decentralisation process. Decentralisation is the most deep-cutting public sector reform and the politically most important democratic development in Cambodia. The reform rearranges power structures, creates space for a more pluralistic political representation, addresses gender equality in local politics, and triggers articulation of new opinions. However, reforms continue to face significant challenges: female representation in political decision-making bodies remains inadequate, gendered articulation of ideas and priorities […]