CAMBODIA DEVELOPMENT THRU INFRASTRUCTURES ON THE GO!

CAMBODIA DEVELOPMENT THRU INFRASTRUCTURES ON THE GO!

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Cambodia is no longer Khmer Rouge country, though there are indeed old habits that die out so slowly in the minds of other peoples such as the thought that Cambodia is so fearsome a place to live in.

Economic development is pursuing at a normal rate in the war-torn country. Thanks to the high presence of international aid groups and agencies, the decimation of the country’s intellectuals by the Khmer Rogue—who were Manchurian Candidates of evil operators of Elites based in Washington, DC—was filled up with noble substitution.

Below is an update report about a new bridge in operation in the hinterlands of the once miserable land. As a fellow from ASEAN, I watch with sympathy and commiserate with Cambodians over their willful efforts to build a modern, prosperous nation.

[Philippines, 20 October 2011]

Source: http://www.beta.undp.org/undp/en/home/ourwork/democraticgovernance/successstories/new_bridge_improveslinkslivelihoodsforcambodianvillages.html

New bridge improves links, livelihoods for Cambodian villages

When 26-year-old So Phorn gave birth to her first child three years ago it took her two strenuous hours on a motorbike, a ferry and a rickshaw to get to the nearest health centre in the neighbouring commune of Beoung Preav, in south-western Cambodia.

Following completion six months ago of a joint international project that built a concrete bridge crossing the 40-metre wide Kampong Sdam River, So Phorn now has a 30-minute trip to deliver her second child at the same hospital.

The new bridge—a partnership between the two local governments, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the European Union—is directly improving the lives of 10,000 residents of the Chroy Svay and Boeung Preav communes, separated by the river.

Highlights

• The Inter-Commune Cooperation project is working to strengthen local governance in Cambodia and better serve rural communities.
• The ICC grants US$1.8 million each year to fund projects that cross commune boundaries and has implemented over 260 projects since 2006.
• ICC projects have built roads, bridges and schools in remote communities and respond to women's needs and environmental issues.

“It used to be very difficult without a bridge,” said Neng Chhun, a 31-year-old father of six who runs a home-based grocery store in Chroy Svay and regularly crosses the river to the neighbouring village where he replenishes his stock.

Chhun and other residents recalled that a preceding bridge had fallen into a state of disrepair and was so unstable that few locals would take the risk of mounting the rickety structure even when it was urgent that they reach the other side.

Two boats joined together by a wooden platform acted as the quickest alternative for motorcyclists and pedestrians. The ferry charged a one-way fee equivalent to US$0.12, a price out of reach of many in a country where the poverty line is just about US$0.60 a day.

“A new bridge was the highest demand,” said Hay Sin, Chroy Svay’s commune chief, who initially said there was nothing he could do about the problem due to the limited budget available through his office.

In 2010, Hay Sin invited his counterpart in the neighbouring commune to pool resources and draw up a joint proposal to win funds from the UNDP/EU Inter-Commune Cooperation, an agency functioning in 12 provinces to ensure development projects of highest benefit to residents.

“We can work together to bring benefits for all the people,” said Sin after the communes received US$40,000 to build the bridge. “As commune council leaders, we should not think only about our own communities.”

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Related Links

• Project: Strengthening Democratic and Decentralized Local Governance in Cambodia
• UNDP results in Cambodia
• Human Development Report: Cambodia Country profile

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CAMBODIA EX-REFUGEES WIN CITIZENSHIP, HOME OWNERSHIP FOLLOWS

CAMBODIA EX-REFUGEES WIN CITIZENSHIP, HOME OWNERSHIP FOLLOWS

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

The saga of Cambodians fleeing their own country is among the epical dramas of modern-day international migration. They are tales that befit narratives worth presenting in the global theatrical scene, such as Ms Saigon was for Vietnam’s war epic.

Hundreds of thousands of Cambodians fled their country at the peak of the war with America. The migration problem was compounded further by the Khmer Rouge genocide campaign against urban habitués, of which possibly 2 million lives were terminated in the pogrom. Hundreds of thousands again fled Cambodia, with so many of them moving to Vietnam.

As to those Cambodians who decided never to return, on account of the traumas that seemed to refuse healing, the human interest stories can come straight from those who settled in Hanoi or Saigon. Below is a fitting narrative of such resettled Cambodians who are elated over their gaining citizenship in their host countries.

[Philippines, 09 October 2011]

Source: http://www.unhcr.org/4e7204db6.html

Statelessness: Former refugees win citizenship, and now dream of home ownership

News Stories, 15 September 2011

© UNHCR/K. McKinsey

Nguyen The Tai (right) and his sister Le Ngoc Hai outside their mother's house near Viet Nam's Ho Chi Minh City. The ex-refugees from Cambodia were stateless until they received Vietnamese citizenship last year.

HO CHI MINH CITY, Viet Nam, September 15 (UNHCR) – When the coconut groves of this city's Thu Duc district became a refugee camp nearly 30 years ago, the area was so remote it was a five-hour commute from the centre – by rowboat.

Now called District Nine, today it's one of the most fashionable areas of the booming southern metropolis of Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), where wealthy business people build villas and fanciful walled castles, which they reach in less than an hour over bridges and wide highways.

Luxury property has always been out of the reach of Nguyen The Tai, who fled Cambodia and came here as a refugee when he was just 11, and has been stateless all his life. In fact, he never even dreamed of buying the small cinder-block row house built by UNHCR where he lives with his 75-year-old mother.

But his dreams expanded exponentially after he finally got Vietnamese citizenship last year, along with some 2,300 other former stateless Cambodians. Thanks to UNHCR's efforts, he now has a chance to buy his rented house from the local authorities at just two per cent of the market price.

"I would be very happy to be the owner of this house," the cheerful 46-year-old says, romping with his dog in his small garden. "In Vietnamese there is a proverb, 'settlement before career'."

Not that he's had much of a career either. Because he was stateless, Tai – he took the Vietnamese name when he got his citizenship – could only work as an unskilled labourer at perhaps half the going rate, despite being a skilled electrician. He could not get bonded, obtain an identity card, or legally marry his common-law wife of nine years.

His older sister, now called Le Ngoc Hai, has also paid a life-long price for their statelessness, lingering fall-out from the Pol Pot years in Cambodia. The family fled in 1975 after their father, a former Cambodian military officer, was attacked with an axe by Pol Pot's murderous Khmer Rouge. He died of his injuries after reaching Viet Nam.

Despite speaking fluent French, the closest Hai has come to using it professionally was while working as an underpaid cook for a Frenchman in Ho Chi Minh City for the last 15 years.

In the 1980s, as they saw thousands of other refugees resettled abroad, the family originally hoped they would get to join relatives in France. A change in policies shattered that dream, and by the mid-1990s, their focus shifted to trying to get citizenship in their adopted home, where they had learned the language and customs. But they were caught in a legal limbo, because Viet Nam required them to relinquish their Cambodian citizenship, and Cambodia had renounced them.

The aspirations of all the stateless refugees in this settlement plummeted. "I just had one simple hope: that when I died I could get a death certificate, to prove that I ever existed," said one of the family's neighbours in the row of modest townhouses built by UNHCR and later handed over to municipal authorities.

Hai, the mother of two teenagers, feels a tinge of sadness she had to wait 35 years to become a citizen, but she and her brother are still optimistic about the future.

"I am not very young, but I am not very old," the 51-year-old says, "so I can still hope my life can change because of my new nationality."

Her brother adds with a smile: "Physically I am strong, stronger than young people, so now I hope I can work in my real profession." And buy that house, of course.

By Kitty McKinsey

In District Nine, Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam

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CAMBODIA TV PROGRAM STIMULATES YOUTH CIVICS

CAMBODIA TV PROGRAM STIMULATES YOUTH CIVICS

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Good Day to fellow global citizens!

Cambodia’s civic life has all but been stifled during the time of the Khmer Rogue. While that dark past is way behind the nation now, the culture of silence remains and is taking a hard time to break.

The creation of a vibrant, dynamic, robust civil society in Cambodia, parallel to the Philippines’ which is among the world’s strongest civil societies, seems to be years ahead yet before full galvanization. However, the seed of that civic culture is now being planted, or should be germinated at this time.

It is most appropriate a strategy to waken up the youth from lethargy, for the youth produces leaders for all other sectors of society. The preparations in Cambodia includes a tv program that hopefully can catalyze youth mobilization for the debates and participation in the forthcoming election.

Below is an update report coming from the United Nations Development Programme about the said tv program.

[Philippines, 13 September 2011]

Source: http://www.beta.undp.org/undp/en/home/presscenter/articles/2011/08/11/cambodia-tv-production-to-boost-youth-civic-participation.html

Cambodia: TV production to boost youth civic participation

12 August 2011

Phnom Penh – As the world celebrates International Youth Day on 12 August, Cambodians are producing a mass media campaign to empower young adults aged 15-24 and encourage them to get involved in community-level volunteerism and decision-making.

The campaign – to include a TV drama and discussion show, radio call-in programmes, public service announcements, and online and mobile phone messaging – will start in January 2012 and target five million youth, including three million of voting age, ahead of local elections next year and a national election in 2013.

“This campaign will feature young people making a difference in their communities and will help other youngsters realize their own potential,” said Gregory Lavender, Youth Advocacy Officer at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Cambodia.

“Youth are the key to strengthening democracy in Cambodia because two out of every three people in the country are under 25 years old.”

A small team of writers and researchers are scripting 32 TV drama episodes intended to increase basic civic awareness, promote participation in political and local decision-making processes and hold their elected leaders accountable.

Broadcasts, including by radio, will give young people information to take part in planning meetings at local commune councils and to become positive examples of citizens taking actions for wider public benefit.

In partnership with the BBC World Service Trust, UNDP is providing funding and coordinating the three-year campaign with government and non-governmental organizations that will also take part in outreach activities.

“Young people are gifted with open minds and a keen awareness of emerging trends, and are bringing their energy, ideas and courage to some of the most complex and important challenges facing the human family,” said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in a message for International Youth Day.

International Youth Day was created by the UN in 1999 as an opportunity to draw attention to the needs of young men and women worldwide.

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CAMBODIA’S RAILWAY RESETTLEMENT

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Railway projects are now rising in Kampuchea. This is a most welcome news.

The days of Khmer Rouge pogrom on the Cambodian people is way behind us now, as a quarter of a century had elapsed since those gory days of Killing Fields. The intelligentsia, badly decimated by the genocide of the demonic regime, is now seeing new faces from among the younger generations, faces who comprise the emerging development stakeholders there.

Cambodia surely needs to catch up on building its infrastructures, more so the roads and railway networks. New Silk Roads are rising across the continent, and sooner or later the trade routes will traverse through the ASEAN.

Below is an update report on the railway projects, with resettlement issues as entry point to understanding the situation.

[Philippines, 06 July 2011]

Source: http://beta.adb.org/news/adb-partners-agree-plan-resolve-cambodia-rail-resettlement-concerns

ADB, Partners Agree on Plan to Resolve Cambodia Rail Resettlement Concerns

Date

4 Jul 2011

MANILA, PHILIPPINES – The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and its development partners, including the Government of Cambodia, have agreed to a detailed, time bound action plan to resolve resettlement problems on a railway rehabilitation project.

ADB and the Government of Australia are providing over $100 million to help rehabilitate the country’s national railroad stretching from Sihanoukville in the south, through the capital Phnom Penh and up to the northern border with Thailand. Hundreds of families are being asked to move to make way for the line upgrade and many complaints and requests have been made by affected households over compensation rates, compensation payment and assistance, the readiness and adequacy of relocation sites and other issues.

Officials from ADB, the Australian Agency for International Development and the Government reviewed the progress of resettlement and concerns raised by the affected households in early June. They have now drawn up an agreement that sets out specific, tangible measures to be taken to address each of the concerns.

The agreement provides a time-bound action plan for responding to grievances and confirms that no affected households will be relocated until their complaints or requests have been addressed and basic facilities are provided at the resettlement site. An external monitoring group has examined compensation concerns and ADB will consider the findings and decide on further action by the end of July. A timetable for the completion of electricity, water supply and other basic facilities at relocation sites has been drawn up.

The parties have also agreed to an expansion of the income restoration program to fund livelihood support for resettled families.

“ADB is fully committed to ensuring that its resettlement guidelines are complied with so that families who relocate receive the appropriate support and are not economically disadvantaged.” said Kunio Senga, Director General of ADB’s Southeast Asia Department. “We will continue our discussion and close cooperation with the Government to ensure that the resettlement process complies with the agreed Resettlement Plan and ADB’s resettlement policy.”

ADB will also provide additional resources to support the resettlement program, including a communications specialist based in Cambodia to strengthen the information flows between all stakeholders.

Decades of conflict have left the railway in serious disrepair and by upgrading it into an international standard line the project will help lower freight costs, including for staple foodstuffs for the poor, as well as providing new investment and business opportunities. It will also form an integral section of the Greater Mekong Subregion’s southern economic corridor linking Thailand, Cambodia and Viet Nam, and make up part of a broader Pan-Asian rail route.