Evictions, NGO Law High Among Donor Concerns

Children sit on top their inundated homes, where Shukaku, Inc., has been pumping fill into Boeung Kak lake, (File photo, Photo: Heng Reaksmey)

Chun Sakada, VOA Khmer
Phnom Penh Wednesday, 20 April 2011

“Development partners would be interested in discussing the possible impact of the draft NGO law on the delivery of development assistance in the country.”

Cambodia’s donors on Wednesday raised a chorus of concern for forced evictions and a controversial law to regulate NGOs, as they met with government partners to discuss upcoming aid packages.

The groups met in Phnom Penh to discuss development plans, foreign aid pledges and Cambodia’s development needs for 2012. Donors pledged more than a billion dollars in aid to Cambodia last year.

Qimiao Fan, country manager for the World Bank here, said in statement that land issues, epitomized by the forced eviction of thousands of urban poor from a development area in Phnom Penh, continued to vex Cambodia.

“With rapid urbanization, the resumption of fast economic growth and the increasing interest from investors in large-scale commercial farming, land issues will become only more challenging, as exemplified in Boeung Kak lake area,” he said.

The World Bank found fault with its Cambodia operations earlier this year after a Bank program failed to issue land titles to residents of Boeung Kak ahead of a massive development scheme undertaken by the city.

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