Officials meet donor groups

April 21, 2011
James O’Toole
The Phnom Penh Post

DONOR countries and development groups raised concerns about the controversial draft NGO law and other issues during a meeting with government officials yesterday in connection with more than US$1 billion in aid pledged to Cambodia last year.

NGOs and foreign governments have come out forcefully against the proposed law, which many say would create burdensome registration requirements and allow the government to shut down civil society groups arbitrarily. The law is expected to be advanced to the Council of Ministers in the coming weeks.

In prepared remarks at yesterday’s meeting, United States Agency for International Development Mission Director Flynn Fuller said the NGO law posed a significant threat to the Kingdom’s development.

“In these times of fiscal constraint, justifying increased assistance to Cambodia will become very difficult in the face of shrinking space for civil society to function,” Fuller said.

World Bank Country Manager Qimiao Fan also called for further discussion of the law. He too raised concern about property rights, an increasingly dire concern in a country where tens of thousands of people have been pushed off their land in recent years.

“With rapid urbanisation, 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 the Boeung Kak Lake area,” Qimiao Fan said, referencing the high-profile land dispute in Phnom Penh in which more than 4,000 families may ultimately be displaced by a project run by a ruling party senator.