Cambodia, one of the most disaster-prone countries in southeast Asia, is a least-developed, low-income food-deficit country emerging from decades of civil conflict and economic stagnation. Between 2004 and 2006, an average 6 percent of the rice crop was destroyed by drought, flooding or crop infestation.
Rising inequality and landlessness and deterioration of common property resources have eroded the coping capacity of food-insecure people. Limited access for the poor to education and health services, low levels of investment in public infrastructure and weak governance structures perpetuate food insecurity and under-nutrition, especially in rural areas.
The objective of the proposed protracted relief and recovery operation is to enhance the resilience and coping capacity of vulnerable households through targeted food aid interventions, in line with Strategic Objectives 2, 3 and 4, through:
Recent evaluations such as the 2007 Integrated Food Security and Humanitarian Phase Classification and the 2006 mid-term review were used to prioritize the interventions.
To facilitate an integrated hand-over, WFP will prioritize partners who can provide complementary activities such as income-generation. In view of the limited resources, capacity-building for government counterparts will be incorporated into existing training components.
As chair of the United Nations Disaster Management Team, WFP will continue to lead the work to enhance the capacity of the National Committee for Disaster Management to respond to floods and droughts.
Recent economic growth and political stability and projected revenues from oil and gas in 2010 indicate a decreased requirement for externally financed food assistance in the long term. Government funding, which started in 2007, is expected to increase during the operation; but as in similar low-income countries, increased inequality and associated destabilization are a possible outcome.
A WFP handover at the end of this operation depends on preconditions such as improved food security and the commitment of government resources in important social sectors; these will need to be assessed in the 2009 mid-term evaluation.
