Cambodia’s Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) and the World Bank (WB) on Tuesday signed a US$13 million agreement to support Cambodia’s poorest and most vulnerable people by strengthening food security and social safety nets.
The WB has approved the Small- holder Agriculture and Social Protec- tion Development Policy Operation to support the efforts of the Camb-odian Government to mitigate the combined impacts of the global food price and economic crises, according to the WB’s press statement, adding that the program aims to boost food security for poor households and expand safety net support.
“Even though Cambodia is a rice exporter, the poor are highly vulnerable to high food prices and it was not clear that smallholder farmers had the needed support for them to take advantage of higher prices to produce more,” said Annette Dixon, WB Cambodia Country Director. “We hope that this operation will reinforce the excellent work of other programs from Government, NGOs and donors supporting agriculture and social protection in Cambodia. It will also help the poor to improve their agricultural production and access to market, and to protect the most vulnerable group through better policies.”
In particular, the program sets out to ensure better oversight and regulation of agricultural inputs such as fertilizer and seeds to improve food productivity at the small farm level. It will also accelerate the registration of farmers’ groups so that individual farmers can better access credit and marketing opportunities for their crops. At the same time, the program will improve targeting of the country’s social protection systems to reach the kingdom’s neediest people.
The US$13 million DPO is made up of an US$8 million grant from the Global Food Crisis Response Program (GFRP) and a US$5 million credit from IDA, the WB’s fund for low income countries. The GFRP, to which the Australian Government was a significant contributor, is managed by the WB and provides financial and technical support to countries affected by the global food crisis.
The Australian Government, through AusAID, is contributing AU$2.8 million for analytical and capacity building support and the design and evaluation of pilot activities to support the program.
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