The European Development Strategy

Tin Sokhavuth

Illustration of the Rectangular Strategy. Photo supplied

The European Union (EU) in Cambodia, on Monday, organized a series of consultation to discuss with local civil society about the development challenges in Cambodia. The consultations were carried out within the scope of the European Development Cooperation Strategy for Cambodia 2014-2018.

This strategy is a long term vision for the EU to conduct all social and economic development activities in accordance with the needs of the Cambodian people. The estimated cost for the implementation of the strategy is about EUR 1.4 billion (nearly USD 1.8 billion).

The main goals of the EU development strategy is to help the Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC) to reduce poverty, enable sustainable development, foster respect for human rights, improve effectiveness of development cooperation. Moreover, this strategy is based on previous experiences in the field of development cooperation between the EU and the RGC.

"This European Strategy is thus aligned to the Royal Government’s Rectangular Strategy-Phase III which represents the socio-economic policy agenda of the Royal Government of Cambodia with its four strategic objectives of growth, employment, equity and efficiency," wrote the EU in its development strategy 2014-2018.

For this reason, the EU development strategy is focusing on the field of social development including education and health; on the field of sustainable and equitable economic growth including support for agriculture and food security, rural development, spatial planning, vocational training, skills development, trade, facilitation and support for banking and business services.

The infrastructure in urban and in rural areas is also crucial for the EU to focus on such as electricity transmission and distribution, water supply, roads, irrigation schemes, lighting, waste management, sanitation, drainage, public transportation and other economic infrastructures.

Good governance is also a key for Cambodia to succeed in reducing poverty by reforming cross-sector governance such as Public Financial Management (PFM), Public Administration Reform (PAR) and Sub-national Democratic Development (SNDD). The promotion of of human rights, gender equality, disability, climate change, civil society development, and the promotion of culture and arts are also needed.

The EU would also provide funding for regional development including support for ASEAN and the Mekong River Commission, and other regional integration for the benefit of Cambodia.

With the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP), the EU provides trade preference to Cambodia and other developing countries to export their products to the European markets with duty-free/quota-free for all products, except arms and ammunition.

Rectangular Strategy