Poverty Reduction

Cambodia’s National Strategic Development Plan incorporates a comprehensive approach to the country development, which includes specific targets for poverty reduction and employment generation. This planning framework is aligned with the nine Cambodia Millennium Development Goals. To help the country achieve these goals, UNDP works to strengthen national capacities and maximize the country’s economic potential, engaging with the private sector and improving aid effectiveness. UNDP supports the government to monitor and track progress toward MDGs at both national and subnational levels.

An important part of this work is supporting the Royal Government of Cambodia to manage and target development aid more effectively. Complementing this, policy research conducted by UNDP in areas such as extractive industries, economic competitiveness and human development aims to assist the government in generating and implementing innovative policy options that promote good economic governance.

In mine clearance, UNDP contributes to poverty reduction and rural development by building the capacity of Government in the areas of monitoring, regulation, quality assurance, socio-economic planning, and post-clearance land use.

Poverty Reduction Programme Factsheet

Key Facts about Poverty Reduction in Cambodia:

1. Poverty has been reduced from 47 percent in 1993 to 30 percent in 2007. However, a third of Cambodians still live below the national poverty line (2,473 riel or US$0.61).
2. Eighty percent of the population is rural. Of the total poor, 92 percent live in rural areas.
3. The inequality levels have risen dramatically. The Gini Coefficient (which measures inequality – zero being perfect equality and 1 being absolute inequality) has moved upwards from 0.35 in 1994 to 0.40 in 2004 and 0.43 in 2007. As a recent trend, inequality has increased not only between rural and urban areas, but also within rural areas. Rural inequality rose from 0.27 in 1994 to 0.33 in 2004 and climbed again to 0.36 in 2007.
4. Twelve percent of households, or 1.7 million individuals, were food insecure and most of these households were affected by increases in food prices.
5. Cambodia is among the 36 countries with the highest burden of child under-nutrition and one of the 33 "alarming" countries for levels of hunger and under nutrition.

Sources: 1-3. Poverty Profile and Trend in Cambodia 2007, World Bank, June 2009; 4. Impact of High Food Prices in Cambodia, Cambodia Development Research Institute (CDRI) 2008; 5. Cambodia Common Country Assessment, July 2009