JICA Cambodia Office

When you think of Cambodia, what images come to your mind? Although the World Heritage Site of Angkor Wat and the Mekong River are famous sites in Cambodia, as it happen to many people, the issues of unexploded shells and landmines left from Cambodia’s long civil war may be the first thing you imagine.

Likewise, the modernity of the capital of Phnom Penh may come to many people as a great surprise. In particular, those familiar with the conditions of Cambodia following the peace accord in 1991 would be astonished by the progress that has been made. New shops open up every day in Phnom Penh, and new office and apartment buildings are constantly under construction. The streets are filled with cars and scooters while optimism is everywhere on the faces of Cambodians.

The urgency of the need for recovery that followed the civil war has dropped to a level as Cambodia is now said to be in the “development stage,” though there is an endless number of problems to tackle particularly with basic infrastructures for industries and daily living. In most regions, there are no electricity and water services and roads are in a state of disrepair. Needs for living infrastructures are acute as they function as means to take crops to market, carry patients to hospitals and enable students to get to school. Economic development for the entire country depends on infrastructures on a national scale so that people can get their lives back on course. Meanwhile, the development of the economy has also brought new problems. The delay in agriculture and village development has resulted in an influx of people into cities. Combined with factors such as the haphazard development in sectors like tourism, this has led to a proliferation of waste and traffic problems, which need to be addressed soon.

In order to solve these challenges, Cambodia needs to work on human resource development more than anything. Because a number of leading people in every field were lost during the Pol Pot regime, an extensive hole remains in human resources that must be filled.

Since 1993 when JICA established its office in Cambodia, our efforts have been focusing on providing living infrastructures and basic support for health and education as well as training human resources. Since the political turbulence and social unrest of 1997 has been stabilized, Cambodia is now at a particularly important point in its development.

Although training people takes a great deal of patience and time, JICA is committed to providing support to Cambodia over the long term, working in cooperation with aid agencies and non-governmental organizations from other countries.

Yasujiro Suzuki, Chief Representative
JICA Cambodia Office