51% of HIV-affected households in Cambodia live in hunger: UNDP

PHNOM PENH, Aug. 25 (Xinhua) -- Some 51 percent of the HIV/AIDS-infected households in Cambodia are living in hunger, said a new UN survey released here on Thursday, calling for more attention to the need for HIV-sensitive social protection mechanisms.

The survey on the Socioeconomic Impact of HIV at the Household Level in Cambodia is the largest and most comprehensive study ever conducted in Cambodia. It was produced by the National AIDS Authority and the United Nations in Cambodia.

It had been conducted on 4,172 households including 2,623 HIV- affected households and 1,549 non-affected households.

The study found that 51 percent of HIV-affected households reportedly suffered from hunger and not having enough food to eat, compared to 35 percent of non-affected households.

Cambodia: Portrait of Hunger

Written on October 13, 2010
By Natasha Burge
Conducive Chronicle

Today is my second day exploring world hunger as part of Conducive Chronicle’s 21 Days for Hunger. Last May, when I did my first world hunger series, I mimicked the diet of the world’s hungriest people for the entire seven days of my journey. I tried, in my own small way, to get a glimpse into chronic hunger. While I found that 1,000 calories a day left me weak and exhausted and overwhelmingly hungry, it soon became abundantly clear that my experiment would never give me the insight that I was hoping for. With the unavoidable knowledge that I could quit, walk into my overstuffed kitchen, and eat at anytime, I could never even come close to understanding the true horrors of chronic hunger. For most of us, chronic hunger is a distant thing that happens to distant people. I know in my life it isn’t something I’m confronted with on a daily basis, except through books, articles, and news reports. And yet, nearly 1 billion people live with hunger every single day. 1 out of 6 human beings on our planet does not have enough to eat, even while there is more than enough food for everyone. Nearly 1 billion people…So many people who know hunger, who understand its depths, its terrors, its many faces, and yet, I don’t know if I’ve ever heard anyone tell their story. I knew I could continue going over the facts and statistics and mind-numbing numbers day after day, but I felt that I would never be able to do more than gloss the surface. No report I could quote or paper I could cite would ever be able to give us more than a glimpse into real hunger. I wanted more than that; I wanted to hear directly from a person who had suffered from chronic hunger. I wanted to hear their story. Today I will share my interview with Ms. Pry Phally Phuong, the director of Building Community Voices, a capacity building and community networking NGO in Cambodia, as well as a survivor of chronic hunger under the Pol Pot Khmer Rouge Regime.

Asia and the Pacific are home to over half of the world’s population and nearly 2/3 of the world’s hungry people. There are 642 million people in Asia and the Pacific struggling with chronic hunger, and Cambodia’s malnutrition rates are among the highest in South East Asia. After the violence of the Vietnam War displaced millions of Cambodians and left the country in turmoil and conflict created famine, the brutal Khmer Rouge took power in 1975. The new regime emptied the cities and sent the people to work in the fields, determined to cast aside all modern progress and Western influence, and create an agrarian utopia emulating the 11th century. Nearly 1 million Cambodians, 1 out of 8 people, died under the Khmer Rouge through executions, overwork, starvation, or disease.

In 1991, the United Nations was given the power to enforce a ceasefire after a comprehensive peace settlement was reached. However, the violence and tragedy of the Khmer Rouge years fractured Cambodian society, killed entire generations of people, and set the nation’s progress back decades. The International Food Policy Research Institute has named Cambodia one of the world’s 12 hunger hotspots to highlight the massive rate of food insecurity the country faces. The average life expectancy in Cambodia is only 56 years, with people dying from easily preventable and treatable diseases that have been virtually wiped out in much of the rest of the world. The Cambodian government estimates that only 29 percent of their citizens have access to safe drinking water. Only 57 percent of Cambodian women can read and write, and more than half of all children are not attending school in order to work. This kind of poverty is difficult to overcome. It creates a legacy of hunger and impoverishment, passed down from generation to generation like an unwanted inheritance. To further understand chronic hunger, and the lingering, devastating aftereffects such devastation can have for a country and its people, I turned to Ms. Pry Phally Phuong.

Burge: Could you provide a biography of yourself, your background, where you are from, where you work, what your work’s focus is?
Pry Phally Phuong: I am Ms. Pry Phally Phuong. I have a big family with five brothers and four sisters, I am the forth child in the family, and I was born in Siem Reap Province, Cambodia. I holds Master’s Degree of Business Administration in the field of General Management at Institute of Business Education. Since 1979, I worked as a teacher in Primary school, but after that in 1992 I had worked as a part –time job with one Organization known as Australian People for Health Education and Development Abroad (APHEDA) on the program of Hospitality. It was the program for youth girls who could not get get a chance to learn in the University, and the other part time job was with the Government (teacher). From 1995- 2000 I started to work full time with APHEDA by teaching accountant to the youth girls and built the capacity of the teachers in NGOs or Women Association in Provinces who got funding from APHEDA. In 2000- 2005, I moved to work for Oxfam Hong Kong and after that this NGO had changed the name to be Womyn’ s Agenda for Change (WAC), and I was responsible for the speak out project with grass root people. I organized and established the Sex Workers Association which called Women’ s Network for Unity (WNU) to focus on Sex Worker Empowerment Project with success, and in 2005-2007 I was in charge of the project of Violence Against Women. And in 2008 up to now I moved to work with a new NGO called Building Community Voices (BCV) as the Director of BCV. BCV is a local NGO that works for providing networking, capacity building and community media to support Cambodia communities and community mobilizing so that they can speak to each other and with outside stakeholders in order to have a vibrant and proud Cambodian civil society.

Burge: What circumstances led to you facing chronic hunger?

Pry Phally Phuong: On 17th April, 1975, all the Cambodian were evacuated from their house to live in rural areas or outside the city by saying that they need to rearrange the city again, and we can come back after one week, but, of course, they dismissed people from cities (24 provinces and cities) to stay in the countryside. On that time they divided Cambodian into 3 categories :

1- Old people (people who used to stay in the liberated zone forever before or from 1970-1975.)

2- Middle people (people who in that zone for some time and moved to live in the city and came back to that place before 1975.)

3- New people (people who were dismissed from city to stay in that places after 1975.)

I am and other who were evicted from cities in April 1975 were considered as the New People which the Old People had blame us that we were the people who did not do nothing, just bring the empty stomach to eat and destroy their properties or they said that we were the capitalists who could not do anything besides eating.

During that time, they had separated all members of New People families to live in different places by dividing into several groups such as mobile child groups (from 6 – 15 years old), mobile youth groups (from 16 years old up), villagers ( people who married already). The two first groups lived in the camps or centers while the last groups lived in their house.

The mobile youth group had to stay far away from the villages and worked very hard with the mobile areas for building dams or plantation rice in the new farms in the forest or in the areas near the mountains.

The villagers need to work in the villages, but they could not stay with their children who were six years old or up, because this children need to stay in the shelter for the mobile children group and they had to get up from 3 or 4 am and walked to the work places (the work places and their shelter were far away).

During that time we were working hard by working from early morning (3 or 4 am) up to 11pm and had around one hour for lunch and two hours for dinner and if we talk about these meals we never had enough food and rice, we had only one small bowl of porridge and sometimes we could have some rice mixed with potatoes or corn. And the most common meals were a little rice with leaves of plant.

For me, during that time I was very skinny and never have a chance to stay with my family, and my mom told me to try to work and say nothing about my living in the city. Furthermore, I stayed at the mobile youth group, which was located in the forest near the mountain that was very far away from my family place, and I never went to visit them. My mom had a chance to come and visit me once a year with permission from her authority. Whenever she came to visit me, she brought some potatoes, coconuts, and ripe tamarinds, and sometimes my young sisters who stayed with the children’s group tried their best to steal potatoes and catch some fishes for me. I had tried to work hard but I never have enough meals to eat, I had only porridge all the time. And I needed to find something to add to my meals.
Burge: When you were going hungry, what were your best options for finding food? How did you survive? What was a typical day of food, or a meal like?

Pry Phally Phuong: In Pol Pot Regime (1975-1979), when I was hungry, I tried to make some hats from palm leaves for my supervisors (old people) or made pillow clothes from cotton thread to exchange with some people who work in kitchen for getting some salt, tamarind, and rice crusts (these things I could share with friends nearby me) or I went to catch crabs or pick up some leaves of plants to fill up my empty stomach. I tried to work hard every day, so my supervisor liked me, and I could keep some private food in my shelter. And my teammates always asked me to keep adding food in my place.

For food or soups was the same as water no tasty. Every month, there were a real rice with simple soup, a soup cooked with a fish or pork in a big pan but its meats were never seen, for the outstanding active group. I was very lucky to be in that group. I could eat the pure rice with salt. I felt I was still alive and my strength came back.

Burge: Many of our readers have never experienced chronic hunger. Can you tell us how it is to live with that every day? How does it change the way you view the world?

Pry Phally Phuong: From 1975-1979 in Pol Pot Regime, I had worked as a mobile youth group to build the Dam, plantation rice, carry human’s excrement from the toilet to make fertilizer by mixing up with green grass for the plantation rice and never had soap for cleaning my hands and body, I just cleaned my hands with the leaves of trees. During that time I were working hard by working from early morning (3 or 4 am) up to 11pm and had around one hour for lunch and two hours for dinner, I were very hungry, but I eat some leaves of plants and tamarind which I got from the kitchen. I were very tied but I could not sit down for a rest, so I went to toilet even I could not make an excrement, I just went to sit and get the bad smell from the toilet, it is better than carry the soil on my solders to build the dam and the other way I pretend to drink the hot water. These kinds of ways could make me have a little rest. During the raining season worked in the rice farm near the dam, which the mobile youth group build it. Sometimes when it was raining like cats and dogs, it made the dam broken, the water flooded over the rice field, so we could have a rest for a while, and if we talked about the meals we never had enough food and rice, we had only porridge for one small bowl with a little food and some time we could have some rice which cook rice mixed with potatoes or corn if we have the rice mixed up with potatoes or corn, it is lucky for me. So it means that I need to get up early morning to work until midnight, I slept only four or five hours per day. I was living in the hell for 3 years 8 months and 20 days. It was a nightmare.

After the liberation day from 1979 – 1985, I have changed my life, I worked as a primary teacher at the morning and work in the rice field at afternoon. I did not get salary but I got the rice or corn one kilogram, one liter of gasoline, two bars of soaps a month. Because the rice, which we produced were in the forest or were destroyed by the war. Not only my family, all the Cambodian people were poor, the families that had male members were better, because they had the strong people to carry some rice for keeping in their house, but for me, I have only the four girls, two little boys, and my mom, we could not carry heavy things, just only me and my older sister, but unfortunately we were very skinny, so I could carry five times equal with a man or boy did once. My family was poor but it is better than in Pol Pot Regime. We could have a good rest as we wished. My mom tried to make vegetable or cucumbers pickle or bean sprouts to sell or exchange with some rice. I still was trying to make some hats from palm leaves to exchange for rice also. Furthermore, in 1982 there was a tailor near my house, her name is Ms. Sokhom. There was no sewing machine at the time. So when I was free, I always went to help her for sewing something then she explained me on how to cut and how to sew and then I started to be a tailor apart from my teaching (at that time teachers just worked half day every day). So I was the teacher at the morning, worked in the farm at the afternoon, and worked as a tailor at evening. Even if I worked hard, I could sew a skirt or blouse in exchange for just only one kilogram of rice per each item. I could not see the outside world; it seemed that the world was very small. We were afraid of return of Pol Pot Regime because the Pol Pot soldiers continued their activities to rob our rice or property. So we decided to send our two siblings (a brother and a sister) to live with the Governor of Kramoun Sar province (Khmer Kampuchea Krom) in Viet Nam. If we all would die, we have two brother and sister left.

Burge: How did you emotionally and mentally endure this time in your life? How did those experiences shape who you are today and what you are doing with your life?

Pry Phally Phuong: When I was young, I always dreamed to be a girl with good education and good job unfortunately through the three regimes went by, I felt very disappointed and despaired because my family was very poor. We could not make ends meet, and we ate from hand to mouth. However; as a daughter of government official in the previous regime (Sihanouk Regime), an idea of struggle came into my mind, I accepted the painful situation, and I had tried my best to work both as full time and part-time job. I pursued my study at night school program until I obtained secondary education certificate. At free time, I studied English with my friends. It was just a peer education. We lighted candles at night time to study and receiving oppression from the government at the time because foreign languages were not allowed to study in any forms. If we were caught while studying foreign languages except Vietnamese and Russian, we would be subject to both fine and penalty or go to prison.

At the present, everything is still fresh in my mind; these living conditions have led me to make an untiring effort to continue my study until I obtain Master’s Degree and achieve what I have today. Now I am the Director of Organization, BCV, I have my present status thanks to my enduring all hardships. As I experienced through the poverty, I am willing to assist poor people by building net workings, organizing and mobilizing through community media in order that they receive the real information and share with their groups and have an opportunity to discuss and speak to each other both inside and outside Cambodia. Therefore, they can stand up together to protect both their own interests and national forest, national resources, and their lands.

Burge: Cambodia’s malnutrition rates are among the highest in South East Asia, with 26% of the population undernourished. What do you see as the main causes of hunger in Cambodia?
Pry Phally Phuong: I personally think that main causes of hunger in Cambodia are privatization, micro finance institutions, land, forest, mining, tourism, and Hydro-dam concession.

The Cambodia government had privatized all main sectors such as health, education, electricity, banking, forest, fishery and water. As can be seen in the health care system, under the pretext of just paying to recover cost, it requires people to pay health care service fee which is inaccessible for the most people. This system can function only for rich people, but not for the poor. At the same time people living in the cities or downtown are encountered with a rise in electricity and water prices too.

In addition, at the early of 1996, many microfinance institutions always have charged at least four percent of interest rate per month, now after some microfinance institution have transferred into the bank, they charge at least three percent per month which is equal to 36 percent per year from borrowers. Many poor people who have borrowed money from these institutions such as ACLEDA bank, AMRETH become indebted. In order to pay back the interest at the end of the month, people sell cows, pigs, and then their land, bit by bit until they have nothing left.

Moreover, due to the government policy to provide economic land concessions, many land concessions are made on people lands without consultations and resulting in the eviction of people or their replacement without due process or proper compensations, and the evicted people have to live in the place where there is not basic social infrastructures such as water, electricity, market, school and hospital. Some land concessions over leaped on people land which cause social conflict, and while other concessions are on the forest which people depend on its non-timber products for their livelihood.

Burge: 35% of Cambodians live below the poverty line, with 15%-20% living in extreme poverty. Can you explain how this poverty becomes an inherited condition that is extremely hard to escape from?

Pry Phally Phuong: This poverty has become an inherited condition from one generation to another. It is extremely hard to escape because their parents are in debts, and they could not pay back. These debts are the burden for their children to settle. Many people send their children especially their daughters to work as garment workers who loose weight and live in an unhealthy conditions. This situation causes their health problems and leads to borrow money from the moneylenders with high interest rate. This fall into the cycle in debt. At the present, poor people are faced with the land issues and forest concessions. Many people lose their agriculture lands and could not do farming. Some people sell out their lands to settle debts, while other people have to migrate to find other employment. Moreover, government policy is likely to pay lip service and turn blind eyes on the poor. It focuses on the capitalism, which stays far away from the poor.

Burge: Can you please talk about sweatshops and how and why they thrive in impoverished areas? Many Westerners think sweatshops are good alternatives to other kinds of work, and that the people working in sweatshops want the job. Can you tell us about the truth behind the myth? What is it really like? How can we create better alternatives?

Pry Phally Phuong: Because of debt, the young girls migrated to find the job in the cities, some can work in garment factories, and some worked as the construction workers, and others worked as the beggars. They need to pay for getting the job in the factories, and when they got the job, they need to stay together (roommates) for 4-5 people in one room, that room is about 3 x 4m or 4 x 5m and every worker need to pay $7 a month and for meals at least is around $0.70 or 0.80 USD a day, pay for utility around $5 per month, and they need to pay for extra cost if they have problem with their health. Sometimes the employers force them to work overtime. They cannot reject overtime even they feel not good health. If they reject one time, next time they cannot have a chance to work overtime or managers will find the other way to accuse them and dismiss them from the factory. Moreover, in the factories they did not have the hospital staff, if the factories have the hospital staff, they just have only the medicine for headache and diarrhea. All the workers got problems with their health worse and worse, because of working condition and eat a little bit for earning some money to send back to their parents, sometimes they earned nothing because of their health. In Cambodia the labor law is good, but it is good in the book. The people or the employers never respect the law and human rights. They just respect the money. For some girls who could not find the job and have a low education, it easy for the bad people (Peem) persuade them to work in the brothels or karaoke which easy to be the indirect sex workers and after that they got HIV/AIDS easily.

Many people in Western always think that working in the factories is good alternative because in the Western countries, the workers get salary that they can spend enough for their live (standard salary), their working condition is good standard, and the employers respect the law and human rights.

For making this alternative better, the government should enforce the law and thinking about human being before profit. Punishing employers who forced the workers to work overtime without respect the workers’ right. The factories need to have the real hospital staff to cure the workers. The government needs to allow the union to do the events or demonstration to demand their rights and stop cheating workers. And furthermore when the government make agreement with the employers, the government need to demand the employers to respect the Cambodia law and transfer all technology to Cambodian people.

Burge: What projects have you worked on or seen that have successfully lessened poverty and the chronic hunger that plagues Cambodia? Could you describe why they worked so well?
Pry Phally Phuong: For my idea the project that can reduce poverty is the organizing and mobilizing project because this project can work with grassroot people (community people) to have ownership (community ownership) and they can analyze their issues or donors strategies by themselves through community media for discussing and sharing the real information and after that they can stand up together for demanding the government to re-form the inappropriate development project for stopping or delay the land, forest, mining, hydro-Dam, and tourist concessions and solve the problems of what I mentioned above.

Now some of communities people have strong commitment and solidarity because they are facing with the same problems on land and forest conflict and eviction without paying compensation, so they developed the strategic to demand or submit the complaint files to the government or relevant ministries for suggesting to solve their problems before continuing to provide the land, forest, mining, Hydro-dam, and tourist concession. And if the government would like to continue to provide land and forest concession , the government need to conduct the real consultation with the community people who are staying in those areas, and the companies need to research on impact first. Moreover, if the government want to solve the problems, the government have to stop providing land and forest concession, it means that they can reduce poverty.

So, I think that if the community people have the real ownership and an opportunity to share and discuss each other, support each other, so they can develop the strategic for running people movement to push or educate the government for change its policy.

Burge: What do you wish more people knew about poverty and chronic hunger?
Pry Phally Phuong: I would like to share these issues with other people inside and outside Cambodia, because here all the national TV channels never provide coverage of the negative impacts of inappropriate development projects and real situations of the community people who were evicted by force or violence without pay any compensation due to land and forest concession on lands and forests of indigenous people and non indigenous people, they are always selective or pro-government, if they are brave and dare to show the real information, they will loss the benefits or cannot run the TV channels. So, if I have the network outside the country I can send the community media (media that produce by community people themselves) or arrange the exposure trip to outside world by sending a few community to share these experiences with people around the world to learn more about situation in Cambodia.

I would also like to more people to know about poverty in Cambodia due to government policy and about the reasons of chronic hunger to make Cambodians poorer and poorer. Many people cannot make a living by seeking local job and migrate illegally to neighboring countries and were shot to death. Some people live from hand to mouth. Other people cannot have enough rice to eat. They just can find manioc to eat for survive. While another people fall in debt cycle from their parents to children and have nothing left to live as a decent life. They have no land to do farming. Their children can go to school while a number of children who have an opportunity to study, they must drop school in order to help their family. Their life are miserable. In this country there are a big gap between the rich and the poor. The rich become richer and richer while the poor become poorer and poorer. The rich people have everything they need. They have many big houses, cars, air conditioners and luxury items. They go to good restaurants and have healthy, delicious and expensive food while the poor people live in small house or shelters and sometimes in the tents. They cannot afford to have enough rice to eat for survive. They eat rice with salt, or they share an egg with a whole family.

***

Thank you very much to Ms. Pry Phally Phuong for sharing her story with us.

***

Sustainable giving programs dedicated to providing solutions that help eliminate poverty and world hunger.

Imagine ... [no more hunger, no more poverty] by John Lennon

IMAGINE
by John Lennon

Imagine there's no Heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today


Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace


You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world


You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

'Alarming' numbers go hungry in 25 countries: report [... including Cambodia]

Click on the maps to zoom in

Click here to read the complete GHI report

Mon, Oct 11, 2010

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Poverty, conflict and political instability caused some billion people to go hungry this year, many of them children in Africa and Asia, according to the Global Hunger Index report released Monday.

Out of 122 countries included in the annual report, 25 have "alarming" levels of hunger and four countries in Africa have "extremely alarming" hunger, said the report by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilfe.

The results did not surprise researchers, who pointed to data by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations that found the overall number of hungry people surpassed one billion in 2009, even though it decreased to 925 million in 2010.

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) fared the worst in the hunger index, which is based on data from 2003-2008.

"Protracted civil conflict since the late 1990s led to an economic collapse, massive displacements of people and a chronic state of food insecurity" in the DRC, the report said.

"Food availability and access deteriorated as food production levels dropped, and remote areas became even more isolated as a consequence of very poor infrastructure."
Three quarters of the population in the vast central African country is under-nourished, and the DRC also has one of the highest child mortality rates in the world.

The proportion of undernourished people and the child mortality rate in each country studied were among two of the three factors used to compile the index.
The third, the prevalence of underweight children, is the most important to address when trying to wrestle down hunger in a country because it accounts for nearly half the global hunger score, said report co-author Marie Ruel, director of IFPRI's Poverty, Health and Nutrition division.

"In order to improve their hunger index, countries have to accelerate efforts to reduce child under-nutrition," with a particular focus on the 1,000 days from conception to the age of two, Ruel told reporters.

"Those 1,000 days... are a key time because damage done by under-nutrition in early life is largely irreversible."

Tom Arnold, CEO of Concern Worldwide, noted that if a child is not properly nourished during that period, there is "absolutely cast-iron, empirical proof" it will have "profound" long-term consequences.

"That is ultimately going to have an impact on a country's capacity to grow economically and socially in the future," he added.

The index ranked countries on a 100-point scale, with zero being the best score -- no hunger -- and 100 being the worst. A score higher than 20 indicated "alarming" levels of hunger and above 30, "extremely alarming" hunger.

The DRC was the only country in this year's index with a score above 40.

The other three countries with extremely alarming hunger levels were Burundi, Eritrea and Chad. All have been involved in simmering or open conflict for many years.

With the exception of Haiti and Yemen, all 25 countries with "alarming" levels of hunger were in sub-Saharan Africa or Asia.

Ranked from least to greatest levels of hunger, they included: Nepal, Tanzania, Cambodia, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Burkina Faso, Togo, Guinea-Bissau, Rwanda, Djibouti, Mozambique, India, Bangladesh, Liberia, Zambia, Timor-Leste, Niger, Angola, Yemen, the Central African Republic, Madagascar, the Comoros, Haiti, Sierra Leone and Ethiopia.

Hunger mitigation programs that failed to focus on children under two helped land India in the "alarming" hunger index despite its relatively high gross domestic product per capita, said Ruel.

Yet progress was found elsewhere, especially in southeast Asia and Latin America, which both slashed their hunger indices by more than 40 percent since 1990.

A handful of African countries also substantially reduced hunger -- Angola, Ethiopia, Ghana and Mozambique -- but in most of sub-Saharan Africa, the problem worsened or remained stagnant.

Eight of the nine countries in which the hunger index went up between 1990 and 2010 were in sub-Saharan Africa. The ninth was North Korea.

"There is poor governance and lack of political interest in nutrition, and stimulating demand could result in problems" because many African countries do not have the necessary infrastructure to meet increased demand for health care and other services that go hand-in-hand with anti-hunger programs, said Ruel.

Cambodia's 2010 Global Hunger Index: Alarming and behind Laos and Vietnam

2010 Global Hunger Index

Source: http://www.ifpri.org/publication/2010-global-hunger-index

The challenge of hunger: Focus on the crisis of child undernutrition . .As the world approaches the 2015 deadline for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – which include a goal of reducing the proportion of hungry people by half – the 2010 Global Hunger Index (GHI) offers a useful and multidimensional overview of global hunger. The 2010 GHI shows some improvement over the 1990 GHI, falling by almost one-quarter. Nonetheless, the index for hunger in the world remains at a level characterized as “serious.” The result is unsurprising given that the overall number of hungry people surpassed 1 billion in 2009, even though it decreased to 925 million in 2010, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

The highest regional GHI scores are for South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, but South Asia has made much more progress since 1990. In South Asia, the low nutritional, educational, and social status of women is among the major factors that contribute to a high prevalence of underweight in children under five. In contrast, in Sub-Saharan Africa, low government effectiveness, conflict, political instability, and high rates of HIV and AIDS are among the major factors that lead to high child mortality and a high proportion of people who cannot meet their calorie requirements.

Some countries achieved significant absolute progress in improving their GHI. Between the 1990 GHI and the 2010 GHI, Angola, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mozambique, Nicaragua, and Vietnam saw the largest improvements.

Twenty-nine countries still have levels of hunger that are “extremely alarming” or “alarming.” The countries with “extremely alarming” 2010 GHI scores – Burundi, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Eritrea – are in Sub-Saharan Africa. Most of the countries with “alarming” GHI scores are in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. The largest deterioration in GHI scores was seen in the Democratic Republic of Congo, largely because of conflict and political

instability.

Economic performance and hunger are inversely correlated. Countries with high levels of gross national income (GNI) per capita, an important measure of economic performance, tend to have low 2010 GHI scores, and countries with low levels of GNI per capita tend to have high GHI scores. These relationships do not always hold, however. Conflict, disease, inequality, poor governance, and gender discrimination are factors that can push a country’s level of hunger higher than what would be expected based on its income. In contrast, pro-poor economic growth, strong agricultural performance, and increasing gender equity can reduce hunger below what would be expected based on income.

The high prevalence of child undernutrition is a major contributor to persistent hunger. Globally, the biggest contributor to the world GHI score is child underweight. Although the percentage of underweight in children under the age of five is only one of three elements in the GHI, it accounts for nearly half of the world GHI score. Child undernutrition is not spread evenly across the globe, but instead is concentrated in a few countries and regions. More than 90 percent of the world’s stunted children (children whose height is low for their age) live in Africa and Asia, where rates of stunting are 40 percent and 36 percent respectively.

To improve their GHI scores, countries need to accelerate progress in reducing child undernutrition. Recent evidence shows that the window of opportunity for improving child nutrition spans the period from -9 to +24 months (that is, the 1,000 days between conception and a child’s second birthday). This is the period when children are in greatest need of adequate amounts of nutritious food, preventive and curative health care, and age-appropriate care practices for healthy development and when interventions are most likely to prevent undernutrition from setting in. After age two, the effects of undernutrition are largely irreversible.

To reduce child undernutrition, governments should invest in effective nutrition interventions targeted to mothers and children during the window of opportunity. These interventions should focus on improving maternal nutrition during pregnancy and lactation, promoting sound breastfeeding and complementary feeding practices, providing essential micronutrients, and adopting salt iodization, while also ensuring appropriate immunization. Achieving high coverage of these interventions could have a rapid impact on improving early childhood nutrition. Governments should also adopt policies that deal more broadly with the underlying causes of undernutrition such as food insecurity, lack of access to health services, and poor caring and feeding practices, which are exacerbated by poverty and gender inequity. Poverty-reduction strategies focused on reducing inequities are therefore part of the solution for improving early childhood nutrition, as are policies specifically aimed at improving the health, nutrition, and social status of girls and women.

U.S. spells out how it will combat world hunger [including Cambodia]

Friday, May 21, 2010

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. global anti-hunger strategy will focus on a small number of countries where collaborative projects can expand local food production and reduce chronic hunger, the Obama administration said on Thursday.

Rajiv Shah, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, outlined the administration's strategy, called Feed the Future Guide, at a daylong conference. It described how to match international donations and expertise with local efforts.

At the G8 summit last year, nations pledged $20 billion to combat chronic hunger around the world. One billion people suffer from food shortages. The figure climbed when food prices soared in 2008.

Key to success, said Shah, was for national leaders to develop hunger-fighting initiatives, based on proven techniques, that have local support. A month ago, the United States said it would focus on hunger in 20 nations in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

"We are supporting this country-led approach because we know it can unlock the potential of all our development partners to make sustainable, systemic advances toward a food-secure future," said Shah.

Investments in agricultural productivity, along with local market development and new research will result in more food and lower prices, said the administration.

The 20 focus countries are Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Mali, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia in Africa; Bangladesh, Cambodia, Nepal, Tajikistan in Asia; and Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, and, Nicaragua in Latin America.

Oxfam America, an international development group, said Congress should approve a White House request for $1.6 billion to support the initiative and pass legislation to double U.S. spending for agricultural development in food-short regions.

(Reporting by Charles Abbott; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Climate shift 'victimises' Cambodia

Local officials say the sheer volume of water dumped by typhoon Ketsana in September pushed floodwaters several kilometers into the plains around the Mekong river
Chea Sarin and her family now survive by selling fruit to tourists from a makeshift shack

Monday, October 26, 2009
By Steve Chao in Katot, Cambodia
Al Jazeera

The village of Katot is a rather unremarkable place. It only ever gets mentioned in passing by tour guides as they take their busses, packed with vacationers, along the dirt road from Cambodia's border with Vietnam.

It is the road, or rather the fact it has been submerged in two meters of water for more than a month, that has now gained Katot some extra attention.

Cambodia's press has labeled it the latest "victim" of climate change. And while the small collection of families, a little more than a dozen, who call Katot home say they have never heard of the term, they can certainly talk about the dramatic shifts in weather that have destroyed much of what they own.

"We've got little to nothing left," says Chea Sarin, a villager who, with her husband, was forced to flee their home when floodwaters began to suddenly rise.

Cambodians are long used to the wet season. And homes built on stilts dot the landscape as testament to the people's resilience to floods. But in Katot, this year was unlike any other in recent memory.

As typhoon Ketsana rolled through the region in late September, the Sarin's watched the bulletins on a small television set in their one-room wooden hut. Weather forecasters warned that the mighty Mekong, the heart and soul of the country, could flood its banks.

"We thought we were safe," says Sarin, "after all, our house is 10km from the river."
Water levels 'still rising'

Wading through waist-high water, Chea's husband, Thoeurn, tries to give us a glimpse of his home. We get within eyesight, but it gets too deep to go further.

"The water came up out of the ground, we don't ever get that much flooding here, we're farmers, so depend on knowing the way the weather works, we really don't know what happened,” he tells us.

Local officials say the sheer amount of water dumped by the typhoon pushed floodwaters several kilometers into the plains around the Mekong. In Katot, four weeks on, the levels continue to rise. Thoeurn points to the lake that now forms his backyard.

"Those were our wheat fields," he says. "We borrowed three hundred dollars to plant them. We were just weeks away from harvest. Now we have nothing for the new year to eat."

One of the poorest countries in Southeast Asia, most of Cambodia's farmers grow crops not to sell, but to simply feed themselves.

This year was supposed to see a bumper crop of rice and wheat. But an estimated 30,000 hectares throughout the country have been destroyed.

Groups like Oxfam are warning of a looming food crisis, with international aid too slow to come.

"These are usually called the hunger months right before harvest," says Francis Perez of Oxfam. "People were depending so much in terms of their livelihood on this harvest. The typhoon came at the most vulnerable time for many farmers in Cambodia."

The experiences of those in Katot offer a snapshot of what the government fears will be the impact of climate change on the country in years to come.

Compensation demand

"Cambodia didn't cause climate change but... Because we have a very limited adaptive capacity, our people don't have enough resources, so our people will suffer the most" - Navann Ouk, Cambodian climate council member

In the capital Phnom Penh, authorities this week held the country's first-ever conference on climate change, chaired by Cambodia's prime minister, Hun Sen.

"Poor countries are the ones most affected from the crisis that was originated elsewhere, because they have very little resources to cope with climate change," said Hun Sen at the opening of the Climate forum.

Studies by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) show that the temperature along the Mekong river has risen between 0.5 and 1.5 degrees celsius over the last 50 years, and is predicted to rise another 2 to 4 degrees celsius by the end of the century.

The WWF warns this will lead to even more severe weather changes, from increased flooding to drought. The group also warns that tens of millions of people throughout the Mekong river basin will be forced from their traditional lands.

Cambodia, a nation that only a few years ago reached a level of production making it able to feed itself, is worried by the devastating affects of climate change.

To help it cope, authorities are demanding wealthy nations provide hundreds of millions of dollars to fund programmes to help people and wildlife adapt.

"Cambodia didn't cause climate change but, in fact, we've received a lot of impact from it," says Navann Ouk, a member of Cambodia's climate council.

"Because we have a very limited adaptive capacity, our people don't have enough resources, so our people will suffer the most."

Homeless, facing hunger

"We have no way to pay for seeds to plant a new crop. What will we do?" - Chea Sarin, displaced farmer

On the only patch of high ground beside the main road which the Sarins use as a temporary shelter, sodden blankets and wet clothes hang under a makeshift tarp, meant to keep the constant rain from making an even wetter mess of their remaining possessions.

The rain is another anomaly they tell us.

"The wet season was supposed to be over a few weeks ago but in recent years it has continued to stretch later and later," says Thoeurn.

Living in one of the most remote parts of Cambodia, the Sarins know that aid won't likely reach them for some time to come.

And so they use what they were able to scavenge from their home to set up a small roadside stand, selling tea and fruit to the groups of tourists that must now walk a few hundred metres on foot, as their busses try to navigate through the flood.

"It will help pay for some things, but we're still heavily in debt" Chea Sarin says. "We have no way to pay for seeds to plant a new crop. What will we do?"

Cambodia dam threatens livelihoods, will increase hunger - campaigners

19 Aug 2009
Written by: Thin Lei Win

BANGKOK (AlertNet) - A planned hydropower dam in northeast Cambodia could displace around 5,000 people, create health problems from poor water quality and sharply reduce fish stocks which would lead to a rise in poverty and hunger for tens of thousands of villagers, campaigners and academics said.

Vietnam has said it will invest $600 million to build two hydropower plants on the lower Sesan river in neighbouring Cambodia, which are expected to produce over 500 MW of electricity.

The Cambodian government, which sees hydropower development as a top priority, is currently studying feasibility plans for the dams. Once completed, the Lower Sesan 1 and 2 plants will feed several areas in Cambodia and Vietnam, one of the region's most fastest-growing economies.

The NGO Forum on Cambodia (NGOF) says the 75-m Lower Sesan 2 plant may have a negative effect on fisheries as far downstream as the Mekong Delta in Vietnam -- the rice bowl of the country -- and as far upstream as Laos and Thailand in a report it launched on Wednesday.

A Vietnamese-commissioned assessment of the environmental impact of the dam noted it would "very likely" stop fish migration, affecting the diets and livelihoods of some 30,000 people upstream most of whom get 95 percent of their daily protein intake from fish. NGOF puts the number at 78,000.

Construction of the dam which is expected to take four years will inundate almost 25 percent of the surrounding agricultural land, while damaging the quality of the water which in itself could create health problems, Chhith Sam Ath, NGOF's executive director, told AlertNet.

Other campaigners are worried that the dam will have a negative impact on biodiversity and ethnic minorities' culture and land rights.

OPPOSITION

Many villagers living along the Sesan and Srepok rivers are worried that dam means losing their land, crops and livelihood and being forcibly resettled on to less fertile land.

In a three-part community video, which was posted on YouTube and produced with help from NGOF, a villager appeals to the government not to go ahead. "We are simple people that depend on the river for everything," he says.

An elderly woman says she is worried the new dam will cause homes to be flooded and property to be lost. "I'm old now, so it will be impossible for me to plough new fields and start a new farm," she said.

Locals are also unhappy about compensation plans.

NGOF said people upstream were offered money to compensate for one year's worth of fish loss, when the loss would be felt for generations. However, it said no compensation was proposed for downstream villagers, who are expected to suffer from poor water quality and a reduced quantity of water.

Cambodia is not alone in focusing on hydropower. Vietnam, Thailand and Laos as well as China are all in the race to build dams on the Mekong. The river supports one of the world's most diverse fisheries, rivalled only by the Amazon, with an estimated commercial value of around $2 billion.

Countries in the lower Basin are heavily dependent on the freshwater from the Mekong -- meaning the 'mother of all rivers' in Lao -- and its tributaries and its unique cycle of flood and drought for crop cultivation and fishery.

A recent United Nations report warned that China's construction of mega dams such as the recently completed Xiaowan, which at 292 m is the world's tallest, is a great threat to the river. Already, Vietnam's Mekong Delta is facing a reduction in ground water due to over-pumping.

The dams are likely make the situation worse "by lowering dry season flows and increasing saline intrusion; by stopping fish from entering Ton Le Sap lake which is a breeding ground; and by cutting back on spring floods which wash and enrich the soil," Professor David Dapice, an economist at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, told AlertNet.

Tuk Pram Pi Prokar - "The 7 Sufferings":

Dear Readers,

We sincerely apologize to opposition leader Sam Rainsy for the wrong attribution of the following poem in Khmer to him. Mr. Sam Rainsy informed us that he is not the author of this poem.

We also apologize to all our readers for any inconvenience this may cause.

Sincerely,

KI-Media team

Click on the poem to zoom in

Phnom Penh: children in urban areas first victims of economic crisis

03/04/2009
AsiaNews.it

A rise in prices is sharpening the country's food crisis. Acute malnutrition is up from 9.6% in 2005 to 15.9% in 2008. The government's goal to reduce the infant mortality rate is at risk.

Phnom Penh (AsiaNews/Agencies) - The rise in prices is sharpening the food crisis in Cambodia, which is mainly affecting poor children in urban areas. This is the finding of a study conducted at the end of 2008, the results of which have been released by the National Institute of Statistics.

In recent years, cases of acute malnutrition have risen among city children under the age of five, from 9.6% in 2005 to 15.9% in 2008. The situation improved in the final months of 2008, and the rate fell to 13.46%, but this was not enough to eliminate the danger of a food crisis in urban areas.

Viorica Berdaga, head of child survival and development for UNICEF, explains that the increase "is large, likely to be significant, and very logical considering that high food prices have the largest effect on those that have to buy all of their food"; in rural areas, farming for local consumption is able to reduce somewhat the impact of the crisis.

The rise in food prices, a result of the global economic crisis, could block the Cambodian government's "Millennium Development Goal No. 4": the reduction of infant mortality. The rate had fallen from 124 deaths per 1,000 births in 1998 to 82 per thousand in 2005. The government's goal is to reduce the mortality rate to 62 per thousand by 2015, but the food crisis threatens to ruin its efforts.

Violent land eviction leaves poor villagers homeless, starving

The forced eviction was carried out by a mixed group of about 100 RCAF Brigade 31 soldiers, forestry officers, environment officers, police and military police. Most of them were armed with handguns or AK-47s. (Photo: Licadho)

Friday, 21 November 2008
Written by CHEANG SOKHA
The Phnom Penh Post

Hundreds rousted by RCAF soldiers in Kampot are in dire need of shelter, rights monitors say, as the government says illegal squatters must go

HUNDREDS of families whose homes were torched and dismantled earlier this week in a violent land eviction near Bokor National Park say they have been left starving and without anywhere to go, local villagers told the Post Thursday.

Up to 300 houses in Anglong Krom, in Kampot's Taken commune, were destroyed during the eviction Monday and Tuesday by RCAF soldiers from Brigade 31, who have been involved in earlier evictions in the same area, villagers said.

Six villagers were injured - three of them severely - while clashing with the troops as their properties were ransacked, rights monitors say.

"IF WE HAD A CHOICE WE WOULD NOT STAY HERE.... WE ARE LIVING IN FEAR."

Hem Da, whose home was torched to the ground, said that villagers were now sleeping under the open air without shelter or food, while being threatened with arrest from soldiers in the area.

"We have nowhere else to go, so we might as well die here," Hem Da said.

"Most of the villagers here are starving, as their food supplies have run out."

Hem Da said that on Thursday, an environmental police officer from Bokor National Park arrived and ordered villagers to leave within three days.

"If we had a choice we would not stay here," he said. "We are living in fear under the watch of soldiers."

Am Sam Ath, a monitor for human rights NGO Licadho, said that on Thursday his organisation took rice and fish to the villagers.

"The violent eviction by the armed forces is an abuse of human rights," he told the Post while on his way to the site. "These people are very poor, so the destruction of their homes means they are now even poorer."

Am Sam Ath added that even those villagers living illegally on the land should have been informed before their eviction so that they could prepare themselves.

"[The government] should come to investigate how these people are living," he said. "Then look at the possibility of relocating them instead of kicking them out with nothing."

More evictions to come

Chey Uterith, the director of Bokor National Park, said that the army had evicted 192 families and that among those, only 83 owned the homes they were living in. He added that villagers from three other locations nearby will also be evicted in the near future.

"The villagers were not living there legally," he told the Post on Thursday. "We will figure out how many families really deserve new land and will try to provide concessions for them."

A military official in Brigade 31 told the Post that the number of illegal homes being built had increased, and that soldiers were now guarding the area against the squatters.

Under Hun Sen's prosperous regime, street children trade and are sometimes traded ... and many Cambodians still don't have enough to eat

A family living on the street.

Tots doing trade

Saturday September 20, 2008
By DEBBITA TAN
The Star (Malaysia)

The streets of Cambodia are a world where street children trade and are sometimes traded.

“One dollar, one dollar!” It is rather impossible really, to put on a poker face and ignore these unrelenting three-syllable cries.

What more when they emanate from enterprising tots no more than three feet tall, whose first words were most probably “one dollar”, quickly followed by “You buy?”

And that is just English; Cambodian street children generally speak whatever language it takes to make another dollar for the day. And just like any self-respecting trader worth his salt, these industrious little tykes know that variety is key.

It is no wonder then that the list of goods sold for a single American dollar runs longer than the mighty Mekong itself.

Some tourists who trot around clutching their Lonely Planet guidebooks actually end up clutching even more copies after being ambushed by groups of these little traders. Others simply emerge with everything else, from postcards and bracelets to foot-long flutes and statues of the Buddha of all sizes.

“I just could not say no!” most of them shrug.

To some degree, I could not say no, either. After all, these kids are not pestering tourists because they want to, but because they have to. Cambodia’s street children are the tragic outcome of the country’s history of chaos and isolation, uneven development and the rugged nature of its new economy.

According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef), thousands of Cambodian children work and live on the streets, returning home to their families only irregularly. Sadly, home €” to a good number of the families €” is also out on the streets.

A street child trying to sell a handmade flute.

Different people are affected by Cambodia in different ways. Some are awed into silence - sometimes into tears - by the sight of the magnificent Angkor Wat, while some blindly ask, “Angkor what?”

Others feel a desperate need to bite into fried tarantulas so they can horrify friends back home, and the rest just want to live on Siem Reap’s Pub Street forever.

But the essence of Cambodia that affects most visitors, if not all, must surely be the resilience of its street children.

They teach you that survival means taking a step forward each time you are about to be shoved a step back.

In short, if you are a street kid in Cambodia, it is all about survival. Earning another dollar means buying a bit more time and a bit more of life. A dollar can go a long way here.

If you can just get over your attachment to international fast food chains for a while and dive headfirst - or at least dip a toe - into the local cuisine, you will most likely find yourself pleasantly surprised.

The children will do anything for a dollar, even coil a snake around their necks.

It is all about being a good sport, really. Discovering where the locals eat entails research and taking time to talk to the locals. Once you find yourself in the right place, chances are you will walk away hours later feeling utterly guilty for having wolfed down platters of great Khmer food for less than US$2 (RM7).

Some find it necessary to shell out a few more dollars for some very decent Angkor beers and Tomb Raider cocktails.

Guilty pleasures aside, what I find distressing is that in the face of so much affordable food available to the tourists, many Cambodians still do not have enough to eat. As for the street children, despite their best efforts to earn money and fend for themselves, many are malnourished.

It is even more heartbreaking to see these children with hungry bellies skirting the sidewalks of restaurants that seem glitzy enough to attract bad-boy celebrity chefs like Gordon Ramsay to come over and shout out orders and obscenities in their kitchens.

How do you even begin to comfort a hungry child who is staring at this extreme abundance out of his reach?

The World Food Programme (WFP) in Cambodia estimates that hundreds of thousands of Cambodian children depend on the meals provided by the WFP for sustenance and nutrition. But donor support for the agency’s relief programme has diminished alarmingly since 2005, and the agency is anxious to fully restore this much-needed food assistance for the children, as well as for the very sick and the critically poor.

According to the 2006 Global Hunger Index, Cambodia is one of the 12 “hunger hot spot” countries listed as “extremely alarming”. With nearly 35% of Cambodians living below the poverty line, Cambodia is classified as a least developed, low-income and food-deficit country.

Poverty looms over Cambodia like a bad bet that has gone terribly wrong. Some blame it on the nation’s dark past while others fault its erratic progress. What is clear, however, is that Cambodians have become more aware of what tourism can do, and reliance on tourism does seem to be the one key hope that they are clinging on to.

Today, the major draw card of this tiny pocket of Indochina is undoubtedly the Angkor temples, and the locals are banking on it like there is no tomorrow.

Amidst the quaint and rustic feel of rugged Cambodia, one can now see the increasing emergence of tourist-friendly spots, like restaurants that cater to international palates (no such thing as chilli crickets and skewered scorpions here) and other establishments that many Cambodians cannot afford.

Like the rest of South-East Asia, Cambodia is coming into its own, and it will not be very long before this little bump on the map fits in snugly, in terms of tourism outlook, with its immediate neighbours, Thailand and Vietnam.

The street is where they make their home and living.

I will not say Cambodia is an amazing mix of the old and the new. Most places are these days, and tourism billboards the world over use this tagline to death. But Cambodia is an amazing place.

You will find yourself intrigued - seduced by the charms of its ruins, captivated by the stories you hear, pained by the hardships you witness, and surprised by the resilience of its people.

Visitors often arrive with images of the Angkor temples in their minds and leave with memories of the local folk in their hearts.

Even harder to forget would be the faces of the street children. They don’t have the luxuries of their counterparts in other countries.

They are trying to sell something every other minute just to ensure their survival.

One child told me, “No, no school for me. No play for me. You buy postcards, please? I give good price.”

These kids will do anything to get through the day. They will play you a medley of tunes using the handmade flutes they are hoping to sell.

They will pose with snakes coiled around their little necks in exchange for payment. Their desperate situation also means that they are a prime target for child prostitution and child sex trafficking.

Although Cambodian society is becoming more wary of paedophilia, much needs to be done to protect these children.

In 2005, Dateline NBC went undercover here with a human rights group to expose child sex trafficking and came out shocked by the magnitude of it. This exposé was elaborated upon by Time magazine in 2006 when it reported that Cambodia has been a haven for foreign sexual predators since the United Nations brought peace to the war-ravaged country in 1993, and since its neighbour Thailand started its own crackdown on child sex abuse.

In recent years, international organisations like the Child Safe Network have been working hard to shield the children of Cambodia from exploitation. According to Child Safe, a total of 167 paedophiles were arrested in Cambodia in 2006 for sexually abusing children, and these are just the reported cases.

Organisations like Child Safe train key members of society - for example, taxi drivers and hotel workers - to recognise and help children who may be in danger.

There are also local heroes who have taken it upon themselves to protect their country’s children. Take, for instance, the case of one man (who only wished to be known as Hong), who runs a small dilapidated orphanage in Siem Reap that is simply known as “Orphanage”.

An orphanage classroom.

“The place looks run-down, I know. But we keep it clean and comfortable. Also, all the kids here go to school. My mission is to keep them off the streets. The streets are just too dangerous,” said Hong.

The orphanage is dependent on donations, and paintings produced by the children in their spare time are also sold to visiting tourists to help keep the place running. Some travellers insist on seeing both the real Cambodia and the Cambodia made for mass tourism, and a good part of the real deal is often found in the country’s many orphanages.

Sad, but true.

Most taxi or tuk-tuk drivers, as well as hotel staff, are happy to point out the nearest orphanages. However, it is a good idea to trawl through some reliable information first before you start donating cash. Some orphanages are known to be managed in ways that do not put the interests of the children first.

There are many things a visiting traveller can do for the orphans. It is not all about money. In fact, it is perfectly fine to bring along food, books and toys. The kids love it when you play Santa.

At times, they do not even clamour over the gifts. They clamour over you instead! Just like any other kid, all they want sometimes is just a big hug and a kind word.

As you trot around Cambodia pursued by guides who keep reminding you about Angelina Jolie and Tomb Raider, you cannot help but find that everything fades whenever a street child approaches you. If nothing else, the resilience of the street children are to be admired.

Cambodia is a place that does not try very hard to impress anyone. But you will end up not only impressed, but charmed by it. While the majestic Angkor temples are remarkable, I believe the magic of Cambodia lies in the faces of its children - children who keep taking a step forward each time they are about to be shoved a step back.

In every one of their faces, the message is always crystal clear: I am not giving up on life just yet.

Pricey rice roils Asian leaders

Global stocks smallest in 25 years; exports limited; riots feared

Sunday, March 30, 2008
By Paul Alexander
Associated Press

MANILA, Philippines -- Philippine activists warn about possible riots. Aid agencies across Asia worry how they will feed the hungry. Governments dig deeper every day to fund subsidies.

A sharp rise in the price of rice is hitting consumer pocketbooks and raising fears of public turmoil in the many parts of Asia where rice is a staple.

Part of a surge in global food costs, rice prices on world markets have jumped 50 percent in the past two months and at least doubled since 2004. Experts blame rising fuel and fertilizer expenses as well as crops curtailed by disease, pests and climate change. There are concerns prices could rise a further 40 percent in coming months.

The higher prices have already sparked protests in the Philippines, where a government official has asked the public to save leftover rice. In Cambodia, Prime Minister Hun Sen ordered a ban on rice exports Wednesday.

Prestoline Suyat of the May One Labor Movement, a left-wing workers group, warned that "hunger and poverty may eventually lead to riots."

The neediest are hit hardest.

Rodolfo de Lima, 42, a Manila parking lot attendant, said "my family will go hungry" if prices continue to rise.

"If your family misses a meal, you really don't know what you can do, but I won't do anything bad," said de Lima.

Others might not be so restrained, said Domingo Casarte, 41, a street vendor. "When people get trapped, I can't say what they will do," he said.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture forecasts global rice stocks for 2007-08 at 72 million tons, the lowest since 1983-84 and about half the 2000-01 peak.

The higher prices are stretching the budgets of aid agencies providing rice to North Korea and other countries.

Jack Dunford, head of a consortium in Thailand helping more than 140,000 refugees from Myanmar, said soaring rice prices and a slumping U.S. dollar are forcing cuts in already meager food aid.

"This rice price is just killing us," he said.

Rice prices have almost doubled in Bangladesh in just a year, sparking resentment but no unrest yet. Repeated floods and a severe cyclone last year have cut production, forcing the government to increase imports.

In Vietnam, a major rice exporter, the crop has been hit by the tungro virus and the brown planthopper insect.

Farmers there say they are not benefiting from the higher prices.

"The rice price has gone up 50 percent over the past three months, but I'm not making any more money because I have to pay double for fertilizer, insecticides and labor costs," said Nguyen Thi Thu, 46, a farmer in Ha Tay province, just outside Hanoi.

Another farmer, Cao Thi Thuy, 37, in Nam Dinh province, 75 miles south of Hanoi, said exporters have actually been paying less for rice over the last week.

"They tell us that now weather is better, and rice can grow more easily, so we should not expect higher prices," she said.

Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, worried about anything that could spark a "people power" revolt against her, she arranged the purchase of up to 1.5 million tons from Vietnam. She also has ordered a crackdown on price manipulation, hoarding and profiteering.

Things are so tight that Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap has asked people not to throw away leftover rice and urged fast-food restaurants, which normally give customers a cup of rice with meals, to offer a half-cup option to cut waste.

Philippine farmers say the country, which has become the world's largest importer of rice after being an exporter in the early 1970s, has shot itself in the foot by developing some former rice paddies for housing and golf courses and planting more lucrative crops on others.

One Asian country, Japan, is encouraging cuts in rice production. Rice prices there have been falling in recent months as people eat less rice and more bread.

Khlean - Khlao - Khlach (Hungry, Uneducated, Sacred) - A Poem by Sam Vichea

Click on the poem to zoom in

Poem by Vichea Sam (on the web at http://kamnapkumnou.blogspot.com)

Many AIDS Victims Suffer From Hunger, Discrimination

By Seng Ratana, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
29 November 2007

Sufferers of HIV and AIDS often go hungry or without work, as discrimination against them continues, health workers say.

Medicine and proper nutrition have become crucial to the survival of many.

"Food is difficult and making a living is also difficult, because sick people cannot work properly," said Kou Sina, director of the group Urban Poor Women's Development. "If they know she is an AIDS victim, they do not give her an opportunity. And some victims just do domestic work for others, like washing clothes, while others collect garbage."

"Sometimes there is nothing to eat," she said. "They have to wait until their kids come back from collecting garbage at 1 pm or 2 pm with 500 riel to 600 riel each. They then add this up together to buy rice and low-quality or spoiled fish."

Some patients say even if they are provided with life-sustaining medicine, they won't survive the lack of nutrition.

"When it's time to go get medicine, we barely have money to get it, and very often we are blamed for that," said one patient. "We earn just enough for daily survival."

A view from Cambodia regarding the selection of the next prime minister of Cambodia and the politics of poverty

The following is an email exhange between KC and P. Virak posted on the Camdisc public bulletin board. Mr. P. Virak is currently in Phnom Penh, and he offers his point of view to his friend KC regarding the choice of the next prime minister in Cambodia.

Letter from KC to P. Virak:

Bong (Brother), but it sad that the majority poor voters seemed to listen to the need of their stomach rather than analyze educational background or political agenda of the candidates they are going to vote for, you can see this in every election.

KC
--------
Reply from P. Virak in Cambodia:

Street scene in Cambodia recently. (Photo: P. Virak, Posted online)

Hi KC,

It is an uphill battle to teach and encourage people to vote their conscience. At this time, not many people see things beyond the tip of their nose. People don't care much about territorial encroachment by our neighboring country because they are busy fighting to keep their own piece of land that has been/being/or will be stolen or grabbed from them every day. The issues of territorial encroachment and or the violations of the 1991 Paris peace treaty are things that are beyond their capacity to understand. Such important issues have not gotten their attention as much as their daily problems--- how to feed their family members and how to make or beg for a few dollars to survive.

I have met with hundreds of people from different walks of life and in different parts of Cambodia. It breaks my heart to see some mothers who can't even produce milk for their baby... to see many people still have no salt to eat... to see the aging [people] who are waiting to die without dignity... to see toddlers (who are supposed to be in school) roaming dirty ponds to catch insects...prawn...fish etc... to help feed the family... How are we going to tell the people about the big issues which have nothing to do with their immediate needs?

Somehow people are fearful and being purposely kept from proper schooling, from having enough food, and from exercising their rights... It seems that Cambodia is still under communistic rules in the most parts. We have more than enough money to make Cambodia a better place, but the money stays with the rich and the powerful ones.

We are racing against time--- which we don't have much left.

Thanks again for your exchange.

Virak