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PHNOM PENH, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- Dr. Noeleen Heyzer, Under- Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) , will make her first official visit to Cambodia from Aug. 21-24 to further enhance ties between the UN and Cambodia.
The visit is aimed at discussing topics and issues regarding to sustainable development, regional integration, and Cambodia's achievements and challenges towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals by 2015, according to a press release from the National Committee for the Economic and Social Commission of Asia and the Pacific (NC-ESCAP) on Monday.
During the visit, Dr. Heyzer will hold meetings with other key senior government officials and will also pay a courtesy call on Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen, said the press release.
Wednesday, 07 September 2011 Sen David and Kristin Lynch Uong Ratana The Phnom Penh Post
High maternal mortality rates are threatening Cambodia’s ability to achieve its Millennium Development Goal of 250 deaths per 100,000 live births by 2015, officials and rights workers said yesterday.
Speaking at a conference on women in the capital yesterday, Minister of Women’s Affairs Ing Kantha Phavi said that improving the maternal mortality rate posed a formidable challenge to Cambodia.
“Maternal mortality rates are still high [in Cambodia] compared with other countries in the region,” Ing Knatha Phavi said.
Ros Sopheap, executive director of NGO Gender and Development for Cambodia, said at the conference that last year there were 461 deaths per 100,000 live childbirths, which represented an increase from the 2008 rate of 437 deaths per 100,000 live births.
Eighteen years since the end of Cambodia's civil war, the lives of many Cambodians are little improved, with many seeking out a living from day to day.
With four years to go before the UN's target date of Millenium Development Goals, it looks like Cambodia still faces the challenge in poverty eradication, education, maternal health and gender rights.
Mrs Thida Khus is the executive director of Silaka, a Cambodian NGO working to promote gender equality and equity in Cambodia.
When Cambodia fell to the Khmer Rouge in 1975, Thida and her husband lived in Thailand where he was teaching mathematics.
They stayed briefly in a Thai refugee camp before Thida and her children went to the United States, her husband joining them later.
Thida Khus has been working in human resource development for the past 18 years.
PHNOM PENH, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia has been presented with a Millennium Development Goals Award for its national leadership, commitment and progress towards achievement of Goal 6 - Combating HIV, malaria and other diseases, a press release from UN Office in Cambodia said on Monday.
Cambodia has been honored within the 'Government' category of the annual Awards initiative, presented at a high-profile event in New York City, the United States, it said.
Cambodia is recognized for efforts on HIV that have contributed to a decline in HIV prevalence from an estimated 2 percent (among adults aged 15-49) in 1998 to a projected 0.7 percent in 2010.
Cambodia has also achieved the universal access target for treatment, with over 90 percent of adults and children in need receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART), due to the expansion of the Continuum of Care program established in 2003. Survival of PLHIV on ART after 12 months is estimated to be 87.4 percent in total (86.7 percent of adults and 93.9 percent of children).
"The Royal Government of Cambodia's response to HIV and AIDS has successfully scaled up HIV prevention, treatment, care and support for people living with HIV in Cambodia and generated benefits at the individual, community and health center level due to a high level of collaboration among all stakeholders, including UN agencies, civil society and development partners," said Teng Kunthy, Secretary General of the Cambodia National AIDS Authority.
Selecting Cambodia for the Award, the MDG Awards Committee was particularly impressed with the Government's successful scale-up of programs grounded in strong national leadership on HIV/AIDS, the solid National Strategic Plan (NSP) and collaborative partnerships, adhering closely to the 'Three Ones' principles one national coordinating body, one national multi-sectoral strategic plan, one single monitoring and evaluation system, the release said.
Innovative prevention programming in Cambodia over the last 10 years has included the introduction of the 100 percent Condom Use Policy which showed successes in preventing new infections. Progress has also led to impacts on the other health-related MDGs of reducing child mortality and improving maternal health.
Successful scale-up of HIV services has contributed to a nearly 50 percent decrease in HIV prevalence among pregnant women at antenatal clinics, and in 2009 more than 32 percent of HIV- infected pregnant women received treatment to reduce the risk of mother-to-child transmission of HIV, an increase from 11.2 percent in 2007.
The nomination of Cambodia for the MDG Award was a joint initiative by the UN system in Cambodia.
"We congratulate Cambodia on receiving the MDG Award. This experience shows if all the ingredients for success are in place that Millennium Development Goals are achievable strong leadership and commitment from the highest level, a sound policy framework backed up by the adequate level of resources and implementation capacity, and coordination and collaboration among all partners," said Douglas Broderick, United Nations Resident Coordinator in Cambodia. "The lessons learned here can be applied to accelerating the progress of those Goals still facing challenges, to ensure their achievement by 2015," he added.
However, "HIV is still a very real challenge in this country, and stigma and discrimination remain high, which creates a barrier to accessing services for prevention, care, support and treatment, " said Douglas Broderick.
Phnom Penh - The United Nations said Monday that Cambodia had won an award for the government's successes in dealing with HIV/AIDS.
The Millennium Development Goals (MDG) award follows the drop in the nation's HIV prevalence from an estimated 2 per cent of adults in 1998 to a projected 0.7 per cent this year.
The UN's resident coordinator in Cambodia, Douglas Broderick, attributed success in tackling the disease to strong leadership, sound policies and collaboration between government and its partners.
'The lessons learned here can be applied to accelerating the progress of those goals still facing challenges to ensure their achievement by 2015,' he said referring to other MDGs that remain off-target such as the number of women dying in childbirth.
In the past decade Cambodia introduced its 100-per-cent Condom Use policy, one of a range of measures that has helped to halve HIV prevalence among pregnant women.
Another measure has tripled the number of HIV-positive women who receive drugs to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV. In 2007, just 11 per cent received medication. Last year, one-third did.
The UN added that more than 90 per cent of people needing antiretroviral therapy now get the drugs they need.
But UNAIDS country director Tony Lisle warned HIV was not yet beaten, and pointed out that injecting drug users remain a high-risk group.
'HIV is still a very real challenge in this country, and stigma and discrimination remain high, which creates a barrier to accessing services,' Lisle said.
His comments echoed worries expressed by AIDS campaigners who have long condemned provisions in the 2008 anti-trafficking law that outlaw prostitution.
Police have arrested numerous sex workers and driven many underground in the past two years, which has made it harder for health workers to reach them.
Organizations providing health services for sex workers have long expressed concern that their staff risk being arrested for providing sex workers with condoms and sexual health information.
The UN acknowledged that in its statement announcing the award, saying 'changes in the legal and policy environment' had hampered efforts to help those most at risk.
We wish the Prime Minister well as he attends this Summit in New York; may he be inspired to implement this obvious ROAD MAP toward reducing poverty in Cambodia. May he also use this occasion to raise the Preah Vihear issue with more than just Abhisit but with other ASEAN and Paris Peace Agreement signatories. A great article by the amazing singer-humanitarian BONO. - Theary Seng, Phnom Penh, 19 Sept. 2010.
Theary Seng and Singer Bono at P8, Germany, 2007
September 18, 2010 By BONO The New York Times
I’ve noticed that New Yorkers, and I sometimes try to pass for one these days, tend to greet the word “summit” with an irritated roll of the eyes, a grunt, an impatient glance at the wristwatch. In Manhattan, a summit has nothing to do with crampons and ice picks, but refers instead to a large gathering of important persons, head-of-state types and their rock-star retinues in the vicinity of the United Nations building and creates, therefore, a near total immobilization of the East Side. Can world peace possibly be worth this? Never, never...Eleanor Roosevelt, look what you’ve done ... .
Recent global summit meetings, from Copenhagen to Toronto, have frankly been a bust, so the world, which may not know it yet, is overdue for a good multilateral confab — one that’s not just about the gabbing but about the doing. The subject of the summit meeting at the United Nations this week is one whose monumental importance is matched only by its minuscule brand recognition: the Millennium Development Goals, henceforth known as the M.D.G.’s (God save us from such dull shorthand).
The M.D.G.’s are possibly the most visionary deal that most people have never heard of. In the run-up to the 21st century, a grand global bargain was negotiated at a series of summit meetings and then signed in 2000. The United Nations’ “Millennium Declaration” pledged to “ensure that globalization becomes a positive force for all the world’s people,” especially the most marginalized in developing countries. It wasn’t a promise of rich nations to poor ones; it was a pact, a partnership, in which each side would meet obligations to its own citizens and to one another.
Of course, this is the sort of airy-fairy stuff that people at summit meetings tend to say and get away with because no one else can bear to pay attention. The 2000 gathering was different, though, because signatories agreed to specific goals on a specific timeline: cutting hunger and poverty in half, giving all girls and boys a basic education, reducing infant and maternal mortality by two-thirds and three-quarters respectively, and reversing the spread of AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. All by 2015. Give it an A for Ambition.
So where are we now, 10 years on, with some “first-world” economies looking as if they could go bang, and some second- and third-level economies looking as if they could be propping us up?
Well, I’d direct you to the plenary sessions and panel discussions for a detailed answer...but if you’re, eh, busy this week...my view, based on the data and what I’ve seen on the ground, is that in many places it’s going better than you’d think.
Much better, in fact. Tens of millions more kids are in school thanks to debt cancellation. Millions of lives have been saved through the battle against preventable disease, thanks especially to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Apart from fallout from the market meltdown, economic growth in Africa has been gathering pace — over 5 percent per year in the decade ending in 2009. Poverty declined by 1 percent a year from 1999 to 2005.
The gains made by countries like Ghana show the progress the Millennium Goals have helped create.
At the same time, the struggles of places like Congo remind us of the distance left to travel. There are serious headwinds: 64 million people have been thrown back into poverty as a result of the financial crises, and 150 million are hungry because of the food crisis. And extending the metaphor, there are storms on the horizon: the poor will be hit first — and worst — by climate change.
So there should be no Champagne toasts at this year’s summit meeting. The 10th birthday of our millennium is, or ought to be, a purposeful affair, a redoubling of efforts. After all, there’s only five years before 2015, only five years to make all that Second Avenue gridlock worth it. With that in mind I’d like to offer three near-term tests of our commitment to the M.D.G.’s.
1. Find what works and then expand on it. Will mechanisms like the Global Fund get the resources to do the job?
Energetic, efficient and effective, the fund saves a staggering 4,000 lives a day. Even a Wall Streeter would have to admit, that’s some return on investment. But few are aware of it, a fact that allows key countries — from the United States to Britain, France and Germany — to go unnoticed if they ease off the throttle. The unsung successes of the fund should be, well, sung, and after this summit meeting, its work needs to be fully financed. This would help end the absurdity of death by mosquito, and the preventable calamity of 1,000 babies being born every day with H.I.V., passed to them by their mothers who had no access to the effective, inexpensive medicines that exist.
2. Governance as an effect multiplier. In this column last spring, I described some Africans I’ve met who see corruption as more deadly than the deadliest of diseases, a cancer that eats at the foundation of good governance even as the foundation is being built. I don’t just mean “their” corruption; I mean ours, too. For example, multinational oil companies. They want oil, and governments of poor countries rich in just one thing, black gold, want to sell it to them. All well and good. Except the way it too often happens, as democracy campaigners in these countries point out, is not at all good. Some of these companies knowingly participate in a system of backhanders and bribery that ends up cheating the host nation and turning what should be a resource blessing into a kind of curse of black market cabals.
Well, I’m pleased to give you an update on an intervention that some of us thought of and fought for as critical: hidden somewhere in the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill (admit it...you haven’t read it all either) there is a hugely significant “transparency” amendment, added by Senators Richard Lugar and Benjamin Cardin. Now energy companies traded on American exchanges will have to reveal every payment they make to government officials. If money changes hands, it will happen in the open. This is the kind of daylight that makes the cockroaches scurry.
The British government should institute the same requirement for companies trading in Britain, as should the rest of the European Union and ultimately all the G-20 nations. According to the African entrepreneur Mo Ibrahim, who has emerged as one of the most important voices on that continent, transparency could do more to transform Africa than even debt cancellation has. Measures like this one should be central to any renewed Millennium Development Goal strategy.
And the cost to us is zero, nada. It’s a clear thought in a traffic jam.
3. Demand clarity; measure inputs and outputs.
Speaking of transparency, let’s have a little more, please, when it comes to the question of who is doing what toward which goal and to what effect. We have to know where we are to know how far we’ve left to go.
Right now it’s near impossible to keep track. Walk (if you dare) into M.D.G. World and you will encounter a dizzying array of vague financing and policy commitments on critical issues, from maternal mortality to agricultural development. You come across a load of bureau-babble that too often is used to hide double counting, or mask double standards. This is the stuff that feeds the cynics.
What we need is an independent unit — made up of people from governments, the private sector and civil society — to track pledges and progress, not just on aid but also on trade, governance, investment. It’s essential for the credibility of the United Nations, the M.D.G.’s, and all who work toward them.
And that was the deal, wasn’t it? The promise we made at the start of this century was not to perpetuate the old relationships between donors and recipients, but to create new ones, with true partners accountable to each other and above all to the citizens these systems are supposed to work for. Strikes me as the right sort of arrangement for an age of austerity as well as interdependence. (The age of interrupted affluence should sharpen our focus on future markets for our sake as well as theirs.)
No leader scheduled to speak at the summit meeting is more painfully aware of this context than President Obama, who one year ago pledged to put forth a global plan to reach the development goals. If promoting transparency and investing in what works is at the core of that strategy, he can assure Americans that their dollars are reinforcing their values, and their leadership in the world is undiminished. Action is required to make these words, these dull statistics, sing. The tune may not be pop but it won’t leave your head — this practical, achievable idea that the world, now out of kilter, can re-balance itself and offer all, not just some, a chance to exit the unfathomable deprivation that brings about the need for such global bargains.
I understand the critics who groan or snooze through the pious pronouncements we will hear from the podium in the General Assembly. But still in my heart and mind, undiminished and undaunted, is this thought planted by Nelson Mandela in his quest to tackle extreme poverty: “Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great.”
We have a lot to prove, but if the M.D.G. agreement had not been made in 2000, much less would have happened than has happened. Already, we’ve seen transformative results for millions of people whose lives are shaped by the priorities of people they will never know or meet — the very people causing gridlock this week. For this at least, the world should thank New Yorkers for the loan of their city.
Bono, the lead singer of the band U2 and a co-founder of the advocacy group ONE and (Product)RED, is a contributing columnist for The Times.
Cambodia is behind on saving mothers in childbirth and protecting the environment. (Photo: ASSOCIATED PRESS)
Men Kimseng, VOA Khmer Washington, D.C Monday, 13 September 2010
“We have good figures on both prevention and treatment.”
When world leaders gather in New York next week to discuss the Millennium Development Goals of UN countries, they will find Cambodia well along on benchmarks for HIV and AIDS, but appears lagging in maternal mortality and other goals.
MDGs were pledged by 189 countries in 2000, creating targets for 2015. In that time, Cambodia has gained ground in the fight against HIV, AIDS and child mortality, officials said. But it is behind on saving mothers in childbirth and protecting the environment.
Tia Phalla, vice chairman of the National AIDS Authority, said Cambodia has reached a goal of 0.9 percent prevalence.
“We have good figures on both prevention and treatment,” he told VOA Khmer.
In child mortality, which was a prime concern in the past, Cambodia has made “remarkable progress” since 2000, Sherif Rushdy, the UNDP program adviser in charge of Cambodia's MDGs, said in an e-mail.
Infant mortality improved from 95 to 60 deaths per 1,000 live births between 2000 and 2008, while deaths for children under five years old fell from 124 to 83 death per 1,000 live births from 2000 to 2005, Rushdy wrote, quoting figures from the Ministry of Health.
Both rates were expected to “far exceed” Cambodia's 2015 goals, which may be revised further, Rushdy wrote.
But even with such improvement, Cambodia retains one of the highest child mortality rates in the region.
There is also concern it may not meet its goals in maternal mortality, and environmental protection, despite a sanguine report issued last week by the Center for Global Development. That report found Cambodia among countries that could achieve most of its 2015 targets, although it only looked into a small number of those.
“We need to deepen our study on these issues,” said Hou Taing Eng, secretary of state for the Ministry of Planning.
Meanwhile, the administration of US President Barack Obama in July unveiled its own strategic plan to help developing countries meet their goals, including investing in health and education, economic growth and well-governed institutions; empowering women and girls; and watching development outcomes and accountability.
“We applaud President Obama's MDG plan,” Gregory Adams, the director of aid effectiveness for Oxfam America, said in a statement. “We urge the president at the September summit to make an appeal to the world's leaders that achieving the MDGs is a winnable fight, but one that cannot be done in isolation. It is a global effort, and as a global community we need a policy and funding to win it.”
The US provided $68.5 million to Cambodia through USAID in 2010, “part of the broader program of US assistance in Cambodia,” according to the US Embassy in Phnom Penh.
The US aid package focused on health care and education in rural areas, reduction of HIV and AIDS, good governance and rule of law, as well as food security and climate change, the Embassy said in a statement.
Cambodia still has a high poverty rate—about 30 percent of its population live below the poverty line—and there is room for improvement, development experts say.
“We believe that resources provided by development partners to Cambodia should be used more effectively and transparently,” Seang Soleak, a spokesman for Oxfam America's Cambodia office, said. “We have seen that assistance has so far not effectively tackled grave issues affecting the poor, especially those in rural areas.”
Students study at Toun Fha primary school near Kandal Market. A draft of the government’s forthcoming National Strategic Development Plan includes revised education targets. (Photo by: Heng Chivoan)
Tuesday, 12 January 2010 Sebastian Strangio and Cheang Sokha The Phnom Penh Post
CAMBODIA is set to slash education targets under its new development plan, abandoning benchmarks that education specialists have described as “completely unrealistic”.
According to a draft of the country’s National Strategic Development Plan (NSDP) update for 2009-13, a copy of which was obtained by the Post Monday, a wide range of education targets would be cut considerably, thereby lessening the country’s chances of fulfilling its education-related Millennium Development Goal (MDG).
The NSDP for 2006-10 aimed at achieving universal enrolment at both the primary and lower secondary levels by 2015, a goal that was in line with the MDG benchmarks. The new plan, however, would lower the target for lower secondary enrolment from 75 percent by 2010 to just 51 percent by the 2013-14 school year.
In The, spokesman for the Ministry of Education, said that in previous plans, figures had been drawn from national directives, but that the new figures reflect more detailed analysis conducted by the ministry itself.
“In previous planning, we did not make specific analysis,” he said. “In the draft we have made a clear and fair analysis based on the current situation and adjusted the ministry’s targets and its implementation goals.”
The goal of 50 percent enrolment in rural areas by 2010 would likewise be reduced to 42 percent by 2013-14, while the same goal in “remote” areas – for which the 2006-10 document set a target of 50 percent by 2010 – would be set at 22 percent for 2013-14. Completion rates for lower secondary school would also be reduced from 76 percent by 2010 to 59 percent by 2013-14, and the target literacy rate for those aged between 15 and 24 would be dropped from 95 percent by 2010 to 92 percent by 2013-14.
Education specialists applauded the adjustments, saying they were a clear improvement over the wildly optimistic MDG targets contained in the 2006-10 plan.
“The way [the targets] were set was completely unrealistic,” said Sherif Rushdy, a consultant who conducted an assessment of the MDG benchmarks for the UN Development Programme last year.
“If the goal is not achievable, there’s not much incentive to achieve it.”
Rushdy said that many of the MDG targets for education, set by the government in 2003, were not backed up by enough analysis to determine whether they were feasible.
“You can’t achieve 100 percent primary enrolment and 100 percent secondary enrolment in the same time frame. And there was no projection made of what it actually takes to get there,” he said, adding that it was “reasonable to adjust the figures to something that’s more realistic”.
In Samrithy, executive director of NGO Education Partnership, agreed.
“In the previous [plan], it seems the government tried to play up the numbers to show they were trying to reach the goal as quickly as possible,” he said, adding that the inflated goals were “beyond the government’s capacity”.
Short on time As the deadline for public consultations on the NSDP draft closed on Monday, civil society groups criticised the government for the length and timing of the consultative period, saying they were not given enough of a chance to make submissions about the 200-page document.
The NSDP draft was originally released to NGOs on December 17 for perusal, but the three-week period for making formal submissions about the contents of the draft was too short, Chith Sam Ath, executive director of NGO Forum, said on Monday.
“NGOs realise the importance of the NSDP update,” he said, but added that the consultative period was “clearly too short to have a proper consultative process”.
“The consultative process excluded many civil society organisations from taking part,” he said.
Others questioned the timing of the consultation period, which was disrupted by the Christmas and New Year holidays. “Given the holiday period and everything, it was just not sufficient for NGOs and donors to make their submissions,” said Lun Borithy, executive director of the Cooperation Committee for Cambodia.
“It’s an important document that will be a road map for the government between now and 2013, so it’s important that broad consultation is conducted.”
But Theng Pagnathun, deputy director general at the Ministry of Planning, which has been responsible for formulating the NSDP draft, said the concerns came only from a small number of civil society groups.
“Only some NGOs have complained that we did not give them enough time, but I think that they weren’t working at that time. Maybe they were on holiday,” he said.
He added that government institutions and their “main development partners” had made no complaints about the timing of the consultation period.
“We were aware about [NGO] concerns on this issue, but we work based on a majority of voices,” he said. “The government will not postpone its deadline.”
MANILA, Aug. 26 (Xinhua) -- Asia and Pacific economies are struggling to achieve Millennium Development Goals (MDG), such as hunger, reduction in maternal mortality rates and access to sanitation as the region is feeling the pinch of global economic downturn, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said Wednesday.
"With the recent global downturn, which has led to large declines in exports, production, and aggregate demand, regional growth will continue to be under severe downward pressure," said Jong-Wha Lee, ADB Chief Economist. "Slower growth in the short-term will make progress in achieving the Millennium Development Goals difficult for many countries in Asia and the Pacific."
Citing the data of Key Indicators 2009, a flagship annual statistical publication of the bank, the ADB said the region is facing serious challenges on goals linked to sanitation and maternal mortality. The indicators show that maternal mortality rates remain unacceptably high in many countries such as Afghanistan, Cambodia, and Nepal, while more than a quarter of urban households in 13 countries still lack access to improved sanitation.
The region's fast growth in recent years has also put severe strains on the environment, with developing Asian countries becoming heavy contributors to greenhouse gas emissions, it said.
But the development bank said Asia has made significant progress in reducing extreme poverty. The number of poor was reduced from around one in two people to around one in four over the past 15 years, it said.
