Projects In Cambodia Research Articles

Review the advantages and disadvantages of the Funan Techo Canal project in Cambodia

Review the advantages and disadvantages of the Funan Techo Canal project in Cambodia

Data Wormholes and Speculative Rice Fields: An Infrastructural Politics of Anticipating Greenhouse Gas Emissions

The 2015 Paris declaration obligated international development organizations to assess the climate compatibility of their projects. For irrigation projects, like those negotiated between the Agence Française de Développement, and the Cambodian government in the early 2020s, calculations of estimated greenhouse gas emissions have become important requirements. But how to estimate emissions from future rice fields and the effects of irrigation infrastructures that do not exist? To address this issue, emissions calculators have been developed as a means to bridge climate science and development knowledge infrastructures, so that data and forms of calculation from climate science can easily enter the world of development. However, by engaging in an infrastructural inversion, we argue that this understanding is flawed. Drawing on a case study of an irrigation project in Cambodia, we show that heterogeneous data concatenations are continuously transformed in the movement across infrastructures until referentiality breaks down. Emission calculators operate as a data wormhole, emitting extremely uncertain numbers that contribute to a problematic and speculative politics of anticipation. In contrast with the dominant politics of anticipation, which depends on futile efforts to neutralize uncertainty, infrastructural inversion makes it possible to envision a decentered politics attentive to distributed agency.

Research on Design Management Process Based on BIM - Taking the New Phnom Penh Airport Project in Cambodia as an Example

With the rapid development of international engineering quantity and scale, traditional project management methods have shortcomings such as relative separation of project design, construction, and operation, and loose connection of project management links. However, BIM technology can effectively integrate various stages of project management. This article combines the new Phnom Penh Airport project in Cambodia and establishes a BIM design management process based on existing management experience. By analyzing the changes in organizational management, team management, technical processes, and management points brought about by BIM, and addressing the problems in project practice, it summarizes and innovates the project design management process under DB mode, achieving a reasonable connection between design and construction management links.

Chinese infrastructure as spatial fix? A political ecology of development finance and irrigation in Cambodia

China has recently become an agent of intensified agricultural production in Southeast Asia by constructing large‐scale irrigation systems. Funded with Chinese development finance, such infrastructure projects have been interpreted as a ‘spatial fix’ for capital accumulation in China, which helps explain the shifting balance of power within the region's political economy. However, we argue that explaining the local outcomes of these projects requires mapping out Chinese development finance in relation to the multi‐scalar network of actors, circuits of capital, and struggles over water that produce irrigated landscapes. We draw on our joint research about the Chinese‐funded and built Kanghot Irrigation Development Project in Cambodia. We explain how the construction of Kanghot was shaped by the historical and political relations between China and Cambodia. Since completion in 2016, Kanghot irrigation has transformed agricultural production by enrolling farmers into a network of volatile commodity markets and harmful pest ecologies. There have also been ongoing community struggles over Kanghot's water due to the project's design and institutional management. By broadening the idea of infrastructure as spatial fix to include these material and social processes of agrarian landscape production, this paper advances a political ecology of Chinese development finance in Southeast Asia.

Asianizing the Integrated Approach for Development Cooperation: Scaling-Up Dynamics of KOICA’s Peace-Development Nexus Projects in Lao PDR and Cambodia

Abstract This study explores the significance of mainstreaming an integrated approach to development in enhancing development cooperation. It underscores the Asianization of this integrated approach by scrutinizing a unique path that harmonizes global guidelines for integrated approaches within Asia’s regional context. Serving as the focal case study, the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA)’s Peace Village Development Projects in Cambodia and Lao PDR illuminate how projects can evolve into integrated programs. This evolution draws on universalist lessons within the contextualist epistemological framework for scaling up. The research establishes that comprehensive needs and capacity assessments, in conjunction with the active participation of various stakeholders, are crucial for the effective design and implementation of these projects, which engage mixed scaling-up processes. KOICA’s integrated strategy serves as a dynamic catalyst for social inclusion and the optimization of sectoral outcomes, offering a mechanism for scaling up that contributes to the formation of ‘an organically societized Asia.’

Hydropower Hegemony: Examining Civil Society Opposition to Dams in Cambodia

As the urgency of addressing the climate crisis gathers pace, the role of hydropower is likely to attract increased interest for its claimed sustainability, despite fragmenting fragile river systems and evidence of significant emissions when constructed in tropical contexts. Building upon existing post-development, political ecology and civil society literature, this paper examines civil society opposition to hydropower projects in Cambodia. The paper introduces the term ‘hydropower hegemony,’ as an analytical tool for examining not just the tactical dimensions of civil society opposition to hydropower, but also the importance of ideological contestation. This analysis is applied to two case studies, Lower Sesan 2 and the Areng Valley in Cambodia, but with relevance for populations in peripheral areas and countries facing the expansion of hydropower projects. The case studies illustrate a spectrum of approaches to contestation, from reform to confrontation, and their intersections with the rapacious Cambodian state. The analysis also challenges reductionist characterizations of civil society in Cambodia. Despite the presence and success of confrontation with the state, we suggest that civil society’s increasingly reformist approaches are ultimately reinforcing hegemony, hydropower and otherwise, rather than challenging it, by inadvertently taming and domesticating burgeoning opposition to dispossession.

Explaining Chinese SOEs’ risk tolerance in the developing world: Evidence from Chinese hydropower investment in Cambodia

In recent years Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) have become a major source of development finance in the developing world. Although some Chinese SOEs are risk averse, others endure high risk as a result of public backlash from projects they conduct in host states. Why are some Chinese SOEs more risk tolerant than others when engaging in investment projects in the developing world? In order to explain this variation, the author explores the domestic political economy underlying Chinese SOEs’ overseas investment decision-making, arguing that SOEs with increasing overseas market share are less likely to pursue risky projects, acting as responsible stakeholders in developing countries. To illustrate this hypothesis, the author investigates Chinese-financed hydropower projects in Cambodia, drawing upon original research records gathered in China and Cambodia between 2017 and 2020. Comparative case studies yield the following findings: First, SOEs with increasing market share are less likely to engage in hydropower projects with significant environmental and ecological impact; second, SOEs are less likely to take on risky projects with financing from Chinese policy banks. This article indicates that variation among Chinese SOEs will ultimately result in diverse outcomes for and reactions to Chinese state-sponsored infrastructure projects in the developing world. It also sheds light on the need for more effective regulation from the Chinese government to ensure Chinese SOEs’ responsible overseas investment.

Competence building in child mental health -A Norway-Cambodia transcultural experience

The prevalence of mental health and neurodevelopmental disorders in young people is high in low- and middle-income countries. Collaboration between institutions from high-income countries and institutions in resource-poor settings may enhance professional competence. This may be a key to bridging the gap between service needs and ability to meet those needs. However, there are challenging issues in transferring knowledge from a Western context to a different cultural and socioeconomic situation. The aim of the present study is to describe significant aspect of a transcultural competence building project in Cambodia in child mental health from the perspective of the staff. A Norwegian expert team developed and implemented a program at Centre for Child and Adolescent Mental Health (Caritas-CCAMH) in collaboration with the staff two weeks per year over a 14-year period. The study has a qualitative approach using thematic analysis of the transcripts from a focus-group interview with 11 staff members at the end of the 14-year period. The multidisciplinary staff described a learning process characterized by collaboration in planning and implementation. Mixing theory and practice in clinical case discussions with a bio-psycho-social perspective was perceived as the cornerstone of the teaching process. A pedagogical strategy that involved constant reflection back and forth enabled the customization of the content and method of capacity building despite the differences in socio-economic conditions and learning styles. This model of continuity, low-investment, and low-intensity capacity-building may enrich the child and adolescent mental health settings in low- and middle-income countries.

What exactly do REDD+ projects produce? A materialist analysis of carbon offset production from a REDD+ project in Cambodia

This article attempts to re-ground analyses of carbon markets by examining the material relations of production of a REDD + project in Cambodia. It focuses on how surplus value is extracted from labour at various points in the production chain of Verified Carbon Units (VCUs). Using extensive field work conducted over three years on a REDD + project in northern Cambodia I argue that VCUs are neither actual avoided units of deforestation and emissions, nor mere imagined or socially constructed commodities. Rather VCUs are packages of technical and affective claims attached to particular REDD + projects which are created through material labour processes. Only by examining the use-values that are created through these labour processes can demand for VCUs be properly understood. This article will start by giving a background to the Oddar Meanchey REDD + project (OMREDD + project). It will then examine the writing of the project document and examine the verification process and consider how these formed critical parts of the commodity production process. After that it will examine how the project collapsed on the ground and yet VCUs were still sold in the market. Finally the article will consider how the claims of the OMREDD + project were challenged by critical work and how future interventions against REDD + projects can successfully undermine the claims of REDD + projects and the extraction of surplus value.

Contesting China-funded Projects in Cambodia: The Case of Stung Chhay Areng Hydropower

ABSTRACT This article investigates contestation over China-funded hydropower projects in Cambodia by examining the case of Chhay Areng. By analysing different social forces mobilising in pursuit of their own interests, particularly an anti-dam campaign group and the ruling party, this article emphasises the changing political dynamics that shaped both the strategies and outcomes of the contestation. Based on interviews with civil society representatives and a review of newspaper articles and published works, the article provides insights into the role of civil society and social media in the mobilisation and in shaping the outcome of this case. It also casts light on the nature of Chinese international development and the impact of the resultant contestation on China's influence and role as a regional and global power.

Analysis of Needs Assessment of Integrated Maternal, Newborn and Child Healthcare Project in Cambodia

연구목적: 본 연구는 2019년 캄보디아 통합모자보건증진 2차 사업 중간평가(2017-2021)에서 수행한 사업의 요구도 평가를 통해 사업수행의 우선순위를 파악하고자 한다. 연구의 중요성: 현 시점에서의 캄보디아의 통합모자보건사업에서의 우선순위와 요구도를 현재 시점에서 파악해 볼 수 있는 소중한 연구이다. 연구방법론: 사업수행대상자 총 104명으로부터 설문조사를 통해 보리치 요구도와 임계함수(Locus for Focus Model)분석을 하였다. 보리치 요구도는 현재수준과 필요수준의 차이를 규명함으로써 활동 간 우선순위와 위계를 표현하는데 유용한 지표로 활용된다. 연구결과: 두 가지 방법의 요구도 분석을 통해 공통적으로 나타난 사업우선요구 항목으로는 필수 의료기기 인프라, 포스트와 리플릿을 이용한 주민의 보건의료행동변화, 보건의료정보시스템의 강화, 안전한 낙태서비스 이용제공, INC/EENC 교육훈련, 응급산과관리 능력, 아동성장 모니터링, 그리고 의료진의 보건의료행동변화 능력 등으로 나타났다. 결론 및 시사점: 실제사업에서의 수행된 사업은 요구도 조사에서 나타난 우선순위와 대부분 일치하는 것으로 나타났다. 즉 캄보디아 모자보건사업은 요구도 조사를 통한 사업의 우선순위를 파악한 것이 실제사업의 수행과 연계되고 있으며, 또한 사업의 성과로도 연결되어 나타나는 것으로 설명할 수 있다. 향후의 보건분야 국제개발협력에서 요구도 평가는 그 대상자를 사업수행자 외에 지역사회주민들에게로 확대하여 파악해 볼 필요가 있다. 정부의 보건의료체계강화는 주민참여나 지역사회 역량강화와 함께 추진될 때 효과를 발휘할 수 있을 것이기 때문이다.

Review Essay: Kent State at Fifty

Review Essay: Kent State at Fifty

Volunteer tourism fields: spaces of altruism and unsustainability

ABSTRACT Drawing upon research from six volunteer projects in Cambodia, this paper explores the volunteer host community as a ‘space’ that has its own rules and normalized ways of behaving that influences the assistance prospective beneficiaries receive. Underpinned by Bourdieu’s theory of field’s, qualitative interviews and participant observation is conducted with both volunteers and hosts. This paper concludes that volunteer project rules are not homogeneous and that normalized ways of behaving can lead to unregulated and unsustainable practice but also integrated and productive outcomes. This suggests a more regulative and structured approach to volunteer tourism led by media and volunteers themselves may enhance the sustainable foundation of the sector.

Community tourism – Development of rural areas in developing countries

Research background: Community-based tourism has become a very popular form of sustainable tourism in the world. Tourism is supposed to be developmental in nature benefiting the local community by improving the Quality-of-Life and the standard of living for locals and local commerce. It is therefore imperative to understand that the community around tourism development is important and has to be involved in the development from the initial planning of the development as the sole beneficiaries of the development. Purpose of the article: The aim of this work was to evaluate the prerequisites for the development of community-based tourism and Bridging the technology gap for community-based tourism projects in Cambodia. Methods: The theoretical part is focused especially on community-based tourism, its origin, history and possibilities of development. The practical part of the thesis consists of a descriptive part which characterizes the studied area from the point of view of living conditions and tourism, and, also, contains the results of analysis of interviews conducted conditions and tourism, and, also, contains the results of analysis of interviews conducted with the local people and person by the implementer during the stay in the Cambodia were analysed using the Grounded theory method. Findings & Value added: The result of the paper is to set the prerequisites for the development of community-based tourism and recommendations for a subsequent research.

Ecomore 2 project in Cambodia: Integrated vector management for dengue vectors in schools in an entomological/epidemiological approach

Background: In Cambodia, recent results showed very high resistance of Aedes aegypti to temephos, the only larvicide used in Cambodia, and two adulticides (permethrin used for net treatment, and deltamethrin for insecticide fumigation). The Ecomore2 project in Cambodia aims to estimate the effectiveness of an integrated vector management (IVM) targeting schools combined with an educational program to mitigate peaks of dengue and dengue-like syndromes (DLS) for reducing subsequent overcrowding of health centers. Methods and materials: A cluster randomized controlled trial was implemented in 24 clusters (12 under integrated vector control and 12 without), each including one school, with an active surveillance of DLS in neighboring villages. Our research program was also implemented to determine if an IVM could decrease the number of Ae. aegypti mosquitoes in schools by using Bacillus thruringiensis var. israelensis as a larvicide, pyriproxyfen for the dissemination of insect growth regulator larvicide and spores of Beauveria bassiana for slowly killing adults; all these methods were combined with education and sensitization of children. Results: Monitoring of mosquito populations during the first year showed the presence of at least 58 mosquito species, including dengue virus vectors such as Ae. aegypti and Ae. albopictus, but also vector species of Plasmodium spp., and Japanese encephalitis, Rift Valley Fever, West Nile Fever, Zika, Chikungunya and Ross River viruses. Ae. aegypti and Ae. albopictus were present in all 24 schools. There was no difference in the relative abundance of Ae. aegypti and Ae. albopictus between the clusters before the intervention. In parallel, epidemiological data neither showed any baseline difference of DLS. Entomological data following IVM showed a decrease of 50% of Ae. aegypti relative abundance in treated clusters compared to untreated clusters. The latter showed an average relative abundance of Ae. aegypti similar to the first year. The difference for Ae. albopictus relative abundance was not significant between the 2 areas. Epidemiological final data analysis are in progress, but will be presented for the ICID conference. Conclusion: In conclusion, the IVM decreased the Dengue vectors in schools in Cambodia. The epidemiological results of dengue incidence in the 2 clusters will be discussed during the conference.

Rupturing violent land imaginaries: finding hope through a land titling campaign in Cambodia

In areas of land conflict, fear and the threat of violence work to reproduce imaginaries of land as a resource that powerful people can grab. An urgent question for agrarian scholars and activists is how people can overcome fear so that alternative imaginaries might flourish. In this article, we argue for attention to the affective dimension of imaginaries; ideas of what land is and should be are co-constituted through the material and social, imbued with powerful emotions that enable imaginaries to be reproduced, to be challenged, and even to be transformed. We draw from long-term research projects in Cambodia—a country known for plantation-fuelled dispossession—where the Prime Minister’s surprise announcement of a land titling campaign in 2012 ruptured the wave of land grabbing, creating openings to imagine different outcomes that are rooted in the potential for legal recognition of smallholder claims. Although the campaign was an uncertain rupture in land imaginaries, these moments matter. Land claimants sought to create affective ties with volunteer land surveyors that embedded hopeful land imaginaries in rural areas and into the national cadastral system. The land title in this context is the material bearer of a land imaginary that centres on rural people’s connection to the land, and also reinforces rural people’s connection to the Cambodian state and the potential to gain the state’s protection. We contribute to an emerging literature that locates the formative effects of hope as an orientation and as a method by exploring the possibilities inherent in rupture.

A Case Study on the Development of Suwon Village in ODA Project in Cambodia

A Case Study on the Development of Suwon Village in ODA Project in Cambodia

A Conceptual Framework to Discover IT Project Risks in Developing Economies: An Application to Cambodia and Uganda Contexts

Background: The information technology (IT) project environment in developing economies is complex and dynamic due to their unique social, technological, cultural, and political contexts. However, the unique risk factors involved in IT projects in developing economies have seldom been discussed in the literature. This study proposes a conceptual framework for identifying risks in IT projects by considering the unique characteristics of project management in developing economies. Method: 17 project cases were examined via a series of expert interviews in Cambodia and Uganda. The interview results were coded into a total of 257 risk incidents, which were used to validate the proposed framework. Particularly, the risk incidents of each economy were matched with 16 risk categories under the proposed framework. The matched results were conceptualized into unique risk factors of each economy. Results: Our results reveal that the most critical risks in both economies involve the lack of structured and standardized project management (PM) processes, and misunderstanding and poor decision-making due to the lack of project experience and technical knowledge in local stakeholders. In addition to these shared risk factors, the two economies show distinct risk granularities. Particularly, IT projects in Cambodia are more vulnerable to cultural uniqueness while IT projects in Uganda suffer more with complex stakeholder structures. Conclusions: The proposed framework serves as guidance to identify IT project risks in developing economies. Furthermore, the identified risk factors using the framework proposed by this study help project managers or stakeholders recognize and mitigate the unique IT project risk factors in the two developing economies.

The cooperation between professional societies contributes to the capacity building and system development for prevention and control of cancer in low- and middle-income countries: the practice of Cervical Cancer Prevention and Control Project in Cambodia.

Globally, an estimated 570,000 women are newly diagnosed with cervical cancer, and 311,000 women die every year, with approximately 90% of the cases occurring in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Cervical cancer is the most common cancer in women in Cambodia, with age-standard incidence rate of 13.5/100,000 and mortality rate of 10.1/100,000. This paper introduces the educational and managerial interventions of Cambodia Cervical Cancer Project 2015-2018 by two professional societies of Cambodia and Japan. It can be categorized into three phases: health education and screening; diagnosis and treatment of precancerous lesions; and pathology service. Human papillomavirus test-based cancer screening and treatment of precancerous lesions were successfully initiated. Key factors contributed to optimal outcomes are partnership between two professional societies with strong commitment, and a comprehensive and stepwise quality-focused approach. A complementary role and joint society initiatives is a novel approach and substantial in sustainability for developing a system of cervical cancer management. This effort might serve as a good example how professional societies can contribute to capacity building and system development for prevention and control of cancer in LMICs.

Mobility at Retirement: A New Life Purpose Operating Social Justice Projects in Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos

Mobility at Retirement: A New Life Purpose Operating Social Justice Projects in Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos