Food Aid
Cambodia has been receiving food aid, predominantly rice, for more than two decades now. However, the country has reduced its food aid dependence over the last few years. From a high of 120,000 MT of food aid per year in the early 1980s to support refugee operations on the Thai border, food aid shipments to Cambodia have consistently ranged from 30,000 MT to 50,000 MT for the past ten years. In terms of the share of food consumption, the share of food aid in overall food consumption declined from 2.3 percent in 1990-92 to 1.4 percent in 2001-03.
WFP has been the major food aid donor in Cambodia from the Khmer Rouge period to the present, but considerable levels of food assistance were channeled through NGOs, as well. The average level of food aid distributed by WFP for the period 1999-2006 was 38,000 MT, varying between a high of 62,000 MT in 2002 and a low of 15,000 MT in 2005. According to GAP mission 2006, WFP provides almost 90 percent of food assistance in Cambodia. Data on NGO food assistance is not available over this period, but figures for 2005 indicate that USDA provided 9,400 MT to Cambodia through several NGOs.
Food aid from donors accounts for a relatively small share in total food availability at the national level. As shown in table 2.5 below, the amount of food aid entering Cambodia through WFP has been erratic over the last 8 years. In this period, some 250,500 MT of rice were donated through WFP. In 2006, WFP distributed about 19,000 MT, representing 0.3 percent of the total rice production in 2006 and 1.4 percent of the rice surplus.
Table 9.1. Food Aid Distribution in Cambodia by WFP (mt)
Source: UN-World Food Programme, Cambodia Office
NGOS & DONOR AID
The active NGO and donor community has been filling the gaps left by the lack of formal social protection mechanisms. Civil society in Cambodia has flourished in recent years, with over 200 international NGOs and 800 local NGOs and associations now engaged in promoting local development (WB, 2006). The NGOs cover many areas, including advocacy for child labor issues, disaster management, de-mining, aid to refugees, and health services for HIV/AIDS-affected individuals and families.
The World Bank 2006 paper on managing risk and vulnerability reports that most development programs aimed at reducing the vulnerability of the poor are funded by external assistance - External financing as a share of sector spending increased significantly from 48.6 percent in 1997 to 68.6 percent in 2001, and if other social protection-related sectors are included, the gap between external and domestic financing appears even larger. Table 2.6 shows the disbursements of development assistance by sector. A number of sectors such as disaster preparedness and humanitarian aid and relief fall squarely within the category of social protection, while other sectors with linkages to social protection might include agriculture, natural resources, education, health, and social development. Approximately 23 percent of the total external development assistance in 2001 or nearly US$110 million was channeled toward social protection-related activities. This amount far exceeded the social protection expenditures of the Government, whose entire expenditures were less than US$400 million and whose direct budget for social protection interventions was at most US$38 million in 2003 (WB, 2006). However the report also cautions that only a fraction of donor development assistance reaches targeted beneficiaries since management and other operational and administrative costs account for more than half of total program costs.
Table 9.2: Disbursement of development assistance by sector (1997 - 2001)
The World Bank report also notes that there are geographic disparities in the overall disbursement of external assistance with NGO and donor initiatives being concentrated in more easily accessible areas such as the North-Western part of the country as opposed to the North-Eastern region. In 2003 the provinces/municipalities that received substantial aid were Phnom Penh, Siem Reap, Sihanoukville, Battambang, Kandal, Kampong Cham, and Kampong Thom, which are among the better-off areas of the country.
