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Community development and family follow-up in periburban settings Context Statement Cambodia is a rural society: less than 15% of its population lives in cities, and Phnom Penh , its capital, is the only city that has over one million inhabitants. If the Cambodian government and the principal donors are looking today to favour rural development, and by consequence limit a rural exodus, it is still important to act in order to improve the living conditions for a segment of the population which is otherwise at risk of being forgotten: the squatters, old and new, of the city of Phnom Penh, for whom returning to the countryside is inconceivable.
In 2001, the Municipality of Phnom Penh launched a campaign of forced relocation for its communities living without property rights in the downtown area in order to restore bygone splendour to the capital and to facilitate the placement of important infrastructure projects (communication lines, centralization of water and waste treatment, renewal of real estate bids). 80% of the city's 180,000 squatters were thus removed to the outskirts of the city. The project of Phnom Penh Urban Poverty Reduction established by UN-Habitat has been working since 1996 to sensitize the Municipality of Phnom Penh to the necessity of working with and not against the poorest populations and to better integrate the needs of these people with the urban development programs. However, the structures put in place by the Municipality of Phnom Penh barely remain operational and the communities are deprived of real representation amongst the authorities which determine their living conditions. In the biggest sites, the absence of coordination for social development activities and the lack of openness in terms of infrastructure development create a ground conducive to unscrupulous people looking to profit from the precariousness of the inhabitants (proselytizers, usurpers, traffickers.). This fragile situation is exacerbated today by the arrival of new families, fleeing the poverty of the countryside or displaced because of other large infrastructure projects. Today, the situation in the zones of relocation remains particularly difficult. In certain zones, the Municipality of Phnom Penh has furnished to each family (with a property deed) a 7m by 13m parcel of land along with stakes and tarps, but has not anticipated the construction of actual houses. In other zones, small houses are provided but the new inhabitants are not granted ownership of the land. Most of the families do not have direct access to water. In spite of the few latrines built and the few wells dug by UN-Habitat, a true sanitary infrastructure program currently does not exist. Thus, proper water trade has taken hold.
No matter what the site of relocation, all of the families have the same worries about employment. The principle activities which generate revenue for the heads of the relocated families are: motor-taxi, rickshaw, cart vendor and day labourer on building sites. These activities generally pay less than 2 € per day, which equals the cost of transportation to and from the city for those who do not have their own means. As most of the populations are descendents of peasants, the demand for professional training (manual labour, farming practices adapted to the suburban setting...) is very strong, as well as the need for access to credit lines to launch small business enterprises. If access to primary schooling is guaranteed for almost all of the children of the families targeted by the projects (even if we can seriously question the quality of the education and the learning conditions), there is still no framework for the reception of the youngest children. Young children are looked after by their mothers or other members of their family. Many women are asking for daycares and activities for their preschool aged children, essentially with the goal of being free in order to go work. Finally, it seems evident that problems exist in many of the families with violence and drug or alcohol abuse. The rate of HIV infection is believed to be relatively high among the less frequent squatters, a risk exacerbated by the fact that a lot of the men, to save on commuting costs, spend the entire week in the city without coming home. However, no actual information is available on the rate of HIV infection within the squatter populations. Along with the instability of their current situation, these families targeted by the project have often been psychologically weakened by the expulsion from or the destruction of their homes. Today, they find themselves confined to living in zones they did not choose and their current state provides few opportunities for the future. Yet, the majority deeply hopes to settle permanently, knowing that if they are able to make their homes there, they will no longer run the risk of expulsion. This hope concretely translates itself through fundraising projects to build pagodas, or by seeding mango tree plantations, a highly symbolic gesture in Cambodia , where one plants a mango tree not for one's self but for one's children.
Project objectives General objective T he global objective of the project is to reduce the wide scale poverty in the city of Phnom Penh . Specific objectives The specific objectives of the project are:
Location Suburban districts of Dangkaor and Keo Russey, Municipality of Phnom Penh.
Beneficiaries The vast majority of the 5000 families targeted by this project are peasants who have been deprived of their land and who have been adapting for a certain number of years to suburban areas. The education level is relatively low (around 30% of the heads of families have gone beyond the primary curriculum) and very few had access to professional training. The most deprived are those who arrived most recently and found themselves forced to rent the slums of other squatters. The project is above all aimed at the children (preschool age) and their mothers, as well as the young adults:
Local partners + Sovann Phoum Association + Krousar Yoeung Association Project duration: 4 years (2004-2008) Funding: European Union, private funding. Staff Expatriates: 1 project coordinator Local personnel: 1 assistant coordinator, 1 part-time admin/financial administrator, 1 health education administrator ( Sovann Phoum ), 1 job/training administrator ( Sovann Phoum ), 1 administrator for Early Childhood (Krousar Yoeung), 1 family follow up advisor (Krousar Yoeung), 4 project assistants. Community resources (non salaried) : 15 preschool educators, 75 parent members of the management committee, 25 family advisors, 150 health promoters (health clubs and peer groups), 10 loan officers. |
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Today about 35,000 families (180,000 people) live in the shanty towns of Phnom Penh . They began to arrive in the capital in the 1980s after the overthrow of the Khmer Rouge regime that had systematically emptied the city of its inhabitants. The first to arrive occupied the vacant lots and houses, but those who arrived afterward found themselves limited to occupying the unfavourable spaces that remained, such as rooftops, roadsides and riverbanks. 
