COUNCIL FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAMBODIA (CDC)

3. EXTERNAL DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE

3.1 Pledges and Disbursements of External Development Assistance

33. Over the years, the external development partners of Cambodia have been generous in providing support to its development programs. The International Donor Community has pledged a total sum of over 5 billion US dollars of assistance to Cambodia at the three ICORC meetings and at the five Consultative Group Meetings held since 1992. The CG meeting for 1998 was not held, as such no explicit pledges were made by donors for the year 1998. However, even though no pledges were made the international community had disbursed US $ 433.28 million as development assistance to Cambodia in 1998. Including the disbursements in 1998, a total of around US$ 4.1 billion have been disbursed by the end of 2001.

Table 1: DONORS PLEDGES AND DISBURSEMENTS
(in millions of US $)

Donor Pledges and Disbursements	1999 Actual	2000 Actual	2001 Provisional	TOTAL 1992-2001a
Donor Pledges	526.00	603.30	610.71	5,022.72
Disbursements	399.71	466.81	47I.84	3,683.07
Disbursements as % of Pledges	76.0%%	77.3%	77.3%	73.3%

a Excluding the year 1998, when the CG meeting was not held.

34. At the first CG meeting in 1996, pledges of US$ 501 million for the year 1996 were made by the major partners, plus US$18 million by NGOs. At the 1997, 1999, and 2000 CG meetings, the major development partners had pledged US $ 450 million, 471 million, and 548 million respectively. At the last CG meeting in 2001, the pledges amounted to US$ 556 million. In addition, the NGOs have increased their assistance considerably from a pledge of US$ 18 million for 1996 to US$ 55 million for1999, 2000 and 2001.

35. The Royal Government is pleased to report that over the last three year, 1999-2001, disbursements have steadily increased from just under US$ 400 million in 1999 to nearly US$ 472 million last year (2001). At the same time, the amounts pledged by donors have also increased significantly – from US$ 526 million in 1999 to over US$ 610 million in 2001. Excluding the year 1998, when no CG meeting was held and consequently no formal pledges were recorded, disbursements over the 1992-97 and 1999-2001 have totaled nearly 3.7 billion dollars – constituting 73.3 percent of the pledges made by donors during these two periods. In more recent years, the ratio of disbursements to pledges has been higher – representing a greater absorptive capacity within the Government. Disbursements have increased from 76 percent of the donor pledges in 1999, to 77.3 percent in the years 2000 and 2001. The RGC is gratified by the support of its external development partners and hopes that they will continue to provide their support to enable Cambodia to achieve its goal of reducing poverty among its people.

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