Dear Editor,

The comment piece entitled "What would you do with $500,000 a year", (Phnom

Penh Post December 21), has retained our attention.

My immediate observation is that the author would have had a more comprehensive understanding

of the issue if he had based his comment on accurate facts. It does not reflect any

reasonable assessment of the teaching and training activities supported by UNESCO

and financed by the Government of Japan at the Royal University of Fine Arts.

For your information, yearly evaluations of this project are conducted independently

and recommendations for its improvement are regularly made available to all parties

concerned and integrated every year in the successive phases of its implementation.

As to the impact of the project, a simple trip to Angkor will allow any observer

to see that dozens of young Cambodian architects and archaeologists trained year

after year through the project are gradually endorsing more and more responsibilities

in the preservation of monuments and sites, which is the objective of our involvement.

- Etienne Clement, Representative of UNESCO in Cambodia