The UN Development Programme (UNDP) has been supporting Cambodia’s development since 1958 and has had a resident presence in the country since 1994. The UNDP works with the Cambodian government, civil society organisations and the private sector to strengthen inclusive, green and resilient growth and to accelerate progress towards achieving the Kingdom’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.

Kanni Wignaraja – assistant UN secretary-general and UNDP Regional Director – paid a five-day visit to Cambodia from September 8-12 to meet with senior government officials, representatives of the private sector and civil society to discuss UNDP’s work and contribution to the country’s development priorities and the acceleration of progress on Cambodia’s SDGs.

She shared her views with The Post’s Ry Sochan in an interview at the conclusion of her visit.

Cambodia has a very young population. What is the best way to take advantage of that resource and what is your view on the role that youth can play in development?

I was amazed in my visit recently, these last few days in Cambodia, how young the country is. It’s not just numbers. I could visually see it wherever I travelled – what a young population! I mean, if around 65 per cent or so are under 30 then that is a huge asset for the country’s future, but not just the future, even today. I can think of maybe three things that really make it very special in terms of young people’s role for the country and what to do going forward.

The first is how do you blend a set of all the skills in some well-established areas of livelihoods with some new areas? The future of work in the world needs young Cambodians to be competitive out there, to find their own way in the new marketplace. And I think that will be a critical part of how this country prospers in the future.

But the second part of that is, at the same time, it’s not just about competitiveness. How does a young generation really achieve that sense of identity as a nation, right? And really feel that they can contribute, but not just for themselves and to make their families rich and to get more and more into this kind of consumerist world, but rather how can they give back to their country? Having that sense of national identity, if you will, I think is going to be really important for young people.

And the third one is that I really hope that youth in Cambodia also see themselves increasingly as global citizens so that there’s a sense of responsibility for what’s going on in the world.

Right now, we have so many problems going on from conflicts to climate disasters to really awful injustices and inequalities. I hope that young Cambodians, young people all over the world, are really coming back to seeing themselves as global citizens, which was the way the UN was born, because a lot of young people at the time said enough with war and we need something very different.

What are your thoughts on Cambodia’s contributions to addressing regional and global issues?

This has been very important with Cambodia holding the chair of ASEAN. The centrality of ASEAN’s role in keeping this a peaceful and stable region has been very key. Because of the history of Cambodia, the country brought that very much to the centre of the discussion of regional stability and peace.

Now the issue then is how do you translate that into a sense of human security, where every person feels safe? That’s not just a regional issue, but I think that is where I hope that the next chapter of this effort to keep the peace goes.

For example, I feel that – not just Cambodia, but all of ASEAN and all of the Asia-Pacific – has a role to play also in seeing how a dialogue and an opening of space for engagement for a more peaceful resolution to the conflict in Myanmar can be achieved.

That is a key role and a path that can be opened up in the dialogue among the partners in ASEAN that Cambodia is leading, but I also feel that we at the UN and UNDP are very keen on Cambodia continuing to play a strong role in the United Nations and in multilateralism and really on the global stage.

I remember the first time I was in Cambodia in 1993. There were promises made on peace, peaceful resolution of the civil conflict and to try and move towards a mine-free Cambodia. And you can see the results of that work, including by UNDP, to try and make sure that there is full demining so that there will soon be no more mines in Cambodia.

There are also the big issues of poverty and injustice and the SDGs. That is something that I hope Cambodia plays a very strong role in globally, as a voice on issues related to the SDGs. Particularly on climate action, because we have to accelerate climate action if we’re going to save our planet.

What are your views on Cambodia’s performance on the SDGs? What can Cambodia do to ensure it achieves the SDGs?

Cambodia is on track. I mean, there are some SDGs where you’re getting there faster than others, but there were quite some important gains made on some while others still need to move forward more.

But you can see, even on the Human Development Index, Cambodia is moving forward. The shock that hit with Covid-19 almost halted some of that progress. Some of that is because a lot of the fiscal space that would have allowed for more investment in some of the SDGs, including health, education and reducing poverty, and certainly moving into renewable energy, had to be redirected to the Covid-19 response.

So all of that was halted, but Cambodia had a remarkable response, a rapid response to Covid-19. By getting vaccines in quickly and providing cash relief to a lot of vulnerable people a lot of that fiscal space in the short-term got taken up, but for very good ends.

But that meant there was a deceleration on the achievement of some of these SDGs. Even in the Human Development Index, we just launched the Human Development Report of UNDP, and you can see that Cambodia dropped on its human development indicators.

Now, it didn’t drop too much, fortunately, so it can certainly catch up and get back on track. But I think it’ll take the public sector working very closely with the private sector to bring in more private sector investment, but also to change the model of development to be more sustainable.

To do that, you also need civil society. Civil society needs to be given that space, that voice, to also come in and engage on how they can participate in improving their lives. Because fundamentally, at the heart of the SDGs, is the fact that they should be inclusive and they should leave no vulnerable person behind. It should leave no community or household behind.

Now, that’s easy to say. It’s very difficult to deliver on that. But it means that the state has to come together with the private sector and civil society and then with all of its international partners to really get back on track and push for a different model of development, which puts people at the centre, but also protects the planet at the same time, so we don’t destroy each other and we don’t destroy the planet.

Cambodia is one of the most vulnerable countries for climate change. What do you think are the priority areas for climate action and what is UNDP doing?

There are few for UNDP. This is a very high priority area. First, I would say Cambodia has established now very ambitious targets to be carbon neutral. And behind that, it’s one thing to establish a target, but then you have to convert that into shorter term and medium term goals to track progress on, because that is a long term aspiration.

And then there are some goals for 2030 and some goals for 2050, but in my recent visit to Cambodia and discussing this with a lot of the leaders and also with civil society, with the private sector, with my UN colleagues – I would say that a big focus is climate financing to fund the push to accelerate and do more on climate mitigation, but also very importantly to invest more in climate adaptation.

Cambodia is going to need more robust climate financing, and that is something UNDP is working very closely with partners on and also with the National Council for Sustainable Development, with the Ministry of Environment and, very importantly, also with the Ministry of Finance.

All of the ministries will have to come together on this, tackling this issue about how to get more financing to come in to support the climate agenda. But in some of the other tougher areas that the country is grappling with now, you can see the different ministries coming together to see how to work together on these issues, like land and forestry and transport, which I would say are the three areas that are going to be linchpin, transformative areas in order to reach these goals.

If we just take the transport sector, which is often in any country a high emitter [of carbon], and if you’re going to reduce carbon emissions, then we’ve got to move into more electric vehicles, for example. We’ve got to begin the adaptation into renewable energy.

These are areas that UNDP is very keen to increase our support in together with partners such as ADB, EU, Sweden, UK, bilateral and multilateral partners and other colleagues and agencies from the UN who are all pushing in the same direction.

What are your thoughts on the current growth trajectory of Cambodia?

When I was there, what I was seeing – because I have been visiting this country over the past 30 years – you can see that there’s been rapid economic growth. And that’s very visually obvious when you see the infrastructure development, the roads, the buildings, the bridges. A lot of that has come up very fast. And of course, therefore, it has allowed the economy to move. So, the question now is whether that is the only model of growth.

What Covid-19 has taught us is that maybe there is a different way which is not only to rush forward with economic growth, but to look at social progress and environmental protection at the same time.

So, how does the country move forward and advance all of these together and not only look at the economic pillar? I think that is the debate and the discussion that I found most interesting when I was there this past week.

That there is a reflection of seeing what needs to be changed in order to build more resilience to these climate shocks, to supply chain breakdowns, to the fact that there will be fuel and food price hikes and there’s a cost of living crisis going on in the world. How does Cambodia make sure that it keeps its people protected from these shocks?

And to do that, development cannot be about economic growth alone. You have to double down on investments in human capital and on the social contract between the people and the state so that the rights and obligations of both are realized.

That takes more, because sustainability is about making hard choices. There are tradeoffs. But I think that more and more it’s showing that the way forward is with countries that choose the parts that are more to do with green growth and to do with prosperity that is for everyone and not just the wealthiest one per cent.

That is the way I would say Cambodia has to move forward. And that is certainly the discussions and the analysis, the policy support and the programmes that UNDP will be supporting in Cambodia going forward.