Report on Constituency Dialogues in Cambodia

More than 11,000 citizens (almost 50 percent of them women) and 35 national legislators (including seven women) attended the 24 constituency dialogues between November 2010 and September 2011. Across 12 provinces, dialogue participants echoed the same three problems affecting their lives: land conflicts; infrastructure and irrigation needs; and corruption and unequal enforcement by local authorities. Inequity was the underlying theme of these problems, and participants expressed their concern that the rich and powerful received all the benefits – land, development, and justice. Across provinces, people reported the pervasive influence of money on all aspects of life and the sense that they were losing their country to foreign companies and private interests. One participant described how government policies “always favored rich people” and asked, “Do rich businesspeople control the government or does the government control businesspeople?”