Cambodia

UNCDF has been present in Cambodia since the early 1990s. Today, UNCDF offers catalytic finance models that unlock public and private resources in “last mile” environments, especially at the domestic level, to reduce poverty and support local economic development.

Through the Local Climate Adaptive Living Facility (LoCAL), UNCDF supported the successful accreditation of its partner - National Committee for Sub-National Democratic Development Secretariat (NCDD-S) – to become a national implementing entity of the GCF in 2019. In 2020, the project was scaled with additional parallel funding from the government (DMK fund) and IFAD to leverage $12.9m in climate financing through the LoCAL mechanism (performance based climate resilient grants).

UNCDF's work in Cambodia was also driven through the Cambodia Country Investment Facility (CIF). The project supported the capacity building of the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) on PPP along with subnational governments (Poi Pet and Siem Reap). The project is also supporting the government to devise a PPP approach in waste to energy (estimated around $20m). The Integrated National Financing Framework (INFF) to Catalyze Blended Finance for Transformative CSDG Achievement programme is financed by the Joint SDG Fund with a budget of US$ 1 million and will be implemented by UNDP and UNCDF, which will build on the CIF to work with the MEF PPP and provide sectoral budget support. UNCDF also supported the launch and implementation of Credit Guarantee Corporation of Cambodia for small businesses capitalized by the Government with US$200m, aimed at unlocking Cambodian women’s potential through fiscal space creation.

In the thematic area of promoting Inclusive Digital Economies, Cambodia in 2020 formally approved the National Financial Inclusion Strategy developed with technical support from UNCDF. UNCDF also provided capacity building to the National Bank of Cambodia on data analysis for financial inclusion, especially for women. In areas of digital innovations, UNCDF partnered and provided grants to SHE Investments (business incubator for women-owned SMEs) and BanhJi (MSME financial platform especially for women MSMEs), unlocking $1m in loans.