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The report — “A Snapshot of the Gold Mining Industry in Cambodia: Rights Violations, and Environmental Damage” — notes that a government official in 2007 touted the industry’s promise of reducing reliance on donor aid and funding everything from schools to infrastructure and social programs.
As expected, the new government led by Prime Minister Hun Manet has been a case of old wine in new bottles.
Microfinance was meant to reduce poverty, but borrowers allege they have been victims of ‘predatory’ loans and repayment tactics, which have led to desperation and deaths
Microfinance was hailed as a way to change the lives of hundreds of millions of people without access to credit. It worked so well that Grameen Bank founder Muhammad Yunus was awarded a Nobel Prize. But then, banks jumped in to get in on the profits. To manage high debt levels, Cambodians are migrating for work, eating less and even pulling their children out of school.
The rise in non-performing loans only hints at the heavy burden of debt borne by tens of thousands of rural Cambodians.