Cambodia and the International Community: Trials in Reconstruction and Foreign Assistance

As Cambodia emerged in the early 1990s from decades of conflict, the United Nations led the international community in a major effort to end years of civil war, rebuild the country’s infrastructure, and set it on the path to peaceful democratic government. Simultaneously, national governments and non-governmental organizations began providing economic and technical assistance to develop the Cambodian economy. While pervasive violence is a thing of the past and the economy is growing under the three-decade-long rule of Prime Minister Hun Sen, foreign efforts to construct a democratic form of government in Cambodia have achieved only limited success.

On January 29, the Center for East Asia Policy Studies (CEAP) at Brookings hosted a presentation by Sebastian Strangio, journalist and author of Hun Sen’s Cambodia (Yale University Press, 2014). In his presentation, Strangio discussed Cambodia’s tangled relationship with the foreign governments which have supported its reconstruction, and the ways in which international resources have shaped, and been employed in, Cambodia’s domestic struggles.

After the program, Mr. Strangio took audience questions.

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