Word: aided
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...Wednesday, June 20, foreign donors - a collection of foreign governments, multinational banks and various U.N. agencies - promised to funnel $689 million of aid to Cambodia, a 15% increase from last year and an amount roughly equivalent to half the nation's annual budget. This year, they did issue statements chastising the Hun Sen government for failing to adequately battle widespread graft. Cambodia ranks No. 151 out of 163 nations surveyed in Transparency International's 2006 government corruption index. Addressing donor representatives gathered in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh this month, Hun Sen promised that long-delayed anti-corruption legislation would...
...Foreign aid has long been employed as a political tool, with varying levels of success. Rich economies get to feel good about sharing their wealth with the less fortunate. At the same time, Western nations dole out cash to poorer economies in hopes of encouraging budding democratization efforts. But if anything, Cambodia has continued to backslide. A Hun Sen-backed coup in 1997 removed Co-Prime Minister Prince Norodom Ranariddh. Opposition party members are regularly harassed. And a July 2006 deadline imposed by Hun Sen himself for introducing a draft of anti-corruption legislation passed with no evidence...
...Cambodian government.) In the report, Global Witness castigates the international donor community for facilitating what it labels a deeply corrupt Cambodian ruling class: "Donor support has failed to produce reforms that would make the government more accountable to its citizens. Instead, the government is successfully exploiting international aid as a source of political legitimacy...
...trouble is that Cambodia does not have to depend only on Western donors to help it patch together its economy and government. There is China. Unlike other foreign governments, China puts few strings on its aid, and its generosity in doling out funds for the Cambodian government now rivals Western munificence. Last year, Hun Sen publicly praised Cambodia's "most trustworthy friend" China for its pledge of $600 million in aid and loans; this month, the Cambodian Prime Minister went on to thank the Communist giant for giving money without "order[ing] us to do this or that" - presumably...
...that could help it stand on its own feet. Yet, in countries like Nigeria, oil money has only served to enrich a tiny minority while leaving the rest of the country impoverished. And the alternate source of income may only make it more difficult for Western efforts to tie aid to improved Cambodian governance...