Cambodia is undergoing a favourable demographic context and should seize the opportunity to further lay foundations for growth, including more investment to promote girls’ and women’s potential.
Cambodian Prime Minister highlighted the key message in his open letter issued on July 11 to mark the 34th World Population Day themed “Unleashing the power of gender equality: Uplifting the voices of women and girls to unlock our world’s infinite possibilities.”
Demographically, Cambodia has a large working population aged 15-60 taking up about 65 percent of its total population that can allow faster socio-economic development, wrote Samdech Akka Moha Sena Padei Techo Hun Sen in the letter.
To seize the opportunity, it is necessary for Cambodia to set up timely support policies across all sectors, particularly to fast-track vocational education and training, job creation and productivity.
Increased investment in health, digital technology, gender equality, and saving programs aimed at turning the workforce into human capital to accelerate the country’s development is another indispensable objective, he added.
Collectively, Cambodian society highly value women as an essential resource for sustainable growth, and the Royal Government has been paid strong attention to promoting women economically, politically, and socially.
However, Cambodian women still face a number of challenges, such as somewhat high maternal mortality rate compared to other countries in the region, limited access to health care and reproductive health services, low-income jobs, and low education and technical skills.
The Royal Government of Cambodia is looking carefully into addressing these issues as part of its endeavour to optimise Cambodia’s favourable demographic context opportunity.
