Cambodia Poverty Assessment: Emerging Conclusions on Forestry and Environment

1
Cambodia Poverty Assessment Emerging Conclusions
on Forestry and Environment

• 29 August 2005
• Chris Jackson
• World Bank

2
Poverty Rates

• Welfare of Cambodias population has improved
• Per capita consumption has increased since 1997
  and now stands 31 above the national average in
  1993 (growth to 1997 was stagnant).
• This translates in reduced poverty
• Overall, households have moved out of poverty
• But no evidence of what has happened to
  individual households
• Churning moving out of poverty study (MOPS)
• But there are significant between urban and rural
  areas
• Poverty rate is low in Phnom Penh
• Higher in other urban areas
• Highest in rural areas
• And poverty is more severe in rural areas
• Although inequality is lower in rural areas

3
Agro-Climatic Zones

• Helpful to differentiate agro-climatic zones
  (although diversity within as well as between
  regions different to e.g. WFP Food Economy
  zones (Teas, 1998)
• Rates of poverty reduction differ too across
  different types of household
• Poverty fallen in Plains and Tonle Sap fell by
  one-quarter
• Regions account for three-quarters of the
  population
• Poverty in the Coastal region fell by one-half
• Bit only small population
• Poverty in the plateau appears to have risen
  significantly
• Concerns of previous sample sizes
• Also, rural poverty decline slower than urban
  poverty reduction

4
Composition of Incomes

• Rural households engage in complex livelihood
  strategies
• Agriculture crops, livestock, forestry
  fishing is still important
• Crops livestock accounts for 13 of incomes
  compares with previous estimates of 29 - 50
• CPR accounts for 9 of incomes down from
  previous estimates of 14 - 22
• But big difference cross regions and quintiles
• Importance of remittances Q1 60,238 Q4 117,787
  Q5 311,928

5
Composition of Agricultural Incomes

• Evidence of highly complex livelihood strategies,
  with significant diversification of agricultural
  incomes across regions and income quintiles
  (although categories remain broad)
• Crop production has fallen faster than overall
  agricultural incomes accounts for 29 of
  agricultural incomes (compared to 54 in 1999
  CSES)
• Livestock now accounts for one-third of
  agricultural incomes (up from one-quarter
  previously)
• Incomes from common property resources are
  increasing as a share of agricultural incomes

6
Composition of Agricultural Incomes

• although they are falling as a share of
  aggregate incomes
• Incomes from fishing at 4
• Significantly lower than previous estimates e.g.
  CSES (1999) 6 UNICEF (1998) 15 WFP (1999)
  11 UNICEF (2000) 12 SEILA (2001) 8
• Income from forestry at 5
• Also lower than previous estimates e.g. CSES
  (1999) 6, UNICEF (1998) 10 WFP (1999) 56
  UNICEF (2000) 10 SEILA (2001) 9

7
Poverty Environment Nexus

• Main themes of poverty-environment nexus (PEN) in
  Cambodia case study (World Bank, 2003)
• High poverty
• Deforestation (loss of diversity, watersheds)
• Fragile soils (sloping agriculture)
• Indoor air pollution
• Access to clean water and sanitation
• Outdoor air pollution
• What does 2004 CSES inform us?
• More detailed follow-up ongoing to feed in to NPRS

8
Poverty

• Poverty higher in rural areas - but differ across
  regions
• Poverty rates higher for agriculture than other
  occupations (43, compared to e.g. 13 for
  bureaucrats/ military)
• Poorer households depend more on better access to
  common land for cultivation livestock grazing
  and collecting fruits firewood/ charcoal, and
  certain construction materials (bamboo)
• but suffer from more limited access to fishing,
  hunting, and other construction materials
  (timber)
• Poorer households depend more on locally
  polluting energy sources (firewood, charcoal),
  and spend more time collecting
• Poorer households have less access to safe
  drinking water and sanitation, spend more time
  collecting water and have higher incidence of
  hygiene-related illnesses

9
Deforestation

• Access to forested areas is important for the
  poor
• 92 of poorest households collect NTFPs 31 hunt
  and forage (80 and 23 for middle quintile)
• Critical as a coping mechanism in response to
  crop failures particularly in regions with more
  difficult agro-climatic conditions
• Plateau 35 Ha destroyed by drought (04/05)
• Strung Treng 19 Ha destroyed by drought (03/04)
• Mondalkiri 26 Ha from insect damage (03/05)
• Lots of evidence that rural households are losing
  access to forests (e.g. Seila Perceptions Study)
• More severe losses in regions depending on CPRs
• 91 of communes in Plateau, compared to 56 in
  the Plains and 75 in Tonle Sap region
• Consequently people have to travel further to
  collect forest resources
• Nationally 50 of households spend more than 3
  hours collecting firewood, but figure is 2/3 in
  Plains, Plateau and Coastal region 1/3 in Tonle
  Sap region

10
Fragile Soils

• Small and concentrated land holdings (two-fifths
  of households with less than 0.5 Ha)
• Poor quality agricultural lands and soil quality
  explain low yields
• Costs of addressing poor soil quality are
  significant
• Chemical fertilizers are 20 - 25 of costs of
  crop production
• Little water management either flood control or
  irrigation

11
Indoor Air Pollution

• Access to electricity and gas is low
• Use of firewood and charcoal as primary energy
  sources
• 84 of all households use firewood as fuel 97
  of the poorest
• Increased use of charcoal, particularly the 2nd
  quintile (from 1 to 4 of households from 1997
  to 2004)
• Limited access to electricity
• 18 of all (urban rural) households have access
  to electricity
• Poorest still depend on kerosene (fall from 92
  in 1997 to 71)
• Increased use of electricity for lighting (6 to
  28)
• But strong spatial differences

12
Water and Sanitation

• Poorest lack access to water
• Only 1 of rural households have water piped to
  their dwelling (20 for urban households)
• About 70 depend on (open or protected) dug
  wells, or ponds rivers
• 1 of rural households access public taps this
  drops by half in the dry season (suggesting that
  these dry up)
• the very poorest rely on open access resources
  (rivers streams, or unprotected wells) more
  likely to be over-used
• Limited sanitation
• 73 of households have no toilet 94 and 88
  for bottom two quintiles (little change over 1993
  2004)
• The richest have access to public sewer or
  private septic tank (59 of top quintile)
• Poor are gaining access to these facilities

13
Conclusions

• Preliminary analysis from CSES
• Further evidence of declining access to, and
  productivity of, common property resources
• Fishing fall in incomes (lower yield, not loss
  of access)
• Forestry fall in incomes (loss of access and
  lower yield)
• Further work on Poverty-Environment Nexus will
  provide further evidence