An interesting map plus corruption!

A map I found while doing some research. My provinces aren't the poorest of the poor (it looks like the hardcore poor areas are in the North and West which was the office I originally applied for before they changed it), but it looks like it averages about 50% poverty (that is 50% under about $US 1 a day).

Having said that the difference between $US1 a day and $US2 a day, or even $5 a day aren't that great so it is safe to assume that a lot of the people not classified as poor are in reality poor.

I am told food for work programs are a major source of income for a lot of families in this provice.

On another note, there was a major corruption scandal centred on the Kampong Speu office and I think the previous head of the office was implicated and resigned. I think my job is a bit of an accountability position. Basically some WFP staff, government officials and heads of villages were colluding and falsely claiming work had been done and then getting paid for it. The WFP staff who were meant to be verifying that the work was done were in on it. As well as this illiterate villagers were not receiving all the food they were entitled to and the remained was being sold. A few excerpts from the media reporting below.

'THE United Nations World Food Program (WFP), Cambodia's biggest food donor, has been the target of a $2 million rice fraud involving government ministries, trucking companies, rice traders, village communes, and local government officers working in collusion with WFP distribution staff.Special investigators called in by the WFP found that an estimated 4,000 metric tons of mainly rice worth around $2 million, destined for poor villagers under the WFP's Food For Work scheme, was stolen in a systematic diversion and cover-up and sold for cash, over a 15-month period between January 2003 and April 2004.'

'the principal means used was to undervalue the existing work and claim for fake worker beneficiaries. For instance, on a road or canal job the estimate would claim for all new work, when in fact a basic road or shallow ditch may already have existed. The amount of work required was thus overstated and qualified for additional rice. Fake or "ghost" beneficiaries were added to the center of food recipient lists where they were less likely to be detected by spot checks.'