Original report from Washington
08 December 2009
[Editor’s note: VOA Khmer recently spoke with specialists in the field of natural resource management in developing countries and learned that Cambodia is not alone in struggling to use natural resources to benefit its citizens. The resource curse, where natural riches fail to help the poor, is a worldwide scourge, the global experts told VOA Khmer in numerous interviews. Below is Part 14 of the original VOA Khmer weekly series, airing Sundays in Cambodia.]
Regardless of its bountiful resources, Cambodia cannot effectively collect revenue due to a lack of adequate state agencies, leaving revenue out of the hands of ordinary citizens but lining the pockets of a handful of elites, experts warn.
“Natural resources are big opportunities for any countries that have them, and they could transform the economy from poverty into prosperity,” said Paul Collier, an Oxford University economist and author of “The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done About It.”
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