Cambodia is classified as being among the least developed in the world. Approximately 80 percent of it’s population lives in rural areas. Cambodia has a robust informal economy, which provides employment for nearly 60 percent of Cambodians. Agricultural and fishery activities comprise about 27 and 12 percent of GDP respectively and are essential for food security and livelihoods.
Cambodia is endowed with a rich natural resource base, essential for livelihoods and food security, and threatened by changing climatic conditions. Changing climatic conditions present an ongoing threat to achievement of the county’s sustainable development goals. Cambodia is vulnerable to floods and droughts, mostly due to reliance on agriculture and fisheries. Cambodia faces particularly acute challenges related to climate change including a need to build domestic capacity to address challenges related to health, agriculture and water resources. In 2015, adverse climate impacts resulted in losses of approximately $1.5 billion, equivalent to 10 percent of annual GDP. (source: USAID, Cambodia Climate Risk Profile)
The country is particularly challenged given low adaptive capacity, still prevalent poverty, and its geographic location in the Mekong River and Tonle Sap Basins. Cambodia further experiences extreme weather events such as flash floods following particularly heavy rainfall during monsoon season (May to October), as well as tropical storms such as 2009’s Typhoon Ketsana, which impacted 180,000 households.
As per Germanwatch, GLOBAL CLIMATE RISK INDEX 2020, Cambodia ranks 12th in climate risk index for the period of 1989-2018.
