Phnom Penh – The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the General Directorate of Agriculture (GDA) of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF), the General Directorate of Local Community (GDLC) of the Ministry of Environment (MoE) and consortium partners - the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) jointly organized a final consultation workshop to solicit final inputs from stakeholders and validate the design of the project “Promoting Climate-Resilient Livelihoods in Rice-Based Communities in the Tonle Sap Region”. This project is to be funded by the Global Environment Facility’s (GEF) Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF). This validation workshop was conducted virtually on Tuesday 01December with participation of around 70 national and sub-national stakeholders.

The final draft project document, which was brought into consultation with stakeholders, has been prepared through an intensive and participatory formulation process over a period of about 15 months, since the launch of project preparation at the inception workshop in August 2019.  The validation workshop provided opportunities for stakeholders to review and provide final inputs to the project design, before submission to the GEF Operational Focal Point at the Ministry of Environment for endorsement and eventually to the GEF Secretariat before 13 December 2020.

This project is designed to support the rice-based communities in the Tonle Sap region to reduce their climate vulnerability and increase their resilience to climate change through an innovative ecosystem-based and market-driven approach. The project seeks to increase resilience and adaptive capacity of 170 200 people, covering 67 309 hectares of agricultural landscapes under climate-resilient management, while maintaining ecosystem services. Read more about this project here.

Rice is the predominant food crop grown by majority of small-holder farmers, who own less than two hectare of land. It is cultivated on approximately 3.3 million hectares or close to 85 percent of the country’s total cultivated areas. This reflects the vital role of rice in the livelihoods and for the food security of Cambodia rural population.

Provided that much of the country’s rice area is rainfed, and thus highly dependent on seasonal rainfall and associated flooding conditions of the Mekong River and its key tributaries, including the Tonle Sap, these rice-dependent communities are very vulnerable and at risk, which is only exacerbated by climate change.