Breaking Barriers: Cambodia’s FY25–FY29 Gender Equality Blueprint
The Cambodia Country Gender Action Plan (FY25–FY29) by the World Bank Group sets out an ambitious strategy to close gender gaps in health, education, and leadership while boosting women’s economic opportunities. This five-year roadmap emphasizes systemic changes, from improved maternal health to increased women’s participation in governance, ensuring a more inclusive future for Cambodia.
Cambodia’s Push for Gender Equality: A Transformative Five-Year Plan
The Cambodia Country Gender Action Plan (FY25–FY29), published by the World Bank Group (WBG), is a bold initiative aiming to address persistent gender inequalities while building on recent progress. Aligned with the WBG Gender Strategy (2023–2030), the plan identifies challenges, highlights opportunities, and proposes actionable solutions to empower Cambodian women in areas like health, education, economic participation, and leadership.
Building a Foundation: Tackling Gender Disparities in Health and Education
Cambodia has made strides in gender equality, with maternal mortality rates decreasing significantly and primary education achieving near parity. However, rural areas still face challenges like higher child stunting rates and under-five mortality. For women, access to quality reproductive healthcare and GBV survivor services remains limited.
Education tells a similar story of mixed progress. While girls outperform boys academically, dropout rates among boys are alarmingly high in secondary school. Women are also underrepresented in technical fields such as science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and technical and vocational education and training (TVET). Legislative gaps exacerbate these issues, with limited childcare services, no mandated equal pay laws, and inadequate GBV protections hindering progress.
Economic Barriers: The Gender Divide in Work and Entrepreneurship
Women in Cambodia actively participate in the workforce, with a 74% labor participation rate compared to the regional average of 59%. Despite this high engagement, they often face wage gaps, occupy less secure jobs, and remain concentrated in low-paying industries such as garment manufacturing. Social norms also burden women disproportionately with unpaid domestic work, limiting their potential for career progression or entrepreneurship.
For female entrepreneurs, challenges like limited access to formal credit and market networks further restrict opportunities. However, initiatives promoting women-led small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and childcare services are showing promise in removing structural barriers.
Leadership Gaps: The Quest for Representation
Political and governance sectors remain largely male-dominated in Cambodia. Women's representation in parliament plummeted to 12.8% in 2023 from 21% the previous year, placing Cambodia far below regional averages. Cultural barriers, such as insufficient training in written Khmer, often exclude women from decision-making roles at the local and national levels. Similar underrepresentation is seen in the judiciary and climate governance, where women face barriers to meaningful participation.
New Priorities for Gender Inclusion
The Cambodian government’s Neary Rattanak VI (2024–2028) and Pentagonal Strategy prioritize gender mainstreaming across all sectors, promoting access to education, leadership, and climate resilience for women. The CGAP complements these efforts by outlining specific World Bank initiatives, such as:
Expanding Health and GBV Services: Improving maternal and child health, mapping GBV survivor services, and introducing gender-sensitive healthcare training.
Promoting STEM Education: Supporting girls in secondary and tertiary education, especially in STEM fields, to bridge the gender skills gap.
Boosting Women in the Workforce: Encouraging childcare investments, enabling entrepreneurship, and increasing women’s access to finance and leadership roles.
Implementation and Monitoring: Driving Accountability
The CGAP sets clear goals, including closing the gender gap in education and employment and ensuring women’s representation in leadership. Through systematic tracking and gender-focused project tagging, the World Bank aims to measure impact and refine its interventions. Strengthened partnerships with local institutions and targeted policy advocacy will play critical roles in turning these goals into reality.
By addressing systemic barriers and leveraging Cambodia’s economic and social transformation, the Cambodia Country Gender Action Plan (FY25–FY29) aims to catalyze progress toward gender equality. Published by the World Bank Group, this strategic roadmap offers hope for a more inclusive, resilient future where Cambodian women can thrive as leaders, workers, and changemakers.
- FIRST PUBLISHED IN:
- Devdiscourse