Road Connectivity Improvement Project (RCIP)
The Road Connectivity Improvement Project (RCIP), which includes a total of 27 roads with a total length of 277.3kilometers, is located in three provinces of Cambodia, namely: (i) Kampong Cham, (ii) Tboung Khmum, and (iii) Kratie. Of which seven roads with a total length of 75.3 km are located in Kampong Cham province, six roads with a total length is 67.6 kilometers located in Tboung Khmum province, and 14 roads with a total length of 134.4 km are situated in Kratie province. This report explains the Socio-economic Baseline Survey result regarding the socio-economic characteristics of the villagers along the 27 roads in Kampong Cham, Tboung Khmum, and Kratie provinces of Cambodia covered by the RCIP. The World Bank finances the RCIP, and the project is implemented by the Ministry of Rural Development (MRD).
The Project Development Objective (PDO) of RCIP for rural roads is to improve climate-resilient road access to targeted provinces' economic and human development facilities. The achievement of PDO is proposed to be measured through the PDO-level indicators: (a) Facilities with improved climate-resilient road access (number, disaggregated by (i) Economic facilities: markets (ii) Human development facilities: schools and (iii) Human development facilities: hospitals, (b) Direct beneficiaries with reduced travel time to reach the closest facilities, (c) Travel time reduction along the project-financed national and provincial roads, and (d) Project financed assets (road and bridges) have a sustained resilience with service under the OPBRC. Currently, these facilities along in the project roads are not properly connected and access to those facilities are limited due to bad road condition, especially muddy surface and flooding during rainy season. There are about and flooding under all weather and all year which is vulnerable. By improving the project with DBST or concrete pavement with improvement of drainage and bridges. The baseline indicators have been established by the socioeconomic baseline survey.
The first baseline indicators of PDO is on the economic, human and human development facilities along the selected project roads. The respondents in the three study provinces were currently challenging to access to economic and human development facilities. More than half of the respondents assessed high satisfaction of provincial roads (60.3%) and national roads (57.3%) of national roads. But a very few respondents (7.0%) assessed high satisfaction towards rural roads. There are currently 26 markets, 80 schools, and 28 health centers for economic, human and human development activities along 27 roads in the three provinces (See Table 1-2). The respondents were located less than five kilometers from pre-school and primary school (94.7%), Khmer traditional healer (98.0%), pharmacy (91.4%), private clinics (83.9%), health center (77.1%), private hospital (76.9%), secondary-school (77.5%), University (75.5%), local market (70.7%), Commune Office (76.0%) and government administrative office (63.6%).
The second baseline indicator of PDO is the direct beneficiaries with reduced travel time to reach the closest facilities. The most of respondents agreed that the current road condition caused more time for travel during rainy season. The travel behaviors of the respondents were within their family member; the respondents often travelled with their spouses (24.0%) children (24.0%), and relatives (10.6%). The study reveals that respondents wished to have improved roads because they contributed completing elementary/primary levels (64.3%), secondary education among girls (61.0%), secondary education among boys (56.8%), improved economic condition (51.5%), and increase in livelihoods (50.4%). The respondent often travelled to workplace (27.7%), market (27.3%), religious places (18.5%), hospital (18.3%), and school (13.0%) and places for pleasure (4.4%). They also travelled to business activities (11.5%), transported crop (10.1%), rice (9.5%), and livestock (3.3%). Both students, and women faced difficulty to access the public service. Students walked five kilometers to school and some women required to walk with their children to school to avoid accidents due to bad road condition.
The third baseline indicator of PDO is Travel time reduction along the rural roads. More than one fifth of the respondents (23.4%) currently travels over the laterite roads less than 10 km/hr. Based on the site survey on vehicle speed driving along the existing roads, current driving speed varies from 20.1km/hr to 29.8km/hour during dry season and 15.5km/hr to 22.9km during wet season. The average speed is 25.9km/hr in dry season and 19.9km/hr in wet season (See Table 1-3). Some roads were impassible during rainy season by ordinary vehicles due to slippery surface or inundation by floods, but those delays were not considered in the survey. Project will improve the current laterite road with laterite to paved road with DBST or concrete to be climate-resilient all weather all year reliable access to those facilities.
The fourth baseline indicator of PDO is Project financed assets (road and bridges) have a sustained resilience with service under the OPBRC. Upon completion of improvement works, Stakeholders will actively involve to identify risks and solutions to ensure that the improved roads are sustained resilience with service level maintained. OPBRC maintenance is required for proper supervision and periodic monitoring which can achieve the goal in the PDO.
The baseline survey interviewed 546 households with 273 female respondents and 273 male respondent the survey contacted 167 respondents in Kampong Cham, 132 in Tboung Khmum, and 247 in Kratie. Almost all respondents were Khmer (91.8%) and believed in Buddhism (98.7%). They were adults (83.0%), married (87.5%), and completed primary school (67.4%) with household sizes between 4 and 8 (75.6%). Overall, 73.0% resided in the communes at birth, and 19.4% of them held ID Poor. Only a few respondents (4.8%) had political positions.
The survey also covers demographic information, household income, household expenditure, household housing, water and sanitation, household assets, accessibility to facilities/services, perception of road condition, importance, and benefits of improved rural roads, travel time, gender analysis, HIV/AIDS, perception on female participation in construction work, road safety, and environmental-related which give background knowledge and information on the current situation of income, employment, transport difficulty, health, gender which can be utilized for analysis of project benefits after completion of the project.
Out of the 27 project roads, one road (KRT-8) in Kantout-Treab has Indigenous People or Ips community. In Kampong, there are ancient hills, so no construction materials are allowed to be taken from this area, and trucks are not allowed to drive nearby the age-old hills. The construction requires avoiding any damage to archaeological materials on the site. According to the regulation, if archeological kinds of stuff were discovered during construction, the contractor must inform the Provincial Department of Culture and Religion.
Local authorities, villages, principals, and students agreed on the importance of road improvement . The villagers decided to proceed with the road improvement; however, the project may affect some households’ lands and properties slightly. The villagers and local authorities are calling for speeding up the construction because they have been waiting for better roads for many years. They wished to connect their communities to commercial areas for economic activities. Poor road conditions have caused them difficulty traveling to the markets, hospitals, schools, and other public services. During the construction, the villagers learned well that noise, dust, and traffic are critical issues. The road improvement has informed them about voluntary donations on minor impacts. They suggested making equal shares of required land for improvement on each side of the roads to avoid conflicts between the land owners. Moreover, the villagers raised some concerns about road safety and requested traffic monitoring by local authorities. Local authorities must work closely with the contractors and provincial departments to raise awareness about the violation, HIV and AIDS, gender issues, and other related social issues. The villagers also requested the contractors to ensure safety for local people, especially students, by improving the morality of workers and drivers.
The report also includes social, economic, and environment-related issues. 23.1% learned about the causes of gender-based violence. One-fourth reported the cases to the police (25.5%) and gave counseling (9.7%). The main risks faced by women and girls were domestic violation (38.3%), sexual violation (9.2%), and rape (9.2%); NGOs implemented programs for the welfare of women and children. Women and girls were actively involved in assisting males in farming (84.4%), cooking, laundry, cleaning (84.1%), assisting in selling/business (66.3%), and taking care of sick family members (52.9%). The survey recorded that 63.7% knew about HIV and AIDS protection, and one-fourth had the opportunity to take training courses. Only 4.6% and 3.8% reported one person and more than two persons of HIV cases, respectively.
The survey also found that 80.0% accepted women to work in road construction. But women were not as not physically strong as men (17.8%) and not as productive as men (11.5%) 65.9% of male respondents permitted their female family members to work in road construction. Of the total, 54.6% agreed that roads were safter, and 39.9% received information about road safety.
The respondents received information about the road safety from the district/commune (24.9%) and the Ministry of Rural Development/Social and Environment Office (SEO)/Provincial Department of Rural Development (16.1%). With water access, 24.4% had irrigated agricultural land 68.1% encountered problems due to dust. Moreover, 18.7% experienced flooding due to heavy rain (15.2%), river/creel overflow (7.5%), and irrigation canal overflow (4.8%). The respondents similarly burned (99.1%) for waste management. Half (55.1%) confirmed there were water-born cases and heart and kidney problems (51.2%) and birth-related (women) (10.8%) were the causes of deaths. Typical illnesses included heart/hypertension (75.8%) and pulmonary (73.1%). The elderly, infants and children, and mothers/girls were the highest proportion of sick people.
The survey reveals that farming was a dominant type of employment (70.9%) as primary job and more than one-fifth of them were employed as laborers (22.5%) for additional income. While more female respondents were employed as farmers (13.9%) and sellers (19.0%), male respondents worked as laborers (26.0%) and the seller (16.1%). After completing road improvement, 24.4% of the respondents planned to shift their current jobs for new alternatives. In average, daily income per capita was USD 2.32 comprising USD 2.24 of female respondent and USD 2.40 of male respondents was USD. Self-employed workers earned the highest proportion of daily income per capita. Their daily incomes were not either lower or higher than the rural poverty line (USD 2.27) and national poverty line (USD 2.38). The respondents spent 38.8% on food consumption, 10.4% on education, 7.8% on health, 4.8% on crop investment, and 2.7% on electricity. Loan payment was as high as 27.5%, and 47.1% were accessible loans, including 44.7% for males and 49.5% for females.
To promote road safety and reduce the social, economic, and environmental impacts, suggestions are provided: (1) ensure effective coordination among the relevant provincial department before, during, and after the construction, and (2) increase the roles of CoCs to keep informed, discuss and support from local people, and (4) mitigate social and environmental issues incurred by workers through effective staff management; and (5) make sure road safety and minimize social, economic; and environment impacts before, during and after the construction.
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