The yearlong project was implemented between Oct 2019 to Dec 2020. This project is part of the Next Generation Irrigation and Water Management for the Asia-Pacific Program (NextGen. Program), an AWP-FAO program aimed at modernizing Asia’s irrigation systems and water management practices.

Cambodia’s economic and demographic development pressures are increasingly adding stress to its seasonal water shortages. Dry season availability has largely been its limiting factor in productivity and thus poses a threat to growth, poverty reduction, and food security. Its effort to expand, rehabilitate, and modernize infrastructures lack prioritization. It lacks any form of comparative system performance in relation to benchmarking of infrastructure against objectives such as water productivity, land productivity, profitability, poverty reduction, and food security.

The project thus developed the performance assessment framework to benchmark irrigation systems in Cambodia. The framework utilizes the recent advances in remote sensing in combination with traditional ground-survey and validation monitoring. The framework is envisaged to be used by Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology (MoWRAM) and the Ministry of Economics and Finance (MEF). By doing so, it is expected to build confidence of investors in water infrastructure projects and prioritize capital works for economic, social, and environmental benefits.

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