Social development

Thailand’s government plans to allocate an additional $5.3 billion this fiscal year to investment projects in provincial areas, in what appears to be a major effort to appeal to the rural population and kickstart economic growth after several years of stagnation. High household debt, dropping ...

Thailand’s disease control department on December 8 issued a warning for malaria for those planning to take trips or camp out in the country’s forests during the current peak tourist season. “Malaria-carrying mosquitoes are commonly found in forests bordering Myanmar, particularly in Kanchanaburi province”, Dr Vichan ...

Cambodia is not expected to graduate from its Least Developed Country status until after 2025, though it has made progress in furthering its development, a new report by a UN agency said. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development projected in its latest review ...

Down a back alley in Phnom Penh’s Chbar Ampov neighbourhood, a handful of men and women are ushered into a non-descript house filled with a row of wooden beds. Many appear nervous. A mother and child are asleep on one of the beds, where they ...

The 2015 Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) shows sharp falls in maths, sciences and reading scores for students in Thailand. Thai students are underperforming their peers in several Asian countries as their scores were below the international average in all three subjects. Pisa, which ...

Tensions are mounting between Yangon City Development Committee and the commercial capital’s street vendors, as a small contingent refuses to move stalls from their locations on Anawrahta Road. Following a recently announced ban on street stalls on Yangon’s 11 busiest roads, YCDC staff have been travelling ...

In a serious blow to thousands of would-be home-owners, the construction of affordable homes in Yangon’s Ayeyarwon and Yadanar housing projects has been suspended because the money has run out, government officials say. Urban and Housing Development department director general U Min Htein told The Myanmar ...

Relocating 26,000 households and clearing the slums along canals is one of the seven key projects of the HCM City gentrification program. A research work by Dr Le Huy Ba and architect Le Minh Thanh found that nearly 100 percent of rivers and canals in HCMC ...

As construction on the Don Sahong dam near the Cambodia-Laos border passes its halfway point, activists and locals are increasingly concerned over the disappearance of Irawaddy dolphins and incidences of illness they suspect are caused by the muddied water. “The waters downstream in Cambodia have ...

The Chinese government has agreed to provide grant funding of over 34 billion kip (over 33 million Yuan) to address poverty reduction in Laos, especially in outlying areas of the capital Vientiane and rural areas of Luang Prabang province. The grant is part of the Pilot ...