Urban policy and administration

Just weeks after reports emerged of more fatalities from Phnom Penh’s Prey Speu social affairs centre and ensuing promises of reform, authorities yesterday rounded up dozens more homeless people and detained them at the notorious facility. Kim Vutha, Daun Penh district’s chief of security, said 61 ...

Ho Chi Minh City is seeking the prime minister’s approval to spend VND9.85 trillion, or more than US$443 million, on a massive anti-flooding project that will include a seven-kilometer riverside embankment.  Keep reading ...

More roads in Vientiane and the provinces are being built or upgraded using concrete rather than asphalt as the authorities recognise its durability against the ravages of wet weather and heavy trucks. An official from the Vientiane Public Works and Transport Department, who asked not to ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen on 8 November took to Facebook to warn companies against “colluding with bad officials” to illegally construct buildings on public parks and sidewalks, ordering those that have already done so to dismantle them immediately. Keep reading ...

Phnom Penh’s lack of a clear master plan for development has hurt its communities and allowed private developers to collude with authorities to push out poorer residents, speakers at a land rights conference said on 4 November. Ee Sarom, executive director of STT said that as ...

Desperate residents along Khlong Prawet Burirom have threatened to take their grievance over a severely polluted canal to the highest levels of government. Suchin Kummanee, head of the Sangkharacha community in Lat Krabang district along Khlong Prawet Burirom said almost 20,000 residents in 20 communities ...

Phnom Penh authorities on 27 October offered an economic argument for ministries, motorists and citizens to respect traffic laws, claiming that congestion-related costs in the capital were setting the country back about $6 million per month. Speaking at a national seminar, Effects of Traffic Congestion on Environment ...

Only 60 percent of Yangon’s water needs are being met, officials say. The Yangon City Development Committee is hunting for fresh sources, even as work proceeds to fix leaky pipes that lose half the water they are supposed to carry. The search for water security is part ...

Hanoi will spend VND1.35 trillion (US$60 million) on an environmental campaign to fight pollution in 80 of its craft villages through 2030, the capital city’s Department of Trade and Industry said on 7 October. Water samples taken from 40 craft villages in Hanoi raised red flags ...

The Kompong Chhnang provincial government is in the process of evicting about 1,000 mostly Vietnamese families who live in the floating villages on the Tonle Sap river near the provincial capital, moving them up the river as part of a five-year plan to beautify the ...