Cambodia Investment Review
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Cambodia new resident representative Alissar Chaker has official presented her ‘Letter of Accreditation’ to Cambodia’s Foreign Minister HE Prak Sokhonn today.
Previously, Chaker held various management positions with UNDP in crisis, post-crisis, and complex development contexts and succeeds Nick Beresford.
Chaker served as Deputy Resident Representative in Tunisia (2019-2021) during the COVID-19 pandemic, amidst a complex and uncertain political context and social unrest that risk to undermine post-revolution democratic gains.
According to the development organization, Chaker is focused with the UNDP team on promoting a system approach to strengthen trust in institutions and in communities, and to facilitate with national partners a more just, greener, and more resilient post-COVID-19 recovery on par with democratic transition.
Chaker holds two master’s degrees in Engineering and Environmental Management from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland and the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom, and a first degree in Agricultural Engineering from the American University of Beirut (AUB).
She has published several scientific articles and has been serving for more than ten years on the Editorial Board of the scientific journal “Environmental Impact Assessment Review” (Elsevier).
The UNDP has been providing governmental and aid organization efforts to mitigate the economic impact of Covid-19 have been largely successful over the past year in Cambodia, according to a joint policy brief.
According to incoming UNDP Resident Representative in Cambodia Alissar Chaker, economic relief measures deployed by the Cambodian government — including stimulus packages and revamped social protection schemes — helped avoid a potentially disastrous economic situation where unemployment and poverty levels could have spiked.
“The analysis reveals that social protection measures and the economic stimulus package adopted by the Royal Government of Cambodia were effective in counteracting significant challenges caused by the pandemic,” she said.
Cambodia is forecast to graduate from its Least Developed Country (LDC) status in either 2027 or 2028, according to report published by the UN Development Programme (UNDP).
In response, the international development organization have recommended an expansion of domestic lending instruments detailing specifically a sovereign bond issuance in Khmer riels.
