How District Technical Working Groups are Reviving Cambodia’s Floodplain Ecosystems

By Sao Sok, WorldFish & Sanjiv De Silva, IWMI

Cambodia’s diverse natural ecosystems remain central to meeting national development goals. Yet, natural resources management (NRM) is complex, with conflicts over access between uses and users inhibiting more sustainable and equitable development. Water is illustrative, exemplified by the tug-of-war between freshwater ecosystems and rice production in Cambodia’s Tonle Sap Lake’s (TSL) floodplain. This threatens the diversity, productivity, and resilience of aquatic ecosystems, associated food production, and the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of households. Despite Cambodia’s decentralized governance structure, the water, fisheries, agriculture and environment sectors exhibit limited cooperation, despite the fact the multi-functionality of water demands collaborative management. Although Cambodia’s development policies call for more cooperation, an innovative institutional model was needed to operationalize this by bringing diverse actors together to resolve local NRM issues.

Piloting an institutional solution

In 2024, WorldFish, the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), and national partners set out to test such an institutional model. Two pilot District Technical Working Groups (DTWGs) were established to resolve water-related challenges impacting the Boeng Ream Community Fish Refuge (BR-CFR) in Santuk District and Boeng Sneh Lake (BSL), which serves three districts in Prey Veng Province. Persisting competition for water between rice farmers, fishers and other users undermined ecosystem sustainability and associated livelihoods of tens of thousands of households. Chaired by the Deputy District Governor and including representatives from relevant sectors, local government, and community-based NRM organizations, these DTWGs set out to develop and implement a Management Plan for their respective sites.

Demonstrating efficacy

Today, long-standing water conflicts have been resolved. In Santuk District, a rehabilitated 4.5 km canal provides an alternate dry-season irrigation source to rice fields, reducing pressure on the BR-CFR. Ms. Chea Kong, a CFR member: “The water in the CFR did not dry out this dry season, thanks to the renovated canal. Most farmers pumped water from this canal instead of directly from the CFR. The DTWG was vital in coordinating and supporting the canal renovation.”

Renovation was government-funded due to the consensus built within the DTWG regarding its importance. Other successes include a 27% increase in irrigation fee collection, which supports infrastructure maintenance. In Ba Phnom District, the BSL retained 28% more dry-season water in 2024 than in the 2020-2023 average following coordinated water-use schedules, cross-district planning, and farmer engagement facilitated by the DTWG.

Underpinning these results is a cultural shift in how natural resources are managed. Working side-by-side to identify issues, their causes and solutions, DTWG members have broadened their understanding of problems by seeing these from the perspective of other sectors, generating a shared appreciation for water as a shared resource and the need to strike a balance between diverse uses. This consensus is the glue that has bound the DTWG into a coherent and effective platform for identifying and implementing more balanced and equitable solutions. These results represent a proof of concept – that the DTWGs can bridge the governance gap by combining the vertical and horizontal integration of actors. Here, planning is no longer just vertical but also integrates across sectors—the missing element that has undermined the resolution of local natural resource conflicts.

Formal adoption

At a meeting between the Council for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) and the Prey Veng Provincial Working Group for Food Security and Nutrition (PWG-FSN), it was decided to rename the Ba Phnom District TWG to a District Working Group for Food Security and Nutrition (DWG-FSN) and to link it to the Prey Veng PWG-FSN, completing the vertical mechanism for implementing food policy in Cambodia. With a mandate to promote the sustainable management and development of natural resources towards resilient food systems, inclusion in the DWG-FSN of human development agencies in addition to NRM agencies offers potential for both environmental and human development priorities to guide NRM plans and strategies.

Potential for high impact

The DWG-FSNs are now a key mechanism to implement the National Strategy for Food Security and Nutrition (Phase 3, 2024–2028). In the TSL floodplain alone, upstream hydropower dams, climate change and more frequent drought conditions suggest that more integrated NRM is critical in supporting a majority of its approximately 1.7 million people, where approximately 23% of the floodplains are used for agriculture while the area supplies over 75% of the nation’s annual inland fish catch.

Read the full Enabling Environment Success Story: 

Compiled by the CGIAR Scaling for Impact (S4I) program, the “Enabling Environment Success and Failure Stories” is a collection of accounts that chronicles both the successful and unsuccessful efforts in creating a supportive environment for scaling agrifood system innovations. Through compelling narratives that highlight specific challenges, key players, and outcomes, this series is designed to demonstrate how CGIAR actively influences and strengthens these environments to achieve a wider, more impactful reach.