Written by Glenn Fawcett – Executive Director, Field Operations

It’s funny - when I think of ‘-ation’ words, I often remember a childhood rhyme that really cracked me up as a kid:

Dictation, dictation, dictation
Three sausages went to the station
One got squashed
One got lost
And one had a big operation

In this case the ‘-ation’ word is ‘inflation,’ and it’s no joke in Cambodia these days. You only have to look at the basic everyday commodities anywhere in the world to see the extent of prices rising, and the impact it will have on the people in the streets. The writing was on the wall (or at least the filling station neon signs) showing 4800 riel ($1.2) per litre as I passed during my taxi ride from the airport. A 20% increase since leaving Cambodia some 3 months earlier?! Does that mean inflation is 80% per year? Well, if it continues like that…I guess it does.

My first trip to Lucky’s Supermarket on Monivong Boulevard after arriving in Phnom Penh confirmed that first impression. As I thriftily shopped for the best value milk brand in a carton, I found that in the same time a liter of UHT milk had increased from $1.20 to $1.60 - a hefty 30% increase. Of course, that’s not going to stop me from buying milk. I even switched to fresh milk, as they were now the same price. However, for local Cambodians (Khmers) food inflation is deepening an already too tragic misery.

To cap it off? Rice (the staple of staples in Asia) has almost doubled in price. Even my relatively well-to-do landlord from the upwardly mobile Tonle Bassac Commune was shocked. The poorer Cambodians are the real losers in growth-driven inflation that rose to 10.8 percent in December 2007, compared with 2.8 percent at the end of 2006.

I’m not looking forward to getting the news first-hand as we travel out into the provinces to meet the poorest of the poor. Knowing that where we are working, poor Khmers are now selling their land in numbers - just so they can eat. Food infl ‘ation’ is pushing them over an already crowded edge.

This is bringing us back to those sausages at the station. All squashed and lost, and doing it very tough.

Filed under: Cambodia, Education, Healthcare, India, Trafficking on May 20th, 2008