Phnom Penh: Cambodia is urbanizing fast. Nearly a quarter of its 17 million people now live in cities, and that number is expected to rise to 6 million by 2050. While urbanization has brought job creation and economic development, it has also deepened inequality and increased vulnerability to climate impacts, especially floods and extreme heat.
According to World Bank, in Phnom Penh, where informal expansion has quadrupled the city's footprint since the 1980s, unchecked development has eaten away at wetlands and increased exposure to, and frequency of, floods. Meanwhile, the city is now facing up to 25 heatwave days a year, five times more than surrounding rural areas. Built-up areas are increasingly contributing to greenhouse gas emissions: in 2015, 37 percent of all emissions were from these areas.
The Gap Fund analysis highlighted how adopting key, cost-efficient urban policy actions and investment decisions could help Phnom Penh move closer to a low-carbon, sustainable future. With Gap Fund support, Phnom Penh has drafted a city resilience assessment, developed targeted policy recommendations, emissions projections, and estimated financing needs for critical infrastructure investments in mobility, energy, wastewater, and solid waste management. The city updated its Green City Strategic Plan, now pending approval, and estimated $7.5 billion in implementation costs for climate-smart urban development.
Training for 35 municipal and national officials from various departments on city scenario planning and growth modeling was conducted. Coordination and knowledge exchange between key ministries and Phnom Penh were strengthened, and an inter-agency steering committee was formed. As a result, the city's goals now include activities to curb urban sprawl by promoting compact urban development, improve access to amenities and public transit networks, build 100km of new bus routes, reduce emissions by 40%, cut energy consumption by 36% in the residential sector and 46% in commuting, halt projected rises in land surface temperatures, and increase wetland areas.
These efforts have not only shaped urban planning in Phnom Penh but also informed national dialogue, guiding discussions at the 2nd Cambodia Urban and Housing Forum in May 2024 and informing the World Bank's Country Climate Development Report for Cambodia.
Encouraged by Phnom Penh’s progress, the Gap Fund scaled support to seven additional cities: Battambang, Kampot, Kep, Khemarak Phoumin, Poipet, Siem Reap, and Sihanoukville. A further $275,000 in technical assistance was approved to enable local governments to draft tailored climate strategies, identify and prioritize climate-informed infrastructure investments, develop low-carbon investment portfolios and action plans, and conduct pre-feasibility studies for projects.
The Gap Fund's early-stage technical assistance set the groundwork to build trust across government levels and helped secure further assistance for the additional cities. It was about more than data or models; it helped bring together people across institutions who rarely sit in the same room and built a community around sustainable urban development.
In total, the Gap Fund provided about $525,000 in technical assistance to help Cambodia chart a path toward greener cities, laying the foundation for over $7.6 billion in potential climate-smart urban investments. Find out more about the City Climate Finance Gap Fund projects and technical assistance on the Gap Fund LinkedIn page.