+ BACKGROUND, CHALLENGES AND OBJECTIVES

Sihanoukville is home to Cambodia’s largest port and four Special Economic Zones (SEZ) and is a major industrial city and also its pole economy for Cambodia. In the last couple of years, infrastructure cannot carry the heavy transportation in the town center for development proposed due to rapid urbanization. The project will solve urban problems by developing physical infrastructure in the urban center, all the roads network is destroyed by flooding. Because during the rainy season, the city is impacted by floods and a shortage of wastewater treatment.

Project Announcement
source: official Facebook page

Sihanoukville's EPI is categorized as 'high' potential, with Krong Preah Sihanouk ranked 'high,' and Stung Hav district ranked 'medium' potential. It is also a pole economic development, logistic route, and international tourist destination. The city has experienced rapid growth in tourism from year to year. Due to Sihanoukville's eco-tourism potential, the last couple of years saw foreign and local investors interested in taking the opportunities to develop a luxury hotel and multi-building leading to the prompt need for public services.

While the city center's main infrastructure was built for an extended period, most streets are destroyed, not even flooding, but due to the heavy transportation into the center. Furthermore, the wastewater is overwhelming the existing treatment capacity, causing sewage to flow into the sea without treatment. The Cambodian government considered those problems to have impacted the potential city.

The central government decided to release its budget to reconstruct the main infrastructure, solve current issues, and divide tourism routes and logistic routes. The city's reconstructed 34 roads contain 84.494 kilometer, and those roads transform from asphalt to asphalt concrete pavement road and classified into three categories as following;
- 3 main boulevards, width 50 meters, total length 21,680 km
- 16 sub-boulevards, width 20-40 meters, total length 52,549 km  
- 15 roads, width 15-40 meters, total length 10,265 km

In terms of enhanced development local economic prosperity, the central government plans to rebuild infrastructure to attract both investors. The project aims to transform the city into a more modernist and sustainable city. However, upon completing the project, the city will adapt to climate change, road safety, air quality, and waste management. 

+ ACTIONS AND IMPLEMENTATION

Opening Ceremony
source: official Facebook page

The project's initiatives were developed under the deputy prime minister, Chea Sophara, minister of ministry of land management, urban planning, and construction, and chairman of the national committee for Cambodia's coastal management and development. Before implementation, several meetings were hosted with line ministries and relevant stakeholders to find the appropriate bid, solutions and methodology to the project. The project started on 16th November 2019, presided over Samdech Hun Sen, prime minister of Cambodia.

The government established a special team to control the project's processing and report to the deputy prime minister through the national committee's general secretary for Cambodia's coastal management and development. Besides that, the provincial and city hall has been involved in the planning process in every step. Every day, a special team will report the day's progress to the members through the telegram group. Although the prime minister always visits the site field to look over the progress, and the report will be published on social media every month. To prevent the constraints of the progress, the prime minister often leads a meeting to find and solve problems; then the implementers can raise issues during the discussion, with good progress from the beginning to mid and long-term. 

+ OUTCOMES AND IMPACTS

Blueprint
source: official Facebook page

The project has set up medium and long-term plans. The most attain of the project is citizen engagement and incentive from the government. Nowadays, people benefit from the project implementation, including citizens and even tourists. There are wider roads with pedestrian ways, and all the streets are equipped with solar lights and CCTVs to ensure the safety of the citizen and tourists. The successul cannot be fully attributed to the measure street's standard or quality; it comes from teamwork and good progress. 

The main factor in pushing the project's success is the government using a win-win policy; the policy was established for an extended period by Samdach Hun Sen, prime minister of Cambodia. The win-win approach being used during the Cambodia war and successful until today's. Thus, policy plays an essential role in contributing to finding solutions while enforcing the project. This benefit not only high-income citizens but also vulnerable groups; they will earn benefits from tourists, they will mostly have clean water during a flash flood and will not be impacted by big flood.

+ REPLICABILITY AND SCALABILITY

The project is complete, and it should be among Cambodia's best practice. Moreover, it enhance the reputation of coastal cities. At the beginning of 2021, the Cambodian government was planning to reconstructing all streets in the center of Siem Reap city as replication of Sihanoukville city. A considerable number of people will benefit through transparency policy, equality, and impartiality. The majority of the citizens who benefit from the project will be delighted and enthusiastic when the project is more standardized. 

In terms of replicating it into another urban context, it cannot apply to all urban contexts, even in the same country. However, we might have situation analyses. The context should have potential and pole development that is in strong support to the national economy. The lesson to learn should be a technical aspect, management, and design responding to the population demand. 

+ BUDGET AMOUNT

300 million USD