NGOs yesterday called on the government to make funds for combating the effects of climate change available to local governments, rather than concentrating them at the national level.

Speaking at a workshop on climate, the executive director of NGO Forum, Tek Vannara, said Cambodians were already beginning to experience problems as a result of climate change and that money for addressing such problems at the local level was still insufficient.

Letting the funds – ideally from the government and development partners – trickle down, he said, “will help [locals] take measures to reduce the effects”.

Tin Ponlork, deputy director general of the Climate Change Department at the Ministry of Environment, maintained that the government was seeking funds to cope with climate change, focussing its activities in protected areas and creating plans for coping with climate change with communities.

However, Sros Veoun, a community leader in an area of Mondulkiri affected by drought, said that while his village had received wells and other support from NGOs, he had yet to see anything from the government.

“But I still hope that the government’s plans will come to our community soon,” he added.