Secretary Clinton’s Press Availability in Phnom Penh

First, the United States remains strongly committed to working with and supporting the Cambodian people. Our development assistance has more than doubled in the last decade. It is now more than $75 million. We also, through our efforts on global health and HIV/AIDS, have worked with the Cambodian Government and NGOs in combating HIV/AIDS. We’re also encouraged from work we’ve been doing over a number of years to see recent reductions in maternal and child mortality. We’re working with Cambodia through our Feed the Future Initiative to help meet the needs of nearly 25 percent of the Cambodian population that is food deprived. So we’re working to translate development assistance into meaningful improvements in the lives of Cambodian people.

Now sometimes it is a little frustrating, I will admit, for the United States, because we channel our aid in so far as possible to the people themselves. We want more people fed. We want more people healthier. We want more men, women, and especially children to have a better life. So we cannot point to a big building we have built, but we can point to more children being alive, more people surviving HIV/AIDS, more women surviving childbirth, and we will continue to do everything we can to help the Cambodian people realize their own futures.