CHHEAT Sreang
Former Director
Dr Sreang Chheat is the Director of Center for Governance and Inclusive Society at Cambodia Development Resource Institute (CDRI). Prior to joining CDRI, Dr Chheat has been an academic and policy consultant with over a decade of research and development work experience through affiliations with universities, NGOs and research institutions in Cambodia. These include the Cambodia Development Resource Institute, the Center for Khmer Studies and independent consultancies. He received his PhD in 2022 from the School of Political Science and International Studies, University of Queensland, Australia. His PhD thesis examined China’s rising influence in Cambodia: Local Contestation and State Response. He has previously lectured at the University of Cambodia in Phnom Penh and at Griffith University’s Centre for Governance and Public Policy. He holds a BA in History and a Master in Cultural Studies from the Royal University of Phnom Penh, and a Masters in Global Studies from the University of Vienna, Austria/University of Wroclaw, Poland. He has published several working papers on local governance and decentralization reform in Cambodia, as well as research on hydro-power development in Cambodia in Asian Studies Review. Recently, he co-authored and published a working paper on Environmental politics under authoritarian regimes: Experiences from Southeast Asia with the Griffith University's Griffith Asia Institute. His current interests include public sector reform, local governance, inclusive development, international aid and investment, and environmental politics in Southeast Asia.
To understand the contribution of the decentralisation reform to youth participation in local rural governance, this paper reviews empirically how youth have utilised the participatory opportunities enabled by the decentralisation reform based on three themes: civic, political and electoral. The findings suggest that despite decentra...
This study explores the effects of decentralisation on urban governance in Cambodia, focusing on the role and performance of sangkats—the lowest administrative units in urban areas. While decentralisation has been promoted as a means to enhance local democracy, accountability, and service delivery, its implementation in urban contexts remains u...
The district and provincial council elections in May 2009, for the first time, offered communes the opportunity to choose councillors from whom they can demand accountability, and introduced a new relationship between commune councillors and higher councils. The main goal of this survey is to gauge the view of commune and district councillors and d...
