The Northern Tonle Sap Basin (NTSB) is one of the most important agricultural regions in Cambodia. The combination of poverty, environmental degradation, changing precipitation patterns, and extreme weather events due to climate change has made the NTSB highly vulnerable in recent years. Crop damage due to climate-induced natural disasters has affected not only local livelihoods but also the country's food security and economy, as agriculture accounts for nearly a third of Cambodia's GDP.

The proposed project, "Public-Social-Private Partnerships for Ecologically-Sound Agriculture and Resilient Livelihood in Northern Tonle Sap Basin (PEARL)," thus aims to enhance climate change resilience of farmers and local communities in the NTSB by removing barriers to climate-resilient agriculture through public-social- private partnerships. The project will deploy three conjunct sets of interventions to: 1) Enhance farmers' capacities to manage climate change impacts and related disaster risks; 2) Provide market incentives through agricultural certification programs for farmers and other value-chain actors to provide a strong rationale for integrating climate-resilient approaches into local agricultural and environmental management practices; and 3) Ensure enabling conditions for effective public-social-private partnerships through a coherent and robust policy, legal and institutional framework. The project will benefit approximately 7% of Cambodia’s population.