Yengin, DuyguDraper, PeterThangavalu, Shandre (Sunway University, Malaysia)Yeth, Vinel2025-05-232025-05-232025https://hdl.handle.net/2440/144701Cambodia's 20-year reform of its public financial management (PFM) system has been instrumental in achieving economic development, poverty reduction, and improved service delivery. The Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC) prioritizes the resilience of the PFM system as the backbone for policy agendas, with full accountability and inclusivity. The PFM reform program has strengthened core components such as systems, governance, legal frameworks, institutions, and human resources, making the RGC more confident in implementing its various public policies. This thesis investigates the potential relationship between quality PFM systems and social development outcomes in Cambodia during its transition to a market economy and sustained annual economic growth. It discusses the education sector, highlighting the increase in social sector spending share of GDP and the need for more attention on student performance. Moreover, ensuring financial sustainability is critical after the COVID-19 recession. The RGC must focus on enhanced fiscal consolidation, strengthened public debt management, and increased fiscal space. Challenges found in the education sector include inadequate connections between policy and funding, weak linkages to outcomes, significant delays in year-start disbursement, and insufficient funding for infrastructure investment. In addition to the address of these issues, Cambodia could implement potential strategies to improve learning outcomes without requiring further funds. This thesis also offers extensive insights into the economy and fiscal status of the ASEAN region, with a specific focus on Cambodia. To ensure long-term success in the ASEAN economy, Cambodia should engage in open discussions with ASEAN partners, anticipate potential market access loss, improve trade facilitation, reinforce small and medium enterprises, and boost trade competitiveness. There are several key contributions of this PhD research. Firstly, this is the first study to carefully examine the Public Financial Management (PFM) of Cambodian economy in an integrated framework of an open economy. Secondly, the study updated the 2018 survey of World Bank on the PFM focus quality of education in Cambodia by conducting similar survey for 414 Secondary and lower schools in Cambodia, matching the same sample framework of the 2018 World Bank survey. This updates and provide more recent development of the PFM management of the quality of education in Cambodia. The study also undertakes the empirical analysis on the determinants of quality of Secondary and lower schools in Cambodia. Finally, the research contributes the key PFM reforms required for the post-pandemic recovery of the Cambodia economy.enPublic Financial ManagementSocial DevelopmentFiscal SustainabilityThesis