generations. This intergenerational nature of statelessness and the mutually reinforcing dynamic between statelessness and education mean that communities that have been stateless for many generations are at risk of being ‘left further behind’. This is especially visible in lack of effective access to public primary education, which is one of the contributing factors to intergenerational poverty. 5.2. Poverty and other socio-economic impacts There is little data or empirical information available to systematically examine the interrelationship between poverty and statelessness/nationality, or more generally lack of proof of legal identity. The nexus is not explored in the published reports from Cambodia’s censuses, socioeconomic surveys nor in most household surveys. Some development actors acknowledge the issue. For instance, the Swedish development agency Sida found in their multi-dimensional poverty analysis for Cambodia that certain communities of Vietnamese descent who are affected by recent relocation programs were ‘amongst the poorest’.88 Yet, a more systematic assessment is not available. In 2023, the Raoul Wallenberg Institute (RWI) commissioned a scoping study to explore the nexus between statelessness, legal identity and poverty through fieldwork in ethnic Vietnamese and Khmer Krom communities.89 Apart from income discrepancies, the study showed the difficulties faced by these communities with access to public infrastructure and services, including clean water, electricity, roads etc., especially in ethnic Vietnamese communities. Pronounced differences existed also in relation to access to public (subsidised) health care, with most respondents of Vietnamese origin only accessing private health care facilities, often just pharmacies or informal care. However, the study also found high Covid-19 vaccination rates among both groups not too dissimilar from the majority population. The largely nondiscriminatory response to the Covid-19 pandemic may hold lessons for improving access to other vital areas of basic health care.90 Both poor Khmer Krom and ethnic Vietnamese communities struggled with their socio-economic situation, many living near or below the national poverty line. So, one of the more concerning findings of the study was the finding that most individuals who do not hold a national ID card, especially stateless Vietnamese communities, are by and large not registered in IDPoor, Cambodia’s 88 Andersen, Henny (2019) ‘Multidimensional Poverty Analysis Cambodia’, Final report for Sida, 7, 31 & 46. 89 RWI Scoping Study 2023. 90 Ngoc Phuong Hong Tao et al (2022) ‘Cambodia Achieved a High Vaccination Coverage for its Population: A Good Example of a Lower Middle-Income Country’, Journal of Global Health 12: 03088. 25