Cambodia talks often about safeguarding its heritage, yet the country’s most important intellectual assets remain scattered, poorly preserved, and difficult for the public to access.

A year after Prime Minister Hun Manet called for a national archive to protect student research and preserve the country’s knowledge base, the proposal still sits in limbo—stuck in a vague “feasibility study” that has produced no clear path forward.

If the government is serious about building a knowledge-driven society, the conversation can’t remain theoretical. Cambodia urgently needs a unified, digital national archive capable of protecting and sharing its intellectual wealth.

But such an archive cannot be built on uncertain foundations or outdated institutions. Our National Archives and National Library, both established a century ago, carry historical value but no longer meet the demands of a modern research ecosystem.

Rather than drafting entirely new blueprints, Cambodia has an opportunity to transform these existing institutions into the backbone of a national research infrastructure: a digital hub for manuscripts, maps, personal papers, and government records, and a revitalized national library serving as the country’s primary research center.

The resources are already in our hands—the question is whether we are prepared to modernize them before more of our history slips beyond reach.

Information is the Backbone of Statecraft

Information is not an abstract luxury reserved for scholars. It is the backbone of statecraft, the raw material of national identity, and the foundation of responsible governance. Across millennia, from religious manuscripts to legal traditions, our ancestors preserved their knowledge, believing future generations would use it to understand who they were and how they lived. Today, however, that inheritance is weakened not by war or political turmoil, but by neglect and inaction.

This principle is hardly new. Classical thinkers across civilizations—from Kautilya to Machiavelli to Sun Tzu—recognized that information is central to power. Kautilya viewed intelligence as a ruler’s most vital asset. Machiavelli argued that leaders must understand what they know and how they are perceived. Sun Tzu insisted that victory requires knowing one’s opponent as well as oneself. Their worlds differed, but their message was identical: a nation that fails to preserve and understand its information weakens itself.

So where does Cambodia stand today? A simple online search offers a sobering answer. Foreign archives—from the U.S. to France to Australia—hold tens of thousands of documents about Cambodia. When browsing the U.S. National Archives, I found nearly 25,000 items: photographs, war records, maps, diplomatic papers, and more. The world has carefully documented our past, often more systematically than we have. Yet our own researchers must navigate a fragmented system, scattered collections, and barriers that make access slow, uncertain, or impossible.

The National Archives of Cambodia, originally established in 1921 and revived in 1995, hold newspapers, maps, and colonial-era documents that are invaluable for understanding our modern state. But decades of upheaval left the institution severely disorganized. Archivist Peter Arfanis noted that until the mid-1990s, the archive was nearly inaccessible. His research makes clear that our archival holdings are far more than historical curiosities—they are essential tools for Cambodians seeking to understand the deeper currents of colonialism, resistance, governance, and cultural change.

Yet the experience of visiting the institution does not reflect this importance. The National Library, which houses the archive, is overshadowed by a parking lot and a café—symbols of how little priority archival preservation has received. This is not the environment for a modern, functioning national archive, nor is it a place that encourages young Cambodians to engage with their own history. If last year’s call for a feasibility study is to mean anything, this is where true evaluation should begin.

Hun Manet was right to say that research links academic theory to practical solutions. The Cambodian Pentagonal Strategy underscores human capital as a central pillar of national development. But human capital cannot grow without access to information. Renovating the archive and library—digitizing collections, improving access, and building a national research center—would strengthen academic work, support informed policymaking, and build a culture of inquiry that Cambodia urgently needs.

The idea of a digital national archive is hardly novel. Countries across Asia, Europe, and the Americas have created open-access systems where public documents, historical records, and personal papers are available to study. Cambodia, by contrast, has no centralized digital platform. Even the personal archives of major historical figures—such as Norodom Sihanouk or Hun Sen—remain largely inaccessible, while nations like India continue to open similar collections to the public.

Instead, we have a Facebook page run by the National Archives of Cambodia, which provides images and event updates but almost no documents. Scholars must navigate a slow and opaque request process to view materials, discouraging research and limiting public understanding.

Patchwork of Efforts

Meanwhile, Cambodians often turn to scattered sources: the Buddhist Institute’s collection, the Angkor Database, DC-Cam, the ECCC archive, S-21 records, or privately maintained digital libraries. One shining example is the Buddhist Digital Resource Center (BDRC), which has digitized more than 56 terabytes of palm-leaf manuscripts—over 1.4 million pages. Yet many texts remain out of reach for ordinary readers because they are written in Pali or Old Khmer, accessible mainly to specialists.

This patchwork of efforts shows what is possible, but also what is missing: a unified national system.

A digital national archive would transform Cambodia in several ways.

First, preservation. Cambodia’s documents face threats from humidity, aging, handling, and environmental damage. Digitization protects them from irreversible loss.

Second, accessibility. Information would no longer be locked behind bureaucracy. Students, teachers, journalists, lawyers, and everyday citizens could explore the country’s history without barriers. Archivist Randall C. Jimerson argued that archives shape social inclusion—and removing obstacles invites more people into the process of understanding their past.

Third, research and policy. Digital archives strengthen evidence-based decision-making and support academic work across disciplines. They streamline government operations, improve record retrieval, and enable inter-agency coordination.

Fourth, disaster resilience. Digital backups protect archives from fires, floods, and other unpredictable events—risks Cambodia cannot ignore.

Cambodia does not need to figure this out alone. We have partners—China, France, India, Japan, Australia—each with expertise in building archival systems. They can support digitization, provide training, and help secure funding to renovate our National Library and modernize the National Archives.

But the initiative must be led by the government. The prime minister’s office, working with the Ministries of Education and Finance, must prioritize a long-term plan that modernizes these institutions and sets clear timelines.

Seventy-two years after independence, Cambodia should no longer rely on scattered archives or foreign repositories to understand its own story. A digital national archive is not simply a storage solution; it is a national investment in identity, governance, accountability, and knowledge.

We can wait for another feasibility study from our development partners, or we can begin building on our own the infrastructure our future demands. The clock is already ticking.

______________________

Chea Sameang is former Mekong Thought Leadership and Think Tanks Network (MTT) fellow, and MA Political Science at University of Delhi.