The NGO
community applauds the RGC for its efforts to share information with, and
gather feedback from, stakeholders in relation to its drafting of the NPRS. It
is hoped that this participatory approach will continue. The sharing of
information and ideas leading to a prioritisation of poverty reduction
measures will be essential if the NPRS is to be more than a report written for
the benefit of donors. The complementary experience and expertise of all
stakeholders needs to be shared and examined in order to best utilise
development funding within Cambodia.
The
Bretton Woods institutions have heralded the NPRS process as beginning a new
chapter in nationally-led planning and reporting for poverty reduction.
NGOs have been pleased to see dedicated people in government willing to
put considerable effort into the NPRS document and the subsequent Progress
Report, as well as willing to accept input from NGOs. The NPRS has led to more sharing of plans between government
ministries and with NGOs and, as such, is seen as a positive step forward.
At the
same time, the NPRS process has placed strains on limited capacity and led to
some duplication of existing reporting and planning processes.
Ownership of the NPRS, both the document and the process, appears to
reside in a small group of government officials. As an externally imposed system of planning and reporting,
the NPRS process appears more as a process of reporting to donors than a
system of national planning. It
has done little to solve existing weaknesses.
These include:
Weak linkages between planning, budgeting, actual expenditures, and
actual service delivery;
An agenda dominated by different donor priorities and programs;
Poor inter-ministerial coordination;
Limited government capacity, due to lack of administrative reform.
NGOs
share with donors concern about the lack of clarity over the respective roles
of the Progress Report team within the Ministry of Economy and Finance and the
General Secretariat of the inter-ministerial Council for Social Development (GSCD)
under the leadership of the Ministry of Planning.
NGOs observe that such lack of clarity can sometimes be exacerbated by
the actions of donors. However,
this is not an issue that should detract from the hard work of, or credit
given to, the people in both these institutions, and should be resolved by a
higher level of government together with plans to strengthen the capacity and
authority of the responsible institutions.
It is recognised that the GSCSD built up a momentum and expertise
during the initial preparation of the NPRS that should not be lost, while the
Ministry of Economy and Finance has always provided a strong analysis of
economic and budgetary considerations. An
inter-ministerial approach with strong ownership and participation by the line
ministries is essential to making the link between NPRS reporting and actual
implementation.
The NPRS
process needs to help identify priorities for the national budget and for
donor support. As mentioned in the Introduction, a major problem with the NPRS
is that it includes an Action Plan costing four or fives times more money than
the government could ever expect to receive or manage effectively.
In 2003, the Ministry of Planning asked ministries to submit
information on all their NPRS-related projects and plans in order that they
could help prioritise the projects and align the NPRS matrix with the Public
Investment Programme. Requests
for technical assistance to undergo this prioritisation exercise went
unanswered.
NGOs
believe that the NPRS Progress Report should not be a document written
primarily to please the World Bank and IMF, or other donors.
The Progress Report should be primarily for Cambodians, to give
feedback and guidance to government officials and development workers, and to
inform policy makers, lawmakers and the public on progress in poverty
reduction. Its most important
audiences may potentially include ministry staff, parliament members,
development agencies and journalists. The
Progress Report needs to be readily available to the Cambodian public in the
Khmer language.
NGOs
call on government to define the planning process that best suits the
Cambodian institutional and cultural context.
Existing planning processes need to be analysed to identify constraints
and solutions. Donors need to
adjust their expectations to allow a Cambodian-led evolution of the planning
process.
This
long-term commitment needs to be conditional on the RGC taking the necessary
steps to efficiently utilise both external funding and its own resources.
Aid needs to be properly sequenced to respond realistically to capacity
constraints. Effective reforms in
governance, administrative reform, judicial reform and strong anti-corruption
measures are necessary prerequisites for effective aid delivery in many
sectors. Realistic benchmarks
need to be set and agreed among all donors, the benchmarks need to be
effectively monitored, and the implications of not reaching the benchmarks
should be made clear. Previous
benchmarks need to be assessed before new commitments are made.
Presenting
a collective vision and commitment to achievement of the Millennium
Development Goals will require an improved level of donor coordination.
The revamping of the existing working groups to assist
donor-government-NGO coordination is one positive sign that this may be
possible.
It is
essential that donors achieve a full understanding of existing planning
processes, in order that the NPRS can be made more relevant to real
decision-making. It is pre-emptive to introduce new planning processes until
this is the case. The NGO
community is concerned that a large part of the focus of the NPRS preparation
was an effort to make the document suitable for donor consumption. It is
unfortunate that the NPRS document was drafted in English with a translation
being made only at the final stage. This
approach was repeated in the preparation of the Annual Progress Report.
Clearly such an approach hampers the ability of a significant
proportion of Cambodians, both in government and in civil society, to
participate.
The NGO
community welcomes its inclusion in the process of contributing to the NPRS
and assessment of its progress. It strives to engage in this process in a
positive manner offering a pro-poor, experience-led contribution both to
debates surrounding poverty reduction and through its own poverty reduction
activities.
NGOs, as
development institutions, can contribute much to poverty reduction plans by
sharing the observations and conclusions arising from their development
experience. NGOs, in their
day-to-day duties, work closely with poor and vulnerable groups, and therefore
are in a strong position to communicate the needs of these groups to
decision-makers.
In
Cambodia, an important tool for conveying NGO observations and concerns is the
annual NGO Statement. When, in
1993, NGOs attend the first meeting of the International Committee on the
Reconstruction of Cambodia (ICORC), NGOs were able to provide donors a wealth
of knowledge based on their previous 13 years of experience in Cambodia.
NGOs have since attended every Consultative Group meeting, and have
each year presented a detailed statement on NGOs’ issues and recommendations
for the development of Cambodia.
NGOs
also participate in various donor-government working groups.
However, in the past, some of these working groups did not include
NGOs, while others did not include government.
It is understood that the new working groups will all include
government, donors and NGOs. NGO
representation at CG meetings and working groups is effectively coordinated
through cooperation between peak NGO membership organisations and an informal
system of NGO sectoral groups.
NGOs
also have close relations with Ministries in various sectors, which provide an
opportunity for direct input into sectoral policy dialogue. For example, the
MEDiCAM association of NGOs working in health liases closely with the Ministry
of Health, while the NGO Education Partnership works closely with the Ministry
of Education. The NGOs’ Commune
Council Support Project has an NGO Liaison Office located within the Ministry
of Interior.
The RGC
needs to consider a broadening of the discussion to include other groups
within civil society. Those who have specific perspectives and needs in
relation to poverty reduction such as ethnic minorities, trade unions and
farmers associations, should be provided with an opportunity to be heard.
The
question of wider civil society involvement in the NPRS process is difficult,
since there has been less progress in this area.
The issue really is how concerns of the wider Cambodian population can
feed into NPRS planning, implementation and monitoring.
The following are suggestions on how wider civil society participation
could, over time, be enhanced:
The parliament has an important role to play in representing the
people. For this to happen,
the parliament needs not only to have a role in formulating and approving
plans, they also need to spend more time listening to their constituents
in order that they can represent them properly.
Currently, only a few donors are helping to build the capacity of
the parliament, and the parliament is largely bypassed in the NPRS
process.
Public forums, such as those organized by the NGO “Center for
Social Development”, can provide an opportunity for people to engage
with decision-makers. Many
NGOs would like to see a return to the National Congresses, where all
people could come and ask questions to government leaders at the national
level. This used to occur in
the 1960s and is mandated in the most recent Constitution, but has not
happened in recent times.
More connections could be made between national planning processes
and the decentralized local decision-making process to ensure bottom-up
flow of information. The
local planning process in Cambodia currently allows commune plans to feed
into provincial plans, but there is not yet any connection with national
planning processes.
In some countries, NGOs have created “report card” surveys,
which gather systematic feedback from the public on the quality and
effectiveness of government services. In Cambodia, some NGOs are introducing a similar process to
monitor the effectiveness of decentralization reforms.
In Cambodia, quite a bit a research has been done, and continues to
be done, to collect information from target groups, especially
Participatory Poverty Assessments. Information from these assessments needs to feed into
decision-making in a more systematic manner.
NGOs could help facilitate engagement with other types of civil
society organizations, including trade unions, ethnic associations,
farmers associations, etc. NGOs can also help arrange meetings between
officials and rural communities in ways that are conducive to a real
sharing of issues.
In all
these processes, the most critical factor is the participation of poor
and vulnerable groups; that is, those people whom the poverty reduction
strategy is intended to serve.
NGOs
recognise the importance of the private sector in the development of a strong
economy which will offer a more stable economic base of social service
provision and increased job opportunities. The RGC needs to listen closely to
the concerns of the private sector, especially in relation to the need to
reduce business costs and uncertainty by reducing corruption and unnecessary
bureaucratic constraints. All private sector operators need to be treated
equally in order to provide a predictable level playing field for business
activity,
At the
same time, NGOs would hope that any efforts to make Cambodia more attractive
to foreign investment are effectively balanced with the interests of the poor.
Tax concessions reduce the government revenue available for the social
sector and should be strictly limited. Local
private sector operators and micro-enterprises should be seen as the core
resources for economic growth and employment creation.
Assistance is needed to help local private sector operators overcome
capacity and supply chain constraints.
While
supported by a robust private sector, the public sector needs to take the lead
in the provision of basic services, such as health and education, and in the
regulation of private sector service provision, in order that the needs of
Cambodians are properly fulfilled.