The NGO Forum on Cambodia (NGOF), under the fund support from OXFAM Cambodia to implement the project entitled” Promote Citizen’s Participation in the Public Spending” which will be implemented in two target provinces: Siem Reap and Ratanakiri. Based on the agreement, the NGOF will implement the series of activities including, capacity building, research, dialogue and budget monitoring…etc. On 24th-25th February 2020, the NGOF cooperated with the provincial NGO network, provided the Refresher training on National and Sub-national budget to the existing NGO network members and youths in Ratanakiri Province. There were 20 provincial NGO network members and youths participated in this training.
Training Objective:
• To provide basic perception of National and Sub-national budget
• To refresher knowledge on National and Sub-national budget
• Support NGO network members and youths to monitor budgetary process and expenditure
• To provide basic understanding on video editing
• Understand how to produce video with good quality
Mr. Keo Bunly welcomed trainees by introducing briefly about the project entitle” Promote Citizen Participate in Public Spending”. He stated that to implement the project successfully, we have to work with existing NGO networks include Budget Working Group (BWG). The BWG has been working on monitoring the government budget allocation at both national and sub-national levels in with transparency and accountability especially promote citizen to engage in sub-national expenditures. This project will be implemented in Ratanakiri and Siem Reap provinces. The project intends the Ministry of Interior (MoI) and Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) to contribute in promoting citizen to participate in public spending.
To take apart with the government, BWG, CSO as well as youths have to be well equipped themselves with sufficient knowledge of national and sub-national budget. Furthermore, the project outcome was to influence government increase more space for citizen CSO and youths for policy dialogue and encourage youths to raise their concerns through producing evidence based including videos or case studies.
Mr. Mot Pisey opened speech that some of the youths in his community used to do research about sub-national budget because it was very important for citizen. The understanding of national and sub-national budget, citizen will be able to join monitoring the government budget expenditures for sub-national administration with transparency and accountability especially produce the supportive evidences before accusing the government of spending money without transparency and accountability.
Mr. Din Makara, to measure the participant’s knowledge on National and Sub-national budget; he conducted pre-test before this session started. As a result, citizen knowledge on National and sub-national budget were limited. Within the Refresher training on National and Sub-national budget, participants were introduced how to gather the National budget information by accessing to Ministry of Economy and Finance website.
Additionally, Mr. Din Makara enlighten them how National budget have been formulated and in charge ministry and institution in each process. For instance, National budget strategic plan formulation was the first step of National budget formulation. This process each ministry had to prepare their budget plan from March to May. Second, Budget preparation; this step all the ministries had to submit their budget request to the Ministry of Economy and Finance from June to September. Third, Budget adaptation, this was very important process because in October, the minister reviewed and approved on National budget request by each ministry, in November National Assembly and Senate adopted the national budget and in December the king approved on it.
Besides, participants increased the knowledge on the flow of national revenue and expenditure especially domestic income and international income such as tax revenue, debt and international fund.
At the same time, Ms. Vanndy Sorida facilitated the Sub-national administration budget session. This session, participants increased the knowledge the flow of sub-national budget, the flow of sub-national budget, revenue and expenditure, especially the step of Sub-national budget formulation and its timeline.
In the afternoon session, Mr. Phourn Yu, Media and Communication Coordinator of NGOF, introduced the participants on video training. This session all the participants practiced on how to set up camera, choose the video quality option before taking the video. Furthermore, they acknowledge and know the form of video such as VOX POP, Frame Rate and B-ROLL. VOX POP video form refers to video which used the questionnaires to interview the audience on a specific topic. The second day, participants was divided into two groups to play role, practical video taking and video editing on Adobe Premiere.
Conclusion
The Refresher training on National and sub-national budget and Video training successfully completed by produced many achievements such as participants could describe the National and sub-national budget, increased the knowledge on the flow of national and sub-national revenue and expenditure, acknowledge when national and sub-national budget formulation. Another significant achievement was all the participants know the useful tools and tips to produce the video with quality especially they could produce the video by following instruction of the video trainer.