The development objective of the Demand for Good Governance Project for Cambodia is to enhance the Demand for Good Governance (DFGG) in priority reform areas by strengthening institutions, supporting partnerships, and sharing lessons.
... See More + The six month closing date extension will be the second extension of the project, and bring the total cumulative extension of the original closing date (March 31, 2013) to 18 months. This extension of the project closing date is required for two of the four implementing agencies, the Ministry of Interior Project Coordinating Office (PCO) and the Arbitration Council (AC). An extension will facilitate transition and sustainability, and support two qualitative results (policy and practice triggers and sustainable capacity).
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Social accountability (SA) refers to the extent and capability of citizens to hold the state accountable and make it responsive to their needs.
... See More + Although its importance for better governance and reducing corruption is being increasingly recognized, many non-state actors (NSAs) do not have sufficient capacity to effectively engage in SA activities. Consequently, capacity building of NSAs is essential for strengthening SA, and in many countries, demand for programs to build such capacity is growing. The program to enhance capacity in social accountability (PECSA) in Cambodia is an example of this type of program. Launched in May 2007, and completed in June 2010, PECSA was a United States (U.S.) 2 million dollars grant program managed by the World Bank on behalf of the Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC). It was comprised of a range of capacity-building activities, including formal training, mentoring and coaching, exposure visits, and networking as well as grants for implementation of pilots to apply SA tools on the ground. Over its three-year implementation, PECSA trained a total of 218 civil society organizations (CSOs), CSO leaders, and government officials; awarded 31 grants to 29 CSOs for pilot projects; and convened three large national networking events that brought approximately 1,600 SA practitioners together. The independent end-term evaluation of PECSA revealed a high degree of satisfaction with the program from beneficiaries and PECSA graduates. Fifty-six percent of end-term survey respondents planned to continue working on SA after the close of the program. As a successful capacity-building program on SA implemented in an otherwise difficult governance context, PECSA can offer several insights and lessons that may be helpful to teams designing similar SA programs in the future. Summarizing these lessons is the purpose of this note.
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It has been shown that pre-schools are beneficial in helping children develop the skills that are necessary for them in primary school. However, the implementation of pre-school in countries such as Cambodia is challenging due to social and economic constraints.
... See More + Research in co-ordination with the government of Cambodia, to evaluate the impact of pilot early childhood development programs being scaled up with assistance from the World Bank, has revealed new challenges that might not be apparent when working on smaller pilots. Issues such as parents who work all day or who work far from the village center have resulted in low use of the preschool services. The results of the evaluation highlight challenges governments face as they move from pilot to scale up. Building on the lessons learned from this evaluation, the government of Cambodia is planning a revised approach in its 2014-2018 strategic education plan to strengthen the quality of preschools and ensure demand for these services.
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Open defecation within a community harms the physical and cognitive development of children, even children living in households that use toilets themselves.
... See More + Frequently digesting feces due to poor sanitation can cause diarrhea, malnutrition, and stunted growth-and thus impact negatively on a child's cognitive development. Experiencing these health hazards at young ages can ultimately limit one's earning potential later in life. In addition to the use of health services, mother and child nutrition practices and care, the immediate disease environment shapes early life health and ultimately a child's achievement later in life. Thus, elimination of open defecation makes a sensible priority for policy makers that are concerned with the next productive generation. This brief shows, the level of open defecation in a community is associated with shorter children in Cambodia. Moreover, the level of open defecation in a community is more important for a child's development than whether the child's household itself openly defecates. By looking at the change in defecation levels and average child height between 2005 and 2010 within Cambodian provinces, the study is able to show that improvements in sanitation access played a substantial role in increasing average child height over the same five years.
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Agriculture has been a mainstay of the Cambodian economy. It has seen significant growth throughout the 2000s and showed a significant resilience against external shocks during the 2008-09 economic and financial crises.
... See More + Agribusiness enterprises do not operate in isolation from the rest of the economy. The state of production of agricultural raw materials, the state of the financial sector, and the nature of the financial sector's engagement with the real sector activities, as well as broader issues that affect private sector development all impact the development of the agribusiness sector. The current study seeks to analyze some of these linkages. It focuses specifically on the role the financial sector has played in the growth and development of the agribusiness sector. The study builds on the existing analytical work on agricultural and small and medium enterprise (SME) finance in Cambodia. The study was carried out in three major phases. The first phase was to determine a methodology to gather new information on linkages between agribusinesses and financial institutions. The second phase involved a survey of financial institutions (banks, microfinance institutions, and insurance companies) and 1,011 agribusinesses in Cambodia. The third phase emphasized analyzing the data and compiling a report that highlighted the key findings for the target audience. The report provides the broader context of the sector issues related to access to finance by agribusinesses, and review the available analytical work.
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Over the seven years from 2004 through 2011, Cambodian economic growth was tremendous, ranking amid the best in the world. Moreover, household consumption increased by nearly 40 percent.
... See More + And this growth was pro-poor, not only reducing inequality, but also proportionally boosting poor people's consumption further and faster than that of the non-poor. As a result, the poverty rate dropped from 52.2 to 20.5 percent, surpassing all expectations. However, the majority of these people escaped poverty only slightly: they remain highly vulnerable, even to small shocks, which could quickly bring them back into poverty. The main drivers of poverty reduction were better prices of rice for farmers, better wages for agricultural workers, increases in salary jobs for the urban labor force, and better income for non-agricultural businesses for rural households. Improvements in health and education, as well as government investment in infrastructure, provided a favorable environment for the poor, allowing many of them to pull themselves out of poverty. Looking forward, some of these drivers of poverty reduction are likely to stall. Coupled with increased vulnerability, the present conditions create new challenges for the Royal Government of Cambodia. Furthermore, most of the improvements in Cambodia originated at very low values, thus leaving much work to better the well-being of many Cambodian households. Outstanding gains have been achieved, but it will take focus and further actions to maintain Cambodia's future growth. Most poverty in Cambodia is found in the countryside: about 90 percent of Cambodia's poor live in rural areas. To generate the maximum impact, government policies should concentrate on the productivity of the rural poor's major assets: their labor and their land.
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Working Paper ACS4545 NOV 01, 2013
Sobrado, Carlos; Neak, Samsen; Ly, Sodeth; Aldaz-Carroll, Enrique; Gamberoni, Elisa; Arias-Vazquez, Francisco; Fukao, Tsuyoshi; Beng, Simeth; Johnston, Timothy; Joaquin, Miguel San; Bruni, Lucilla; de Groot, Richard