PRIORITY GOALS AND TARGETS

3.01  The Royal Government's long term vision is to achieve a socially cohesive, educationally advanced, and culturally vibrant Cambodia without poverty, illiteracy and ill health where all Cambodians live in harmony free of hunger, inequity, exclusion, and vulnerability, and where all citizens are able to reach their full potential in their chosen vocations to contribute to further progress of the country and for an increasingly higher standard of living. RGC's Rectangular Strategy clearly specifies the immediate agenda, viz., (1) promotion of economic growth; (2) generation of employment for all Cambodian workers; (3) implementation of needed reforms to ensure equity and social justice; and (4) enhancing efficiency and effectiveness of reform programmes in all sectors towards reduction in poverty and achievement of sustainable development. In this context, NSDP is about the immediate, medium-term future steps and targets to move rapidly towards the long-term vision of Cambodia.

3.02  While all impartial observers and Cambodians alike recognize that past achievements in just a few years have been impressive, the Royal Government is acutely conscious of the tremendous challenges ahead. It will therefore focus on and prioritise strategic goals and actions that will enable significant progress to be made on all fronts. This chapter specifies such selective, overarching and prioritised, pro-poor goals and enumerates the critical or core targets to be met in five years, 2006-2010.

3.03  The leaders of the world meeting at the United Nations in 2000 agreed upon a Millennium Declaration. The Declaration is a commitment to human rights, democracy, peace and security and good governance, to create and sustain an enabling environment to achieve poverty reduction. Cambodia fully endorsed the Declaration and signed it because it is fully consistent with the long-term commitment of the Government to improve living standards and reduce poverty, as also with the spirit of SEDP I & II. The Millennium Declaration set 8 priority Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) focusing world attention and commitment to reach specific targets nationally and universally by 2015.

3.04  Based on the MDGs, Cambodia prepared in 2003, through an extensive consultation process among all stakeholders, its own set of 9 (nine) goals called the Cambodia Millennium Development Goals (CMDGs), adding one more goal of immediate relevance and importance to the country. These are:

• Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

• Achieve universal nine-year basic education

• Promote gender equality and empower women

• Reduce child mortality

• Improve maternal health

• Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases

• Ensure environmental sustainability

• Forge a global partnership for development (not a specific CMDG but MDG)

• De-mining, UXO and victim assistance

3.05  The nine overall CMDGs were subdivided into many sub-goals for which clear and measurable targets or indicators were also fixed. Efforts and success in achieving these time-bound (2015) targets would help progress towards attaining the nine overall CMDGs.

3.06  In 2005, RGC conducted a detailed review and analysis of benchmarks, base lines, and progress towards the achievement of all the CMDG targets. It has concluded that while some CMDGs would indeed be achieved or exceeded by 2015, considerable extra efforts would be needed to achieve the others. 

Table 3.1: Major achievements and critical shortfalls in meeting CMDG targets, 2005

3.07   Achievement of CMDGs, an undoubted priority, would crucially depend on the totality, synergy and outputs of many other developments and circumstances, such as, to mention a few: political and social stability; rule of law; maintenance of public order; critical reforms in public administration and sectors; the steady, sustainable, strong, equitable, balanced and well distributed (region and sector-wise) macro economic growth involving all other sectors, each with its own goals and targets. There can be no significant progress without, for instance:

• Robust and equitable macro-economic growth.

• Inflation being kept under vigilant watch and check.

• Agriculture productivity and production registering significant increases.

• Environment and natural resources being protected and enhanced.

• Infrastructure being constantly improved extended and strengthened.

• Significant industrial growth generating employment and incomes.

• Essential reforms in public administration including legal and judicial reforms, and sectoral reforms.

• Fast growth in private sector investments in diversified areas to make progress broad-based and dynamic, by reducing transaction costs, which now hinder such investments, and by streamlining procedures.

• Unhindered growth in international trade to facilitate exploitation of Cambodia's comparative advantages in supply of goods and services to overseas markets at competitive terms and create backward linkages in increased and diversified employment and incomes.

• Services sector (including tourism) growing fast to provide employment and incomes; etc.

3.08  In 2002 RGC prepared and announced a comprehensive National Poverty Reduction Strategy, 2003-05, (NPRS) consisting of various goals and targets to be pursued to rapidly reduce poverty levels in the country. All the major goals to reduce poverty at the local level coincided with and corresponded to CMDGs. The NPRS also provided a framework of priority reforms and actions needed for achieving poverty reduction.

3.09  Poverty Reduction in the fastest possible manner is RGC's foremost priority. Details of the current situation are provided at Box 2.1 of Chapter II. Given that 90% of the poor live in rural areas, priority attention is needed through NSDP to speed up development in rural areas.

3.10  Achievement of CMDGs, especially for poverty reduction and human development, is of high priority but, as stressed earlier (para 3.07), NSDP has also to consider all critical aspects of Cambodia's socio-economic needs, priorities, goals and targets, for it is the synergy of all actions that will impact positively on CMDGs as well. This chapter therefore covers the critical and crucial priority goals and targets relating to the different elements articulated in the Rectangular Strategy including vital cross-cutting elements to move the country speedily forward on the road to equitable overall socio-economic development with priority attention to poverty reduction as well as to significant reduction in regional disparities and between the rich and the poor.

311  NSDP is thus a broad framework for providing the road map and guidelines for taking the country where it is at the end of 2005 to where it ought to be in 2010, using available resources in a cost-effective and result-oriented manner. It needs therefore to take full account of the entire scenario of the country in all aspects and prioritise strategic goals and critical macro-targets to be achieved to reach the milestones intended for 2010. Accordingly it ought to consider goals and targets for all priority sectors and activities, leaving it to each government ministry or agency responsible for each sector to further disaggregate, develop, fine tune and expand the overall strategic goals and targets into more detailed sub-goals and measurable targets for implementation and monitoring.

3.12  RGC's Rectangular Strategy captures all the elements of governance and growth in a logical, holistic, consistent, congruent and harmonious framework. Using that as a basis and with inputs from all government ministries and agencies, joined by external development partners, and through a process of intense and collective consultations, a results-matrix was constructed to reflect RGC's strategic priority goals and targets to be attained during 2006-2010. Based on this exercise certain macro and critical items have been selected as shown in Table 3.2 as major national targets to be reached through NSDP implementation.

3.13  To move ahead rapidly towards its overall vision, RGC will focus attention on achieving at national level some high priority, strategic and macro-goals and core targets (indicators) to be reached through NSDP during 2006-2010. These are listed at Table 3.2 below. The key features of the table are:

• Poverty reduction is of highest priority; hence the list starts with poverty reduction and sectors most influencing poverty in a logical sequence.

• The Table highlights only the major and macro level goals including all the main CMDGs but not all the sub-CMDGs.

• The Table provides clearly measurable quantitative targets, sector-wise, not ministry wise; some targets like reforms are more qualitative in nature.

• All goals and targets are macro in nature; they are aggregates.

• Targets or indicators point out to only some major ones.

• It is clear that there are many sub-goals and supplemental targets that also have also to be reached.

• Specific goals and targets need also to be fixed for and reached at sectoral and sub-national levels.

• All targets, mentioned in it and sub-targets to be developed by sectors or sub-national levels need to be pursued with equal vigour for the betterment of Cambodia.

• Detailed sector plans, some already in existence and others being or to be developed, will expand and flesh-out these overall goals and disaggregate targets and arrive at a broader and longer list to be implemented and monitored by relevant ministries and agencies.

• It is expected that through a process of consultations with all stake holders various provinces, districts and communes will further articulate and lay out separate detailed plans to disaggregate, expand and add to these goals as relevant to their situation and circumstances and implement them with increasing resources and responsibilities being devolved to them through the annual national budget.

3.14  It is clear from Table 3.1 that some of the CMDG targets would be reached ahead of 2015 and some others would fall behind. The ground to be covered to reach reduction in overall poverty levels and other 2010 CMDG targets may seem long and difficult but RGC is confident that the goals could be met especially since a significant proportion of those under poverty line are indeed at the margin and could be quickly brought above the line through targeted actions.

3.15  RGC is committed to reaching the overall goals and targets indicated at Table 3.2 and those to be disaggregated and expanded by sector and sub-national levels. Some targets are clearly quite ambitious but RGC is confident that they are achievable if proper investment and human development resources are available. For success, RGC would vigorously pursue all the prioritised strategies and focused actions through the framework of the Rectangular Strategy as outlined in the next chapter (IV).

Table 3.2 : NSDP's Macro-Goals and Critical Indicators (Targets)¹
(*) - CMDG goals and targets

¹ See explanatory information at paragraph 3.13.
² Gender related targets have been shown separately under health and education.

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