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59. Additional information obtained during personal interviews with representatives of the donor community indicate that there are also training efforts underway that have not been fully reported in the responses to the CBP Survey questionnaire. For example, courses organised within the IMF Technical Cooperation Assistance Program that have a longer duration. These are mainly aimed at staff in the Ministry of Economy and Finance. The components of the programme include budget execution, taxes, central banking and statistical support. This programme is co-financed with, among others, the UK, the Netherlands, UNDP and the AsDB. Another example is the so-called Phnom Penh Plan organised by the AsDB, which provides two to five week courses to upgrade the skills of key officials. It is co-financed with the Republic of Korea, New Zealand and Sweden. An example of slightly longer courses given abroad (4 –6 weeks) is the training provided by SIDA (Sweden) mainly in environment related subjects. This training is outside the Swedish country programme for Cambodia. 60. Some bilateral donors provide scholarships for training abroad. The US provides about 8 Fulbright scholarships annually to Cambodian nationals. The French provide 60 scholarships a year for studies in France at the Masters/Advanced study level. They also support financially returning students who need to complete their doctoral theses. France also has a programme to allow young medical doctors to undertake their hospital internships in France. There are also examples of support for advanced training, including studies abroad that are funded by Australia, Russia, WHO and UNFPA. Norway and the Netherlands fund a UNDP project for training abroad of trainers for the newly instituted Royal School of Judges and Prosecutors. 61. One comment received from many sources was that seminars, workshops and even short-term "training courses" often serve more as encouragement to staff, as a means of providing some monetary incentive, rather than as a skill enhancement. 62. A particular problem related to training was stressed by one of those interviewed: “Within ten years the present top generation (of government officials) will be retiring. They have good training and experience. The next generation has neither. This will lead to a fall in quality in central administration”. A senior government official stressed a similar point: “We have a lack of specialists (in economics, science, planning and management) who speak foreign languages well. Our people know a little about much but not very much about anything – there is no depth in their knowledge”. Still another senior official pointed to the related fact that the lack of qualified people led to "people at senior level having too many functions and that they needed to focus better on a main task". In other words, over the next few years Cambodia must prepare the generation which has entered the public service over the last 10-20 years or so to replace the generation of top officials formed some 40-50 years ago. The intervening generation has, broadly speaking, disappeared as a result of events in Cambodia during the 1970s. The insufficient experience and, apparently, insufficient specialist knowledge of many in this new generation will require determined efforts if the feared "fall in quality in central administration" is to be avoided. |
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