Attachment 1

Attachment 1

TWG-PPR Core Group Meeting

29^th June 2009

Minutes of the Meeting

1. H.E. Ou Orhat, Secretary of State of the Ministry of Planning and Chair of the TWG-PPR opened the meeting. In his opening remarks he said that this the agenda of this meeting is one item as noted in the invitation for this meeting. This single agenda item is: how to ensure effective participation of development partners and civil society stakeholders in the preparation of NSDP Update 2009-2013. He then asked H.E. Tuon Thavrak, Director General, General Directorate of Planning and head of the TWG-PPR Secretariat to present the RGC/Ministry of Planning’s Policy Position.

2. H.E. Tuon Thavrak, outlined the RGC/Ministry of Planning’s policy position as follows:

The NSDP Update 2009-2013 will be prepared based on information provided by Ministries and Agencies on actions, programs, and projects that they plan to carryout to implement the prioritized policies of the RGC outlined in the Rectangular Strategy Phase II.

The Ministry of Planning would like Ministries and Agencies to take full ownership of their submissions to the Ministry of Planning, at the same time it strongly encourages Ministries/Agencies, development partners, and other stakeholders to engage in productive consultations that contribute to improving the Ministry/Agency inputs for the preparation of NSDP Update within the TWG framework. At the Workshop held last week one important policy guideline issued by the Ministry of Planning requires that "line Ministries and Agencies chairing a Joint Technical Working Group should prepare their inputs in consultation with their TWG’s".

The Ministry of Planning strongly believes that investment of time and energy on consultations, by both Government officials and development partners, would be most productive if these efforts are focused at the Ministry/Agency level that are responsible for preparing the inputs for NSDP.

To ensure effective consultations with concerned development partners and civil society stakeholders in the preparation of inputs by the Ministries and Agencies, the Ministry of Planning is asking the Lead Donor Facilitators of the TWG-PPR to work with al development partners and other stakeholders to ensure that they are ready and able to provide technical and logistic support, if needed, through the TWG mechanism to their concerned Ministry/Agency in the preparation of inputs for NSDP Update. The Ministry of Planning is ready to provide any support that the Lead Donor Facilitators require to carry out this task efficiently.

4. The representatives of the two Lead Donor Facilitators of the TWG-PPR present at the meeting (Mr. Tim Conway and Ms. Ann Lund) agreed to assume this responsibility.

5. In the follow up question and answer session about the limited time available for the preparation of submissions by ministries and agencies. H.E. Tuon Thavrak responded that there could be some flexibility and encouraged the two representatives to work with development partners and other stakeholders to discuss the issue with their counterpart ministries and agencies within the TWG framework. After these discussions, the ministry/agency focal point for the preparation of the NSDP Update should inform the Ministry of Planning about the need to extend the completion date of the Ministry/Agency submission.

6. H.E. Ou Orhat thanked all participants for attending, for sharing information and for participating in fruitful discussions and closed the meeting.