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KINGDOM OF CAMBODIA
Sixth Meeting of the
Opening Remarks
Colleagues from the Government 1. It an honour and a pleasure for me to welcome you to the sixth meeting of the Government-Donor Coordination Committee. The agenda for to-days meeting consists of two items. First, a review and approval of the pledge sheet for the CG meeting. Second item is to review the proposed JMIs that will be endorsed at the CG meeting. I hope we will be able to deal with both of these items this morning. 2. On the first agenda item, as you know, the National Strategic Development Plan for 2006-2010 and the rolling three year Public Investment Program for 2006-2008 have been prepared and approved by the Cabinet. At the last GDCC meeting I had asked my colleague Chhieng Yanara to redesign the pledge sheet in consultation with SNEC and the World Bank to improve the pledging process at the CG meeting. The redesigned pledge sheet was sent to all development partners more than 2 weeks ago. I am confident that the analysis of the data from the redesigned pledge sheet will enable all of us to see the extent to which the development cooperation resources are aligned with the PIP. 3. On the second agenda item concerning JMIs for the forthcoming CG meeting, I would like to emphasize two important points. First, the Royal Government of Cambodia is implementing its reforms programs to put our nation on a path of sustainable growth, to improve public services delivery to our people, to reduce poverty, and to improve the livelihoods and quality of life of all citizens. I would like to highlight that the Royal Government's reform agenda is not being implemented to respond to our development cooperation partners priorities but to implement our own priorities that have been outlined in the Rectangular Strategy and the National Strategic Development Plan. 4. The second point I would like to highlight is that we know the challenges we face. We are now moving ahead to ensure that the ministries and agencies responsible for implementing the development and reforms programs are taking charge as well as taking full ownership of the development and reform processes in their areas. In this process that is now well underway, the Royal Government has decided that the ministries and agencies must take responsibility for identifying the indicators that will be used to monitor progress on both development and reform programs in their respective areas. The Royal Government would like our development cooperation partners to work with ministries and agencies under the TWG mechanism in an environment of mutual accountability to facilitate and support the implementation of activities by the ministries and agencies to achieve our development and reform targets. We have put in place this GDCC mechanism as the high level forum where we can jointly monitor progress and take corrective actions. Let us all work together in an environment of mutual accountability to become real partners in the development of Cambodia. 5. I am pleased to inform you that the Updated Action Plan on harmonization, Alignment, and Results that was agreed to at the Partnership and Harmonization TWG meeting on 7 February has been approved by Samdech Prime Minister yesterday. I have asked the Chairman of the Partnership and Harmonization TWG to update the Declaration that was signed on 2 December 2004 by RGC and 12 development partners who had agreed to support the implementation of our first Action Plan on Harmonization and Alignment. I would like to urge all development partners to join in this effort to meet our commitments under the Paris Declaration. 6. I would now ask my colleague Chhieng Yanara to make a brief presentation on the revised pledge sheet and the draft of the new JMIs for 2006 that was shared with development cooperation partners last week. Thank you. 15 February 2006 |