Cambodia Development Cooperation Forum (CDCF)
Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 4-5th December 2008

Deputy Prime Minister KEAT CHHON, M.P.
Minister of Economy and Finance
First Vice-Chairman, Council for the Development of Cambodia
Chairman, CDCF
Royal Government of Cambodia

Multi-Year Indicative Financing Framework (MYIFF)

-     Colleagues from the Government
-     Honorable Ambassadors, Distinguished Representatives of Development Partners
-     Ladies and Gentlemen

  1. Please allow me to bring the meeting to order. Our final session before lunch concerns the Multi-Year Indicative Financing Framework.

  2. The objective of the Multi-Year Indicative Financing Framework is to reinforce the budget exercise by including medium-term indications of NSDP financing provided by our development partners in our planning and budgeting exercise. The transition away from pledging at the first CDCF meeting was warmly welcomed and I hope we can consolidate that progress in the context of the second platform of the Public Financial Management Reform Programme, which was officially launched here in the Palais du Governement on December 03-2008.

  3. It is recognised that resource estimates are indicative. We recognise that outer year projections are subject to the approval of your Boards and Parliaments. But we also note the commitment made in the Accra Agenda for Action to provide projections for the next budget year as well as estimates for the medium-term. The language used there is unequivocal, and please allow me to quote:

"Beginning now, donors will provide full and timely information on annual commitments...[and]...beginning now, donors will provide information on their three-to-five year forward expenditure"

Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen

  1. In the case of Cambodia, "beginning now" has already started and many of you have worked hard to provide these figures to CDC in recent months. I hope that this morning we can take further steps towards this important objective of strengthening our planning and budgeting exercise.

  2. Please therefore allow me to open the floor now so that our development partners can have the opportunity to deliver statements related to the resourcing of the NSDP. I will then share with you the consolidated figures that we have received from development partners.

[Open the discussion so that development partners can make any announcements. If there are any changes, these can be included on the table to be shown on the screen]

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen

  1. I thank you for these words and for these commitments. While acknowledging the challenges we face in implementing the Rectangular Strategy and associated reforms, it is most encouraging to learn that our development partners continue to have confidence in the policy direction we have set and in our ability to confront the challenges that we face.

  2. Of course, we fully recognise the scale of these challenges. We therefore greatly appreciate not only the resources that have been made available by the international community but, of equal importance, the spirit of partnership that will characterize our joint efforts to address them. As Samdech Prime Minister noted in his address to us on 04 December 2008, we must not be distracted by the amounts allocated but, rather, be sure to use these resources effectively.

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen

  1. Please allow me to turn now to the consolidated set of financial commitments that have been provided to us in advance of this meeting.

[If any donor announced a change in their funding commitments it will be necessary to change the totals to incorporate these recent changes]

  1. In total, for the year 2009, a total resource allocation of 951.52 million Dollars has been indicated by our development partners.

[Slide of MYIFF data to be shown on the main screen]

  • 282 million Dollars will be provided by international organisations, including the United Nations, ADB, the World Bank;

  • 214 million Dollars will be provided by the European Commission and the combined countries of the European Union; and

  • 414 million Dollars will be provided by other bilateral development partners, including 112 million from Japan and 257 million Dollars from China.

  1. Some of our development partners have been unable to respond to our request to provide figures on both on-going projects as well as new commitments for our Multi-Year Indicative Financing Framework. We can appreciate the constraints that they face but request that they work towards fulfilling their commitments made in the Accra Agenda for Action and, more important, to strengthening the links between aid management and budgeting, which this meeting has emphasised on several occasions.

  2. However, all of these partners have been very supportive of CDC's routine efforts to gather indicative data on on-going project financing for 2009 and 2010. We are therefore able to present a framework that includes the funding for on-going projects that has previously been provided by other development partners. This increases the estimated resource availability in 2009 to approximately 1 billion US Dollars.

  3. Looking beyond this year, the utility of a medium-term exercise in strengthening our planning exercise becomes clear. Indications for 2010 and 2011 are of course only an estimate, with much new funding still to be confirmed but we can see that many partners are able to provide us with some indication of their support to priority programmes.

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen

  1. On behalf of the Royal Government, please allow me to acknowledge this commitment and support.

  2. Based on estimates of funding requirements in the NSDP and the Public Investment Programme, and taking account of financing that Government will make available from its own resources, the amounts that we have recorded through this medium-term planning exercise indicate that the NSDP will be fully resourced until at least the end of 2010. This funding indication also indicates that, combined with domestic revenues, a response to the global challenges that we have already discussed in our meeting is a realistic proposition.

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen

  1. Unless there are any further speakers who wish to contribute to this dialogue please allow me to conclude this session with two short observations:

  • First, to acknowledge once again the commitment to our partnership that has been demonstrated by our development partners. The role of the financial and technical resources provided by our development partners is crucial to the realization of our goals and I thank them for this indication of support.

  • Second, as we discussed in this Palais du Governement on Wednesday 03 December 2008 during the launch of PFM reform platform 2, as well as during our discussions over these last two days, please allow me to emphasise that this discussion on medium-term financing of the NSDP is part of a broader package of reforms related to public financial management. The Royal Government is strongly committed to these reforms.

  1. Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, I thank you most sincerely for contributing to the success of this Session. Please enjoy your lunch and I look forward to seeing you all again at this afternoon's Closing Session.

 

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