Kingdom of Cambodia

Nation – Religion – King

3rd Cambodia Development Cooperation Forum (CDCF)

Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 2-3 June 2010

H.E. CHHIENG YANARA

Secretary General

Cambodian Rehabilitation and Development Board

Council for the Development of Cambodia

Royal Government of Cambodia

Joint Monitoring Indicators: Mutual Accountability for Development Results

Thank you once again Excellency Chair

Colleagues from th  e Royal Government

Ambassadors and development partners    

Thank you once again, H.E. Chairman, for giving me the floor and thank to all participants for your continued attention. In this session it is my honour to present the JMIs prior to their endorsement. You will, I hope, all recall that the JMIs were discussed at the April 29th GDCC meeting and our task today is to endorse them. But I hope that we can also have a dialogue about the process to date and, looking forward, to ensure that implementation is well supported.

For many of you, especially development partners, there may not be an institutional memory in how our JMIs have evolved. As recently as 2007, at our first CDCF meeting, I observed that principles that informed the JMIs particularly with respect to mutual accountability were not consistently applied.

I am therefore very pleased to report that, based on the JMI reports we have received and the meetings that have taken place to review the process in the last months, we have made much progress. On almost all JMIs we see evidence of "joint" dialogue, "joint" identification, "joint" implementation and "joint" monitoring. I acknowledge and welcome this progress.

I therefore wish to focus briefly on the results of the 2009-2010 JMIs that were endorsed at the second CDCF meeting in December 2008. And then to review the progress we have made in strengthening the process, before turning finally to request that this meeting formally endorse the new JMIs.

The report on progress in implementing the JMIs is included in the 2010 Aid Effectiveness Report, and was discussed at the recent GDCC meeting. In general progress has been encouraging, as the table on the slide shows. In most of the broad NSDP sectors, JMIs have been implemented in full or have made satisfactory progress. In one or two broad areas, especially in infrastructure, there appears to be a need for continued dialogue and attention to ensure that priority actions are implemented. But overall we can be satisfied with progress.

This is especially the case when we look beyond the results, to consider the quality of the process. In most TWG reports it has become clear that, as I indicated earlier, there is more "joint-ness" about the JMIs and they have become increasingly routed in – and drawn from – the main planning and monitoring processes of the TWGs and their associated Ministries and agencies. I believe this is mutually reinforced by more collaborative and constructive development partner behaviour, and I wish to place on record my appreciation to all development partner facilitators who have given their time to TWG work and to contribute to a stronger and more effective partnership. This will, I believe, lay the foundation for even greater results in the future.

With this in mind, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, let me now turn to the process by which the JMIs for the 2010-2011 period have been prepared.

We agreed at the 2008 CDCF meeting to review the process and format for the JMIs in order to ensure that focus on results while remaining faithful to the joint and partnership-based principles on which they were originally constructed.

We have done this with some degree of success. On the basis that the "process drives the product" the training and the revised format appear to have successfully built on results-based competencies that clearly exist in many sectors. We have therefore been able to significantly improve the format by formalising the results chain and outcome contributions, as well as to make more explicit the role of aid effectiveness activities and development partners. More important, and as the response to the call for new JMIs has shown, we have been able to build on existing capacities and strengthen the link to established results-based processes.

As I said earlier, the JMIs are now more "joint" and based on the principles of mutual accountability. As I discussed in our last session, as we turn increasingly to the focus on results, I believe these JMIs and their underlying principles, if respected and adhered to, will make a significant contribution to the achievement of results. Making the underlying results chain more explicit and incorporating aid effectiveness principles bodes well for the future of our partnership.

I therefore hope, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, that we can have a dialogue to explore issues of implementation, perhaps following up on some issues related to the use of the GDCC that I raised this morning, and then move to formally endorse the JMIs.

Mr Chairman, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for your attention.