CDC - CG MEETING- Working Session

CG MEETING- Working Session on Partnerships and Aid Coordination CY-Presentation Text with Power-point Presentation

- Excellencies Co-Chairmen - Excellencies, - Distinguished Delegates - Ladies and Gentlemen 1. It is my honor and pleasure to be here with all of you and to present to you an update on our efforts in building development partnerships in Cambodia. We have distributed a short paper today that provides more detailed information on this. What I propose to do under this agenda item is to make a short presentation, not more than 15 minutes. My presentation focuses more on what we have achieved by highlighting some concrete examples, and finally I end up with some proposals to move partnership forward. 2. The RGC’s overall objective of building partnerships is to further support Cambodia’s sustainable socio-economic development with equity, to reduce poverty by promoting partnership model of development cooperation, based on Cambodian leadership, ownership, and accountability, in order to increase resource mobilization and to effectively use these scarce resources. 3. The principles and strategic considerations for partnership building have been reflected in RGC’s working paper on “A New Development Cooperation Paradigm for Cambodia” and in the report presented at the CG meeting last year. The paper we have distributed today provides an overview of these and I will not take your time by repeating them again. I just want to highlight 5 principles for development partnership and 7 strategic implementation considerations. 4. Let me move ahead, to describe briefly the major developments since the last CG meeting. The Prime Minister has appointed CDC/CRDB as the Partnership Focal Point within the Government. As the Partnerships Focal Point, CDC/CRDB’s is responsible for: coordinating the resource mobilization activities of the Government, providing support to ministries/agencies to enable them to effectively manage the process of establishing partnership arrangements with their national and external partners, and expanding the development management information networks within Government to ensure that there is a functioning government-wide system to monitor the implementation of development programs, and for coordinating with sectoral ministries on issues related to resource mobilization. 5. Last year, 2001, a Steering Committee to Strengthen Development Partnerships was also established. It is headed by the 1^st vice-chairman of CDC, and consists of senior officials in-charge of Partnership arrangements. The main objective is to ensure that key officials are involved in policy decisions and operational actions for capacity development, integration/ enhancement of information and monitoring systems, and for assessing progress and identifying issues during the transition to fully functioning development partnerships. 6. The Secretary General of the CDC/CRDB also serves as the Secretary General of this Steering Committee. The Inter-Ministerial Steering Committee is supported by a Secretariat, located in CDC/CRDB. Partnership Working Groups have been established in four ministries, Health, Education, Agriculture, and Women and Veteran Affairs. 7. However, we still have some problems to overcome to fully develop partnerships within the Government administrative structure. The issue of overlaps in the roles and responsibilities of some central ministries/agencies still need to be reviewed as part of the Administrative Reforms. 8. Over the last decade, we have been successfully building Partnerships for Development. At the Country Level, the Bilateral High-Level Consultations on annual basis with each donor agency or country, the regular Inter-ministerial Coordination Meetings to discuss sectoral development actions and policy reforms, and the Follow-up CG Meeting every 6 months between the Government and Donor community, under the framework of In-Country Aid Coordination System, are seen as partnership building mechanism. This CG Meeting process is in itself, a successful partnership building mechanism. 9. Parallel to this, we have also increased the level of participation and partnership with the private sector, NGOs and civil society through our semi-annual Government-Private Sector Meetings and through extensive consultations on the revisions to the Investment Law. These partnerships have been further deepened in the process of the formulation of our SEDP-II, the Full Poverty Reduction Paper, the Governance Action Plan (GAP) and so on. Furthermore, I would like to take this opportunity to stress that with the formation of the Commune-Sangkat Council, the Partnership with Civil Society is being further strengthened through its participation in the Planning and Budgeting Committee (PBC). Under the chairmanship of the Commune Chief, the PBC will ensure that broad interactions take place between the commune and civil society in the identification of local priorities and in the mobilization of human and financial resources. In addition, the District Planning Integration process that has been officially adopted by the Ministry of Planning and reflected in the decentralized regulatory framework, is a strategic feature for negotiating partnerships through the alignment of public sector, NGO and C/S plans in order to respond to the local priority needs. 10. Similarly, the RGC has recently established a Commune/Sangkat Fund to finance both the administrative and development activities of the C/S Councils. The C/S Fund is planned to be financed from both the national budget and contributions from Cambodia’s external development partners. The Government is committed to increase the percentage of domestic revenues allocated to the C/S Fund. But given its limited budgetary resources, the donor contributions will play important role in deepening the democratization process at the grassroots and to institutionalize the processes of participatory decentralized development. The C/S Fund is a joint financing vehicle and can serve as an important mechanism for developing effective Government-Donor-Civil Society partnerships in this high priority area. 11. With regard to the partnerships at sector and program level with our external partners, there are many examples where the Royal Government has successfully strengthened its partnership arrangements, such as the Seila Program and the development programs for the education and health sectors where sector-wide management (SWIM) approach have become the starting point for piloting partnership arrangements. 12. At present, these partnerships are at various stages of the development. Under the Seila Program, the partnership arrangements cover all aspects of the program cycle through joint planning, programming, budgeting, and implementation management of the Program. The RGC now would like to extend this partnership arrangement to include the monitoring of the implementation of Seila Program. 13. In the case of Education and Health sectors, the partnership arrangements are not as advanced. So far, we have succeeded in building partnerships to carry-out joint planning and programming for these sectors. We now have an Education Strategic Plan (ESP) and an Education sector Support Program (ESSP). A joint Health sector review has been completed and a strategic plan for the Health Sector for the 2003-2007 is being finalized, It is the Royal Government’s hope that the spirit of partnership will continue to prevail and guide the work in these two critical sectors as we begin to look at the budgeting/financing and implementation issues. Progress has also been made in building partnership in the areas dealing with Demobilization, Public Administration Reform, Natural Resource Management, Fiscal Reform, Land Reform, Gender mainstreaming and so on. 14. Forging effective partnerships with our external partners has been a challenge and we need your support to move ahead. The RGC would like to thank all partners for maintaining a strong working relationship with the Government. However, we need more efforts to build a true and transparent partnership with special emphasis on national ownership and leadership. 15. To move ahead with building partnerships, it would be necessary to define at the operational level the various elements of the partnership arrangements. As a starting point, the Royal Government would like to propose that we begin by focusing at the following four elements: Identification, planning and formulation of development programs. Prioritization of development programs based on national development priorities. Resource mobilization for the prioritized development programs and negotiations of financing arrangements for the prioritized development programs. Management of the implementation of the development programs. 16. With respect to the first element “identification, planning and formulation of development programs”, the Royal Government would like to see a strong level of interaction, participation, and consensus building effort between the external partners and relevant government institutions. 17. The second element “prioritization of development programs based on national development priorities” will remain the domain of the Government to ensure the ownership of its development efforts. 18. The third element “resource mobilization for the prioritized development programs and negotiations of financing arrangements for the prioritized development programs” is an area where close collaboration between the Royal Government and its external partners will continue to be a high priority. The Royal Government is well aware of the internal constraints that some donors are operating under, at the present time, in terms of their participation in Sector Wide Management (SWAM). Therefore, under this third element, the modalities of participation of each donor in the programs will be kept flexible, as long as the supported activities remain within the umbrella of the approved sector program. 19. The last element “management of the implementation of the development programs” remains a challenge for both the external partners and the Government. The urgent need for simplification and harmonization of donor internal rules and procedures, and the harmonization of various capacity building practices of our external partners at the country level cannot be overemphasized. 20. To strengthen partnerships with our external partners, the RGC is proposing the immediate adoption of the following two mechanisms that will enable us to jointly examine the issues and to develop appropriate approaches for building meaningful and effective partnerships: - First, we would like to propose the establishment of a Government-Donor Working Group on Partnership under the CG mechanism. This Working Group will take the responsibility for examining issues and recommending measures to improve the current situation. We understand that even at the country level, it may be difficult or near impossible to reach a full harmonization of the rules and procedures. However, we can see that there are several steps that can be taken in the short term, which could increase the partnership and the national ownership of the development cooperation activities. Some of these include: a harmonized approach for capacity development, joint missions, joint program formulation, long-term commitments by donors, and flexible program/project design. It is the Royal Government’s hope that the establishment of the proposed Government-Donor Partnership Group under the CG mechanism will begin to tackle these critical issues as soon as possible. - The second mechanism that the Government would like to propose is related to the UN system. We have UNDAF under which each UN agency has prepared country program. Normally, each UN agency made a review against this country program. In this case, we would like to propose that, instead of having separate reviews of each UN agency’s country programs, the Government would like to see a joint review session, in which all UN agencies and Government ministries/agencies will participate at the same time. Such a joint review has many advantages. First, it held reducing burden on the Government, especially given our limited capacities. Second, it help minimize duplication, and third, even more importantly, the joint review will ensure that information about who is doing what is shared both within the Government as well as the UN System agencies. 21. Let me conclude by stating that, as clearly as I can, the Royal Government’s priorities. Given the important role that ODA plays in supporting the development programs, we want to build strong partnerships to ensure that the available ODA is utilized in a manner that maximizes its benefits in furthering Cambodia’s development efforts. We want to enter this process of strengthening partnerships with an open mind to examine all feasible options through a transparent and accountable collaborative effort. At this point in time, in the process of building partnerships, we know where we want to go. If we work together, then through an open and frank consultative and collaborative process we can begin to outline how to get there. Thank you for your attention.