This report provides a civil society perspective on aid effectiveness in Cambodia, including on the enabling environment and the roles of civil society organisations.

Aid effectiveness priorities in Cambodia: Joint Monitoring Indicator on aid effectiveness 2009-2010

The Joint Monitoring Indicator on Aid Effectiveness lists the aid effectiveness priorities identified by the Government of Cambodia and its development partners to support the achievement of the development results outlined in Cambodia’s National Strategic and Development Plan. Implementation is expected to be carried forward by RGC Ministries and agencies working with development partners in the respective Technical Working Groups. This Joint Monitoring Indicator also constitutes a response to the Accra Agenda for Action that seeks to accelerate implementation of global aid effectiveness commitments.

 

Cambodia has issued Guidelines for government agencies and donor partners on how to make technical cooperation more effective.  The Guidelines are intended to improve management practices and to ensure that technical cooperation is aligned with government’s public administration reform priorities and approaches to human resource development.  It notes that technical cooperation is only one of the inputs required to support capacity development, and that it must be responsive to the broader reform context in which it operates.  It emphasises internally led capacity development processes, linked to holistic capacity assessments, and stresses the need for diversity, flexibility and innovation.  Sourcing of technical cooperation should be a joint activity under government leadership, with South-South approaches the preferred option.   The Guideline was based on a detailed study of technical cooperation practices in Cambodia, available here.

This joint study coordinated by JICA synthesised evidence from 11 country cases studies on the factors that enable or impede effective technical cooperation (TC).  It concluded that country leadership of TC is gradually improving, though uneven, and that there are some good examples of capacity-development strategies in particular sectors or thematic areas.  However, uneven political leadership, lack of knowledge of TC approaches and poor management information systems are impeding factors.  It concludes that TC is most effective when it is planned and management by the beneficiaries, flexible and responsive in design, embedded with an overall organisational design process, and complemented by other forms of support.

The 3^rd edition of the Sourcebook on Managing for Results, produced by the OECD-DAC Joint Venture on Managing for Results, contains case studies of Cambodia, Morocco, Niger, Pakistan and Yemen.