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Democratic Governance and Public Sector Reform Programme
Welcome to the Democratic Governance and Public Sector Reform (DG&PSR) programme website of the Cambodia Development Resource Institute, Cambodia's independent policy research institute. The DG&PSR unit conducts research in support of the implementation of the 'Decentralisation and Deconcentration' reform of the Royal Government of Cambodia. The unit's areas of focus for 2006 include studies on accountability, responsiveness, and service delivery. Expected outputs include literature reviews on accountability and neo-patrimonialism; policy briefs; and short papers on human resources, planning and public financial management at the provincial level. B. Purpose of Website In order to assist in policy dialogue and information dissemination related to Cambodia's decentralisation and deconcentration reform, we have designed this website to serve as a portal for gathering key policy-relevant documents. Information on this website is intended to serve both Khmer and international researchers, in addition to civil servants, consultants, students, and the generally curious about the process of decentralisation and deconcentration in Cambodia. C. Index
1.
Programme Background This programme is funded through the generous support of the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) and the Department for International Development of the UK (DFID). Keywords: Cambodia, government, good governance, Cambodian development, local government, decentralisation, deconcentration, public sector reform, accountability, democratic development, democratisation, responsiveness, and service delivery. |
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Cambodia Development Resource Institute's (CDRI) current Democratic
Governance and Public Sector Reform (DG&PSR) Programme was established in
November 2002, funded through a generous grant by SIDA and DFID under the
auspices of the Policy-Oriented Research Programme on Decentralisation (PORDEC)
with a four-year initial scope.
In mid-2006 the Policy-Oriented Research Programme on
Decentralisation was renamed
the Democratic Governance and Public Sector Reform Programme 2. Presentation of Research Activities Back to top Overall, the topics to be addressed by PORDEC are:
2 This is a study on the Evolution of Democratic Processes and Conflict Management Practice as Viewed through Three Cambodian Elections. 3 This is a study on Public Expenditure Tracking Survey (PETS) in collaboration with the World Bank. 4 This is a study on Public Service Delivery at the Commune/Sangkat Level commissioned by UNCDF
Explanations Back to top
Working Paper and seminars
Policy Brief
Book
Commissioned studies carried out by PORDEC
¨ Follow up/input throughout the research programme period
3. Publication Publications of DG&PSR unit are arranged according to type and year of publication.
Publication by Type
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Literature Review
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Literature Review on Decentralisation, governance and Poverty Alleviation
(pdf 170kb) • Working Paper / Monograph Back to top Hughes, Caroline, & Kim, Sedara (2004), "The Evolution of Democratic Process and Conflict Management in Cambodia, a Comparative Study of Three Cambodian Elections," Working Paper No. 30 (pdf 449kb) (Phnom Penh: Cambodia Development Resource Institute) Rusten, Caroline, Kim, Sedara, Eng, Netra, & Pak, Kimchoeun (2004), The Challenges of Decentralisation Design in Cambodia (pdf 138kb), Monograph No. 1, (Phnom Penh: Cambodia Development Resource Institute) Oberndorf, Robert (2004), "Law Harmonisation in Relation to the Decentralisation Process in Cambodia", Working Paper No. 31 (filename) (Phnom Penh: Cambodia Development Resource) The World Bank, Asian Development Bank, Cambodia Development Resource Institute (2005), Reaching the People: Public Expenditure Tracking and Service Delivery Survey in Primary Education, Phnom Penh: The World Bank • Cambodia Development Review Rusten, Caroline, & Ojendal, Joakim (2003), "Poverty Reduction through Decentralisation? Lessons from Elsewhere and Challenges for Cambodia", Cambodia Development Review (353kb), Volume 7, Issue 4, October-December 2003 Huges, Caroline (2004), "Evolution of Conflict Management During Electoral Periods", Cambodia Development Review (352kb), Volume 8, Issue 1, January-March 2004 Rusten, Caroline, (2004), "The Challenges of the Decentralisation Design", Cambodia Development Review (pdf 340kb), Vol. 8, Issue 2, April-June 2004 Eng, Netra (2004), "Challenges of Fiscal Decentralisation Reform in Cambodia: Identifying Own Revenue Sources for the Commune/Sangkat", Cambodia Development Review (pdf 340kb), Vol. 8, Issue 2, April-June 2004 Oberndorf, Robert (2004), "Law Harmonisation in Relation to the Decentralisation", Cambodia Development Review (pdf 340kb), Vol. 8, Issue 2, April-June 2004 Eng, Netra (2004), "Options for Initial Development of Commune/Sangkat Own-Source Revenues in Cambodia", Cambodia Development Review (pdf 445KB), Vol. 8, Issue 4, October-December 2004 Horng, Vuthy, & Ann, Sovatha (2005), "Local Service Delivery and Commune Councils", Cambodia Development Review (pdf 477kb), Volume 9, Issue 3, July-September 2005 Kim, Sedara and Ann, Sovatha (2005), "Decentralisation: Can Civil Society Enhance Local Government's Accountability in Cambodia?", Cambodia Development Review (pdf 477kb), Vol. 9, Issue 3, July-September 2005 Pak, Kimchoeun (2006), "The Priority Action Programme in Primary Education in Cambodia", Cambodia Development Review (478kb), Volume 10, Issue 1, January-March 2006 • Annual Development Review Back to top Horng, Vuthy, Pak, Kimchoeun, Ann, Sovatha, & Ngo, Ngoun Theary (2005), "Decentralisation and Deconcentration Reforms in Cambodia: An Early Review", in KAS, Murshid and Brett, Ballard, (eds), Annual Development Review 2004-05, (Phnom Penh: Cambodia Development Resource Institute), pp. 155-179
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External Publication Ojendal, Joakim and Kim Sedara (2006), "Korob, Kaud, Klach: In Search of Agency in Rural Cambodia," Journal of South East Asian Studies, Volume 37, No 3, pp. 507-526 (Singapore: The National University of Singapore) Eng, Netra (2005), " Considering Way Forward: A Review of Challenges of the Decentralisation and Deconcentration Reform in Cambodia", Regional Development Dialogue, Volume 26, No 2,pp. 114-126 (Nagoya: UNCRD)
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Short Policy Brief
(forthcoming) Note: For additional CDRI publications, please see Flash Reports, Cambodia Development Reviews, Working Papers, Conference & Other Papers, Free Downloads. 4. Research Studies and Summary of Research Findings Back to topThe Challenge of Decentralization Design in Cambodia Findings: This study generated significant findings on the achievements and challenges of decentralization reforms so far. The study focused on the issue of accountability, central to an understanding of state-society relations, and of co-ordination, which is central to the analysis of institutional reform. The study concluded that both design and implementation factors, on the one hand, and contextual factors, such as cultural predispositions, and neopatrimonialism within the state, had prompted difficulties in establishing effective accountability mechanisms, between elected councilors and their constituencies, and between commune authorities and higher-level civil servants. An issue for further research raised by this research was the need for analysis of the functioning of informal institutions at this level, and for greater understanding of the attitudes of non-state actors towards their elected representatives at local level. Dissemination and Policy Outreach: This study generated CDRI's first monograph, entitled “The Challenges of the Decentralisation Design.” The results of the study were presented and discussed at a half-day national seminar in Phnom Penh on 29 January 2004 where the research findings were disseminated to government, donors and NGOs, as well as to a large number of representatives from the provincial level, most notably provincial governors, PLG and ExCom staff from several provinces. We also carried out dissemination seminars in four provinces in which representatives from the provincial and district authorities as well as commune councillors discuss research findings during a half-day discussion. The monograph has been well-received locally and internationally as the most detailed and useful published account to date of local government dynamics in Cambodia. A special volume on decentralisation with three articles was printed in the Cambodia Development Review (CDR) Vol 8, Issue 2, 2004. The three articles are on ‘the Challenges of the Decentralisation’ based on the fieldwork for the study on the challenges of the decentralisation design; on ‘the Challenges and Progresses of Fiscal Decentralisation’ based on fieldwork from the first study and the piloted phase of the study on commune own sources of revenue, and an article based on a consultancy study on law harmonisation in 2003. Additional 4000 copies of the CDR were printed for the purpose of wider distribution of the results to provincial, district, and all commune councils. The monograph on "The Challenges of Decentralisation Design in Cambodia (pdf 805kb)" is now available at CDRI. Fiscal Decentralisation Back to top Findings: Commune councils were established by the 2002 elections, and have received intergovernmental transfers of funds averaging about USD8,000 per year. These represent the only source of discretionary funds for local development projects prioritised in the commune development plan. The Law on the Administration and Management of Commune/Sangkat authorises the Commune Councils to establish own source revenues. However, the law does not specify the types, levels, and collection procedures for these sources. PORDEC’s study found that commune councils are currently involved in many revenue-generating activities such as issuing small business licenses, residential permission, and other administrative papers. However, there is a lack of clear management and monitoring of these revenues, permitting the flourishing of informal arrangements. Although the commune councils are not officially collecting taxes, currently they (i) already assist the District Tax Office in the collection of taxes; and (ii) receive some share of tax collection from the PM office informally. For the pilot phase, tax sharing (rather than tax reassignment) may be the best option given the current institutional capacity and potential local level tax yields. Four revenue sources are suggested for sharing between the PM and the communes: Patente Tax, Tax on Means of Transportation, Pheasie (market fees), and user fees. Dissemination and Policy Outreach: To discuss the results of the CDRI study, a National Workshop on Commune/Sangkat Own Sources of Revenue was organized on 30 July 2004, by the government's inter-ministerial body in charge of decentralisation, National Committee to Support the Communes (NCSC) and the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) with United Nations Capital Development Fund financial and technical support. There were about 80 participants from line ministries, provincial governors, communes/sangkat councillors, NGOs and donors. The Department of Local Finance at MEF uses the study results to work on a pilot project establishing commune own source revenues. An article was also printed in the CDR, Vol 8, Issue 4, 2004 for wider distribution to all stakeholders including national, provincial and commune level. Detailed ToR in the Inception Report (same file as inception report of Local Responsiveness) Conflict Management during Elections Back to top Findings: This study interrogated the interaction between institutional development and political party perceptions to examine the evolution of conflict escalation and conflict management over three elections. The study analysed the impact of key institutional reforms on conflict management, and identified types of conflicts that are not easily managed by existing institutional mechanisms in Cambodia, as well as identifying conflict characteristics that lead to conflict escalation. The study concluded that institutional reform has been successful with respect to agencies most closely and formally connected to the electoral process. However, this success is constrained by distrust, on the part of opposition parties, of a wider range of institutions, primarily the Ministry of Interior; local authorities - such as village chiefs - under the Ministry of Interior's control; the Ministry of Information; and the private broadcast media. Suspicion also persisted regarding the politicization of local Commune Election Committees, charged with conflict management at the grassroots level. Continued belief in the entanglement of party and state structures in these various institutions prompted continued refusal of opposition parties to accept their conflict management strategies as valid and binding. Dissemination and Policy Outreach: The study has generated two working papers: The Nature and Causes of Conflict Escalation in the National Elections of 1998, published in 2000, and Conflict Management Over Three Cambodian Elections, published in 2004. Both working papers were disseminated at seminars attended by representatives of all political parties, civil society organisations including human rights and election observer NGOs, the government (including the Ministry of Interior and the NEC), representatives of the media, and donor agencies. Both were well received. The findings have been discussed and used in internal seminars at the Ministry of Interior and COMFREL. The dissemination seminar for the first working paper, held in 1999, launched the Conflict Prevention in Cambodian Elections (COPCEL) forum, a national level forum held monthly at CDRI. The forum was attended by representatives of the National Election Committee, all political parties, NGOs, and the media, and by officials from the Ministries of Interior and National Defence. At the forum, representatives were given an opportunity to discuss draft legislation, raise matters that were potential sources of conflict during the election, to investigate matters raised and report back to COPCEL, to network with one another, and to hear each other's point of view. COPCEL has been widely considered a success, and has been suggested as a possible model for conflict resolution in other areas, such as land reform. The programme has now been taken over by the United Nations Development Programme and decentralised to the provincial level. Local Government Accountability Back to top Findings: Commune councils do not have clear roles and responsibilities in relation to natural resources such as forestry and fishery. This impedes their ability to extract revenue from these resources for local use, or to respond to complaints from fishery or forestry communities relating to management of these resources by outside interests. This leads to loss of trust and credibility of commune councils in the eye of their constituents. Further in-depth study is needed on the relations between civil society organisations, other non-state actors in the private sector, and commune councils in these policy areas. This is also true in other areas such as education. The reasons for weak institutional collaboration between committees such as School Support Committees, Forestry and Fishery communities, and commune councils has yet to be studied. Dissemination and Policy Outreach: The draft was summarized and published in CDR/CDRI in 2005. We shared with MoI the concern over the weak collaboration between line ministries and commune councils, raised in the report, focusing on three major groups, Fishery Associations, Forestry Associations, and School Support committees. Recently, SIDA has expressed their interest in the topic and consequently the authors will publish it as a working paper of CDRI in 2006. The CDR article was distributed to all the 10 communes studied. Local Government Responsiveness Findings: Studies of responsiveness were conducted to investigate the question of whether citizens can demand accountability from their representatives at commune level. ’Responsiveness’ was defined as a function of three concepts: speed, quality and quantity. Some preliminary findings of these studies reveal that more than 50 per cent of constituents are not satisfied with the performance of commune councils in terms of speed, in responding to electorates’ demands, and more than 70 per cent are not satisfied with the quantity of projects initiated. However, citizens are fairly pleased with the quality of commune council projects, due to good regulation and supervision. The responsiveness of commune councils determines the impact of decentralization on poverty. Responsiveness is hampered by a number of issues, reflecting both the formal and informal functioning of commune councils and problems in the state-society relationship:
Dissemination and Policy Outreach: The preliminary data is being used for the current accountability study (see below). We have shared it with DFID and SIDA, and it will be also used as data for a PhD dissertation currently in progress by one of the research team. A draft working paper for CDRI will be disseminated late this year. For detailed ToR in the Inception Report.(pdf 129kb) Public Expenditure Tracking Back to top Findings: The study provides a comprehensive understanding of (i) the Priority Action Programme versus traditional public expenditure management system (e.g. Chapter 11) in education sector, (ii) division of roles and responsibilities among central, provincial and school levels in service deliveries and resource management, and (iii) importance of information and community engagement in public spending control. The main findings from the study was that (i) the PAP in education provides successful lessons for the de-concentration in other sectors, (ii) the roles of information is important for civic engagement (by school committees and parents) so that they can contribute to accountability in service delivery. Dissemination and Policy Outreach: The results of the study have been used by especially the Government in assessing and improving the impact and effectiveness of the current public expenditure management and service deliveries especially in priority sectors. The findings have been disseminated through CDRI-WB-ADB joint report, CDRI’s CDR, and workshop organised by the MEF for sectoral line ministries. Local Service Delivery and the Roles of the Commune Councils Findings: The research findings indicate that the Commune Councils (CC) have experience in service provision. The Commune Councils assume a direct role in delivering CSF-funded infrastructure projects and a rather indirect role in non-CSF projects. In the latter case, the CC’s roles tend to be as ‘facilitator’ because they know the locality well. The Seila arrangements (CSF, PIF, DIW process) play a critical role in familiarizing the CC with and enabling them to have a direct hand on the delivery of basic services (though this suggests that resources come before the responsibilities). The findings also demonstrate that there is still plenty of room to further strengthen the roles of CC in the delivery of services provided that proper environment is in place. Critically hampering the service delivery at the commune level is the lack of clear legally defined assignments of service delivery between levels of government (i.e. national, provincial, district and commune level). On the financing side, there remains a lack of a functioning inter-governmental transfer system to support the service delivery by the lower levels of government. Up to now, there has been an overdependence on various external financing sources, leaving the delivery arrangements vulnerable to perhaps too many different modalities required by numerous funding agencies. This has exacerbated the problem of poor coordination in the provision of basic services. Last but not least, another major finding sadly revealed that the concept of employing a ‘user group’ to help maintain the sustainability of the physical infrastructures has proved to be highly ‘unworkable’ in that these groups tend to break down a few months after the infrastructure is built. This has spelled serious need for a new way of thinking of creating a local ownership over the infrastructure. Dissemination and Policy Outreach: A national workshop was held to share the results of the study, attended by Ministry of Rural Development, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport, the Ministry of Water Resources and Minerology, and by commune councillors. An article was also printed in the CDR on local service delivery and commune councils, volume 9, issue 3, 2005. Challenges of Deconcentration Design: Accountability Study of Provincial Governance Back to top Findings: Currently, the PORDEC team are involved in a major institutional development research programme entitled “Strengthening Provincial Governance in Cambodian Decentralisation and Deconcentration reforms: Accountability in the new management system”. This research seeks to identify policy priorities for the Cambodian Decentralisation and Deconcentration (D&D) process, focussed around increasing accountability in the new arrangements. It sets out in the first instance on understanding existing arrangements and accountabilities primarily at sub-national level, in public finance, human resource management, and planning. Its key research questions are as follows:
To understand accountability in these contexts, it draws on a range of public administration approaches, and from political and institutional approaches to hybrid, neo-patrimonial governance, and Cambodia’s experience of these. These, along with the studies overall framework are discussed in an extensive literature review. Initial findings from fieldwork are being formed into case and issue based investigations, which are proceeding through successive phases of fieldwork. From this project will come a series of working papers, policy briefs and other publications, from the second half of 2006 onwards. Dissemination and Policy Outreach: The key points in the Literature Review on Accountability and Neo-patrimonialism were shared with both Cambodian and expatriate audiences during two separate roundtable discussions. Policy briefs, an ADR article and the bigger literature reviews will also be used to share key concepts on accountability as well as findings from the study.
For detailed
ToR
(pdf 125kb). The literature review on Accountability and Neopatrimonialism will be available online. 5. Important Events Back to top l Workshop
Consultative Workshop on Draft Research Proposal of the DG&PSR 2007 - 2010
l Working Groups
DG&PSR unit of CDRI is active members of the following working groups: This year the Decentralisation Forum focuses on Good Governance was held on 03 August 2006 at the Japanese Cooperation Center. There were almost 300 participants from all over Cambodia, including commune councils, provincial and district officials, national government officials, local and international organisations, academic and research institutions, non-governmental organisations and donors.
This year the Committee and Silaka organised a two-day Regional Seminar on Women's Participation in Local Politics supported by FES. There were 6 participating countries from the region coming together to discuss and share lessons learnt and strategies on how to promote and increase women's participation in local politics.
l Technical round table discussion Back to top Defining an Accountable
System in Cambodian Context l International Conference No update available, please check back later. 6. Research Team Back to top
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Researchers • Research Assistants 7. Researches Related to D/D and PSR (under construction) • Law / Policy of RGC (D/D strategic framework, LMAC, Organic Laws…….
1. Laws on Management and Administration of Commune / Sangkat • Report / Paper • Relevant materials (donor statement, NGOs …, speech…) 8. Important Links Back to top
Governance and Social Development Resource
Centre Note: To contact any researcher, please send an email to cdri@camnet.com.kh "Attention: Democratic Governance and Public Sector Reform Unit." |
