Cambodia is launching
\nanother phase of decentralisation, attempting to restructure sub-national,
\nespeciallyprovincial, administration. These reforms are widely referred to as
\ndecentralisation and deconcentrationor, more simply, as D&D. The aim is to
\nestablish unified provincial and possibly district administrations,which are accountable
\nto both the central government and to the people in their territory, based on
\naclear and accountable allocation of functions and funding. To achieve this,
\nmore accountable fiscalrelationships and management are crucial. It is not
\nknown yet how these can be achieved. Discussionsindicate that a unified budget
\nis going to be established, but details are by no means clear. This situationis
\nnot helped by the fact that current arrangements around provincial public
\nfinance are not yet wellunderstood.\u00a0This paper draws on
\nresearch conducted over three years, as part of a wider study of
\nsub-nationalaccountability, which included analysis of planning and human
\nresources. This part of the study consideredcurrent provincial public
\nexpenditure management (PEM), using accountability as its analytical lens.The
\nobjective of all these studies was to provide a more comprehensive picture of
\nthe current system andfrom this to draw implications for the D&D reforms.
\nThe paper looks at two accountability relations:centralYprovincial and
\nhorizontal. Key findings are as follows:\u00a0Not just one but many
\nprovincial PEM systems operate. For analytical purposes, these can be
\ngroupedinto three main categories: the government mainstream system, reform
\ninitiatives around the mainstreamand donor vertical programmes. Each group
\nentails different accountability structures.\u00a0Current arrangements
\nare very centralised. Most of the development budget is locked into
\ndonor-funded,centrally directed programmes, which may be implemented
\nsub-nationally but are usually containedwithin programmeYdedicated public
\nfinance arrangements, entailing very little subYnational discretion.With 80
\npercent of the country\u0413s development
\nprogrammes financed from aid, this overall arrangementhas a huge impact, the
\nimplications of which need to be better understood. Provinces receive only
\nabout30 percent of recurrent funding and virtually none of the development
\nbudget. They enjoy very minimaldiscretion over their small entitlement, and
\ncorrespondingly hold little real responsibility for the overalloperations of
\nprovincial or lower public management and finance. Their involvement in
\ndevelopmentactivities has typically (and with particular partial exceptions,
\nsuch as SEILA programmes) been limitedand ad hoc. Their ability to link local
\nplanning, operating and maintenance (O&M), human resourcesmanagement and
\nother key functions to predictable funding has thus been greatly constrained.\u00a0Centralisation is
\ncompounded by weaknesses in the accountability of the government mainstream
\nPEM,which lead to high fiduciary risk and poor budget execution. These create
\nstrong incentives for donorsto manage programmes using centralised and parallel
\narrangements. There have been reform initiativesin response to these problems.
\nThose reforms have produced fairly satisfactory results, but their scopeand
\nintention were not to enhance the role of the province in PEM and wider
\naccountability. \u00a0Instead,they focussed
\non improving service delivery in specific sectors. Donors have responded to
\nweak PEMby bypassing it and introducing a New Public Management type of
\naccountability.Alongside these formal accountability arrangements, another form
\nis based on patronage networks ofpersonal relationships and loyalty,
\ninstitutionalised rent seeking and political agendas. Patronage
\naroundprovincial PEM is dense and institutionalised, especially within the
\nmainstream system. It has beenstrongly shaped by neo-patrimonial arrangements,
\nwherein concerns for compliance have multipliedopportunities for informal
\ndeductions, and personalised yet regularised relationships have
\ndistortedprocesses, especially in some areas of PEM.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A number of implications, both
\ngeneral and particular, are drawn from the findings. Particularrecommendations
\nare found in Chapter 6. More generally, the paper\u0413s findings
\ndemonstrate that D&D willrequire a long-term reform effort, which will
\nrequire proper sequencing and, in particular, a combination of both technical
\nand politically driven reform. Second, the D&D reforms will and should
\nimpact on many aspects of current administration, including its internal\/formal
\nweakness, the strength of informal arrangements and the nature of donor-created
\naccountabilities within programmes. If this reform is to move forward, it needs
\nto be better coordinated with other reforms, especially in public financial management
\nand in aid harmonisation, public sector and human resources management and,
\nless directly, recent social accountability initiatives. Third, although
\nreforms in Cambodia have been slow in general, the government, with support
\nfrom donors, has implemented many, some more successfully than others. The
\nimportant thing is that D&D need to build on these successes and learn from
\nthe failures.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Cambodia is launching another phase of decentralisation, attempting to restructure sub-national, especiallyprovincial, administration. These reforms are widely referred to as decentralisation and deconcentrationor, more simply, as D&D. The aim is to establish unified provincial and possibly district administrations,which are accountable to both the central government and to the people in their territory, based on aclear and accountable allocation of functions and funding. To achieve this, more accountable fiscalrelationships and management are crucial. It is not known yet how these can […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33134","publications","type-publications","status-publish","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n