| Author | Siv Senith |
| Call Number | AIT Thesis no.RD-01-03 |
| Subject(s) | Community development--Cambodia
|
| Note | A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Master of Science, School of Environment, Resources and Development
|
| Publisher | Asian Institute of Technology |
| Abstract | Eradication of poverty is a challenged long-term goal of the Royal Government of
Cambodia. In the context of Cambodia, besides the government efforts the international
non-governmental organizations (INGOs) also play extraordinary important role to this
endeavor. Virtually, they are having the same goal. Given this reason, to analyze the
present status of relationship between the two development agencies and explore
mechanisms to enhance an effective partnership for development becomes a rationale to
conduct the study.
The Phnom Penh City was the target place to conduct the interviews and
discussions with respondents at national level as well as operational level in Battambang
Province. Setting up policy and regulations, the project cycle including local institutional
and capacity building was the scope in which the partnership between the two development
agencies was analyzed.
The research showed that the desire for partnership for community development on
the governments is higher than INGOs. These two development agencies have high
cooperation in the areas of local capacity building and implementation of development
activities and they have positive influence with each other in the areas of policy and
regulation formations, selecting target areas for development as well as establishing local
institutions for community development. Unfortunately, they have weak cooperation in the
areas of managing and utilizing financial resources and evaluating the achievements of the
projects, which are the crucial issue of mutual accountability and transparency for the
utilization of scarce resources to benefit poor.
The problems that make partnership between the two development agencies were
found unhealthy, which caused by shortage of competent and commitment of development
workers, ineffective government-led coordination, poorly developed national plans and
policies, lack of partnership agreement, weak harmonized attitudes of development official
and bureaucratic system as well as differentiation on interest.
The research explored seven factors that make partnership effective. Those factors
are clarity of national, plan and policy for partnership, partnership agreement, effective
government-led coordination, competent human resources, decentralization and commune
council reforms, activate local institutional building policy and harmonized attitude of
development officials. Among them the most influence factors in partnership are effective
government-led coordination and partnership agreement at district level.
Decentralization and local governance reform in Cambodia will create constraints
as well as potential for grassroots based INGOs in implementing their development
activities. A great opportunity for government and INGOs partnership under this reform is
to strengthen the capacity of the new elected commune council members. However, the
constraints have to be tackled first and the remedial actions are to be formalized and
activate anti-corruption policy as well as clarify INGOs role and NGO legal framework in
legal context. The study recommended that coordination mechanism with government
should be enhanced by the participation of grassroots people in the decision-making
committee such as CDRCs, PRDCs and CARD. Furthermore partnership agreement at
district level is essential for the mutual understanding between the government and INGOs. |
| Year | 2001 |
| Type | Thesis |
| School | School of Environment, Resources, and Development (SERD) |
| Department | Department of Development and Sustainability (DDS) |
| Academic Program/FoS | Rural Development, Gender and Resources (RD) |
| Chairperson(s) | Wickramanayake, B.W.E. |
| Examination Committee(s) | Soparth Pongquan ;Kusakabe, Kyoko |
| Scholarship Donor(s) | Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation
(NORAD) |
| Degree | Thesis (M.Sc.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2001 |