23rd December 2009,
The NGO partner meeting was organized with participation of 9 local NGOs, facilitated by CRS. The meeting was presented by each of local NGOs for updating CSPPM project including Spider graph training, CBO annual plan, CIP involvement and service providers. In addition to checklist, it was discussed controversially for updating in 2010.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Leadership and Self Development Training
On 21st December 2009, I attended training on Leadership and Self Development. The training was organized at CILD, with participation of CEDAC staffs. Agenda of training focused on sharing the progress of self development and leadership concepts.
Participating a whole of day, I gained a lot of concepts of leadership and self-development.
Participating a whole of day, I gained a lot of concepts of leadership and self-development.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Agricultural Development Cooperative
In Cambodia, more 75% of people are farmers living in rural area and farming base on rice. We found that key issues related to rice based community as following points:
- Lack of policy supporting activities of community on joint business;
- Not enough agencies to promote agriculture technique;
- Middle men always cheated farmers on price and quantity;
- Information flow related to business and technologies were limit in rural area;
- Official recognizing on mobilization of communities to joint activities in order to take commune benefit for commune had no;
- Communities had no enough capital to start business etc.
To address the issues above, in 2001, Royal Government of Cambodia established law of agricultural cooperative, union of the agricultural cooperative and the pre-agricultural cooperative. This royal decree is to define the establishment and functioning of the agricultural cooperative, the union of the agricultural cooperative and the pre-agricultural cooperative, referred to as “Agricultural Cooperative”. The sphere of activities of the three communities covers the agricultural sector as a whole, including the supply of material and all kinds of services at the disposal of farming production.
The agricultural cooperative provided for in this royal degree is a private legal entity whose capitals are variable and which has full legal competence, self-financing and self-control. The agriculture cooperative can be founded by a group of physical entities which from themselves on volunteer basis on their own initiatives in order to increase their efficiency and to contribute to socio-economic enhancement. Therefore as the Royal Decree itself defines, the agricultural cooperative is a commercial enterprise, which is democratically managed by its members, who contribute their capitals and hope for dividends, and are also willing to incur losses according to the proportion of their shares contributed. To be able to join the agricultural cooperative, all persons must have their prime business in agriculture or services related to the sector.
This Royal Decree does not covers organization, associations or similar agencies, which do not fall within the definition mentioned and are not subject to the law on commercial rule.
This policy provides a chance to community for starting collective business and government will provide support funds to start first and also deal other stakeholders to give soft load for community. In addition to this royal decree, communities of agricultural cooperative have official to import and export any agriculture equipment without tax.
- Lack of policy supporting activities of community on joint business;
- Not enough agencies to promote agriculture technique;
- Middle men always cheated farmers on price and quantity;
- Information flow related to business and technologies were limit in rural area;
- Official recognizing on mobilization of communities to joint activities in order to take commune benefit for commune had no;
- Communities had no enough capital to start business etc.
To address the issues above, in 2001, Royal Government of Cambodia established law of agricultural cooperative, union of the agricultural cooperative and the pre-agricultural cooperative. This royal decree is to define the establishment and functioning of the agricultural cooperative, the union of the agricultural cooperative and the pre-agricultural cooperative, referred to as “Agricultural Cooperative”. The sphere of activities of the three communities covers the agricultural sector as a whole, including the supply of material and all kinds of services at the disposal of farming production.
The agricultural cooperative provided for in this royal degree is a private legal entity whose capitals are variable and which has full legal competence, self-financing and self-control. The agriculture cooperative can be founded by a group of physical entities which from themselves on volunteer basis on their own initiatives in order to increase their efficiency and to contribute to socio-economic enhancement. Therefore as the Royal Decree itself defines, the agricultural cooperative is a commercial enterprise, which is democratically managed by its members, who contribute their capitals and hope for dividends, and are also willing to incur losses according to the proportion of their shares contributed. To be able to join the agricultural cooperative, all persons must have their prime business in agriculture or services related to the sector.
This Royal Decree does not covers organization, associations or similar agencies, which do not fall within the definition mentioned and are not subject to the law on commercial rule.
This policy provides a chance to community for starting collective business and government will provide support funds to start first and also deal other stakeholders to give soft load for community. In addition to this royal decree, communities of agricultural cooperative have official to import and export any agriculture equipment without tax.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Key Issues in Local Governance
Cambodia is still struggling to overcome serious challenges arising from weak governance, a nascent civil society, limited human resources, wide income disparities and poor economic policies. While there has been some economic growth, the benefits of growth have been captured largely by the urban populations. The key issues of this situation include:
Democratic representation: the role of councils at provincial/city, district/khan and commune/sangkat administrations is still limitation to establish effectively in accordance with the principles of democracy by expanding their powers, duties, responsibilities and resources. Additionally, councils have less knowledge and understanding on decentralization and de-concentration reforms of strategic framework of government.
Participation of the people: poor systems and procedures as ensure that people, especially women, vulnerable groups and indigenous minorities can participate in decision-making at provincial/city, district/khan and commune/sangkat levels. Actually, people rarely participate in development planning process; except CIP development process but it is still less participation. So, mostly the issues and needs of communities were not responded and resolved because of council’s capacity to promote people in CIP development process. Other hand, councils do not active to mobilize stakeholders to support their project; more over they misunderstand, especially they do not active cooperation with NGOs because of considering as anti-party or disturbing/competing with them. So it makes the gape largely because of communication and cooperation between council and CBOs.
Public sector accountability: less accountability at all levels of administration and facilitate citizen’s oversight of the administration and financial affairs of those administrations. Actually, councils never organize public forum to disseminate about the planning and budgeting to people.
Effectiveness: the public services are so far to citizens to participate in planning and monitoring public services in order to meet local needs and priorities. Predictably, issues and needs of communities are rarely approved or/and supported to take into planning by councils; furthermore the local development projects also have low quality because of council’s capacities on monitoring and evaluation inadequate and high-quality service providers.
Gender: Cambodia Gender empowerment measure is among the lowest in Asia, reflecting the extremely low representation of women in government, parliament, judiciary and at the commune and village levels. Social, legal and political institutions as well as norm perpetuate gender discrimination and vulnerability, including the incidence of gender-based violence (trafficking, domestic violence, rape and sexual exploitation), the transmission of HIV as well as the reported increase in the number of women and children trafficked into neighboring countries. Additionally, in rural, women farmers have limited opportunities to participate in training and exchange activities, largely because of the poor application of genuine participatory approach and gender mainstreaming in agricultural extension – both by Government and other provider.
Natural Resource Degradation: Although the Councils recognized the CBO, a gap between knowledge and understanding continued to exist. Communication and cooperation was still limited. Actually, the community had less voice in the local government - many cases of illegal fishing and natural resource occurred without prevention, there was less participation in the prevention and less communication and cooperation occurred between the existing CBOs and councils. In addition, the community had no representatives to present issues on behalf of the community to the councils to promote greater natural resource management.
Democratic representation: the role of councils at provincial/city, district/khan and commune/sangkat administrations is still limitation to establish effectively in accordance with the principles of democracy by expanding their powers, duties, responsibilities and resources. Additionally, councils have less knowledge and understanding on decentralization and de-concentration reforms of strategic framework of government.
Participation of the people: poor systems and procedures as ensure that people, especially women, vulnerable groups and indigenous minorities can participate in decision-making at provincial/city, district/khan and commune/sangkat levels. Actually, people rarely participate in development planning process; except CIP development process but it is still less participation. So, mostly the issues and needs of communities were not responded and resolved because of council’s capacity to promote people in CIP development process. Other hand, councils do not active to mobilize stakeholders to support their project; more over they misunderstand, especially they do not active cooperation with NGOs because of considering as anti-party or disturbing/competing with them. So it makes the gape largely because of communication and cooperation between council and CBOs.
Public sector accountability: less accountability at all levels of administration and facilitate citizen’s oversight of the administration and financial affairs of those administrations. Actually, councils never organize public forum to disseminate about the planning and budgeting to people.
Effectiveness: the public services are so far to citizens to participate in planning and monitoring public services in order to meet local needs and priorities. Predictably, issues and needs of communities are rarely approved or/and supported to take into planning by councils; furthermore the local development projects also have low quality because of council’s capacities on monitoring and evaluation inadequate and high-quality service providers.
Gender: Cambodia Gender empowerment measure is among the lowest in Asia, reflecting the extremely low representation of women in government, parliament, judiciary and at the commune and village levels. Social, legal and political institutions as well as norm perpetuate gender discrimination and vulnerability, including the incidence of gender-based violence (trafficking, domestic violence, rape and sexual exploitation), the transmission of HIV as well as the reported increase in the number of women and children trafficked into neighboring countries. Additionally, in rural, women farmers have limited opportunities to participate in training and exchange activities, largely because of the poor application of genuine participatory approach and gender mainstreaming in agricultural extension – both by Government and other provider.
Natural Resource Degradation: Although the Councils recognized the CBO, a gap between knowledge and understanding continued to exist. Communication and cooperation was still limited. Actually, the community had less voice in the local government - many cases of illegal fishing and natural resource occurred without prevention, there was less participation in the prevention and less communication and cooperation occurred between the existing CBOs and councils. In addition, the community had no representatives to present issues on behalf of the community to the councils to promote greater natural resource management.
View on Local Governance
On 14th-15th December 2009, FNP coordination team meeting was organized to discuss on strategy for 2010 to 2014. To make easier management, Farmer and Nature Program (FNP) is the main department of CEDAC, divided into 8 thematic. This program focuses on capacity building, leadership and management support to small farmers.
Local governance is the main thematic of FNP starting implementing since 2003. CEDAC viewed local governance is key theme let community get self reliance, find stakeholders and partners for assistance and link them to get public services of government. Additionally, NGOs and others assistance agencies cannot support as long as and as many as to meet all issues/needs of communities; there are public service include agriculture, irrigation, women affair, health etc.
Local governance is the main thematic of FNP starting implementing since 2003. CEDAC viewed local governance is key theme let community get self reliance, find stakeholders and partners for assistance and link them to get public services of government. Additionally, NGOs and others assistance agencies cannot support as long as and as many as to meet all issues/needs of communities; there are public service include agriculture, irrigation, women affair, health etc.
Local Govrnance Thematic
Cambodian Center for Study and Development in Agriculture (CEDAC) was found in 1997, in intail supported from GRET. Center was esblished to promote agro ecological innovation, mutual help among of rural people and local governance.
Farmer Nature Program is the main of CEDAC, that was divided into 8 thematic.
Farmer Nature Program is the main of CEDAC, that was divided into 8 thematic.
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