Innovations for Social Accountability in Cambodia (2020-2024)

Ta Khmao, the capital of the province of Kandal, has not had a lot of experience with implementing social accountability related initiatives yet. Therefore, this API project funded by the USAID through Family Health International (FHI360) is undertaking various activities aimed at helping citizens improve their capacity of requesting public information, networking for collective action, and developing solutions to the problems facing the local community. Using modern tech solutions, API will thus enable residents to score the performance of public service providers and actively participate in developing and implementing joint accountability action plans with representatives of local authorities. The total budget of the initiative is 380,000 US dollars. Read our latest report here or watch our informative animation.

Access for All (A4A): Promoting Access to Information in Cambodia (2020-2023)

In this endeavour which benefits from funding through a grant offered by the US Department of State, we are focusing on increasing the availability of public information in indigenous communities, especially among indigenous women. Recent studies have shown that, in Cambodia, women from vulnerable groups often do not have the necessary means to exercise and defend their rights in case of disputes or even in everyday life situations. Limited access to education, but also limited access to public information are definitely the main causes of a state of affairs where influential private entities are taking advantage of indigenous women groups, while state officials do not always treat them as equal to any other Cambodian citizen. Collective property rights and land concessions are undoubtedly one of the main issues here, yet the underlying problem is more general. Therefore, together with our partners from the East-West Management Institute (EWMI), we are focusing on building capacity in these communities, by offering tailor-made training courses covering topics such as grassroots advocacy, requesting information from public authorities or budget control skills. At the same time, we are working on a dedicated online learning platform, as well as on two tracking tools meant to help indigenous women monitor the legal compliance of land concessions and the public spending by district administrations. The project is being implemented in three provinces, with a total budget of almost 200,000 US dollars. You can read our annual project report here and watch our documentary video series by clicking on this link.

Citizens’ Voices and Actions for Sustainable Development in Cambodia (2019-2025)

Benefiting from the generous support of DanChurchAid (DCA) and Bread for the World to the tune of almost 600,000 dollars, this ambitious endeavour has the overall objective of fulfilling the rights and enhancing the voices of citizens, in an effort to make the country's development more sustainable. On the one hand, we want to actively engage right holders, especially women, youth, people with disability, low income citizens and their community based organisations (CBOs), encouraging them to get involved in the processes of public planning and budgeting at the district level. The latter has been playing a much bigger role since 2020. Citizens and CBOs should hold authorities accountable for service delivery and budget implementation. On the other hand, we would like to see an improvement in the citizens’ access to public information, especially when it comes to public budgets. We are pursuing activities related to this project in nine provinces. You can read our latest report, watch our project videos, or dive into the details following this link.

Supporting Meaningful Civic Engagement for Improved Accountability by Leveraging Digital Technologies (2019-2023)

In a similar vein, API has joined a partnership with CARE Cambodia and InSTEDD in order to enhance citizens’ participation through innovative tech solutions. The EU granted API 425,000 euro for this endeavour, which is part of Implementing the Social Accountability Framework (I-SAF), a broad reform agenda assumed by the Government, and supported by development partners and civil society. While our overall objective is to develop effective, accountable and transparent institutions and ensure public access to information, we are specifically concentrating on empowering young women belonging to indigenous minority groups, as well as on building the capacity of the Community Accountability Facilitators (CAFs) in four provinces.

The project produced lots of results in 2022 despite, the COVID-19 challenges. The consortium partners carried out information for citizens (I4C) awareness raising activities, reaching over 30,000 citizens to improve citizens ' understanding of their rights, standards and performance as well as budget information on communes, schools, and health centre services. The citizen monitoring activities achieved to organise 96% of the 1,086 planned community scorecards and service provider self-assessment meetings despite the disruption of the commune election in early June 2022. The joint accountability action plans (JAAP) implemented 78% of the 1,926 actions planned in 2022.

As a result of the above activities, the target community gained enhanced knowledge on rights, the standards, and duties of elected commune councils. They gained confidence to give feedback and ask questions to local authorities about commune, school, and health centre activities. The key target groups – in particular youth, women and ethnic minorities –, demonstrated behavioural changes, such as an increased use of health centre services during pregnancy, motivating their children to attend school and registering birth certificates at the commune office. The scorecard provided insight into the improvement criteria of standards and performance of public services raised by citizens. The service providers took responsive action to improve soft-skills and small-scale infrastructure, including women’s toilets, ramps for people with disability, and office materials and equipment that enhance service delivery. The digitised community scorecard application (DCSC App) was improved for easier use and to address software bugs. Input for ideas was sought from 70% of participants (8,634 people, 62% women).

The newly designed workplan to strengthen the capacity of Community Accountability Facilitators (CAFs) was developed and implemented. For the new 2023 fiscal year, 100% of JAAP were developed in 181 planned communes.

Advocacy and Policy Institute (API), Innovative Support to Emergencies Diseases and Disasters (InSTEDD) and CARE International in Cambodia with the local partners:

Change the Game Academy for Local Resource Mobilisation Capacity in Cambodia (2019-2023)

Our objective here is to secure the resources civil society organisations can rely on in order to sustain their operations in Cambodia by building their organisational and leadership capacity of local resource mobilisation and mobilising support/advocacy. The funding for these measures, is coming from the Wilde Ganzen Foundation in the Netherlands, API being one of the national partners in the implementation. The other partner is the Cooperation Committee for Cambodia (CCC), and, together, we are striving to make sure this learning programme meets international standards, while addressing the concrete needs of the local participants. You can experience more about this project here, read our latest report, and watch some of our videos. You can also book our courses here.

Youths Debate the Development of the Cambodian Access to Information Law (2019-2023)

Here, the objective was to create a new dynamic in a push for the Government and the Parliament to discuss, improve and pass the Cambodian access to information law. Our method of choice was inviting youth from all provinces to Phnom Penh, and have them debate about this topic. Although the law was not passed in 2020, the draft has been greatly improved due to our advocacy efforts. The project benefited from the support of the Swiss Development Cooperation Agency (SDC), DanChurchAid (DCA) and Bread for the World. You can consult our last report, listen to the debates or watch our project video here.

Voices and Actions of Young Women Leaders and Entrepreneurs (2019-2023)

Under Pact Cambodia’s WE Act project, API has joined forces with the Independent Democracy of Informal Economy Association (IDEA), which is an association currently representing hundreds of informal street and market vendors in Phnom Penh, of whom 95% are women. Together, we are trying to strengthen their capacity to mobilise support and engage in advocacy, based on API’s facilitation expertise. Our key target group here are 20 local young women leaders who are learning to negotiate for their and their groups of market and street vendors’ concerns. Ten further participants from other women’s micro-entrepreneur networks and/or youth leaders have been invited to join API’s applied advocacy capacity development programme. This initiative is funded by USAID, the total budget being around 35,000 dollars. After 2020, in the context of the growing social problems caused by the Covid pandemic, the project is focusing increasingly on the issue of social protection. You can read our latest report here.

One Window for Citizens (2019-2022)

API is implementing this civic tech undertaking in a consortium with Nickol Global Solutions (NGS) and InSTEDD, our budget share being 460,000 dollars, financed by the USAID. The aim is to design and deploy technical innovations in order to stimulate citizen engagement, comprehension and awareness of, as well as demand for quality in the public services offered by the One Window Service Offices under the authority of the district and provincial administrations. We focus on the provinces of Battambang, Kampong Chhnang and Banteay Meanchey in an effort to increase accountability. You can find out more details about this here and read our latest report here.

Pidor Facebook ChatBot

OW4C Public Dashboard

Enhancing Institutional and Operational Capacities of the Provincial Associations of Local Councils (2019-2021)

This EU funded project focuses on strengthening the capacity of the Provincial Associations of Local Councillors (PALCs) and their members, by promoting accountability, transparency and responsiveness to the demands of citizens and the needs of vulnerable groups. With a total budget of almost 450,000 euro and six target provinces, it is one of API’s bigger projects, and we implement it in a joint venture with the Provincial Association of Local Councillors in Pursat and Aide Et Action International (AEA). You can find detailed information about this endeavour here, read our latest report, watch our project videos or follow the media coverage of this initiative.

Voices and Actions of People with Disabilities in Social Accountability (2019-2021)

For API, inclusion is essential, especially when it comes to the issue of participation in local decision making processes. The main goal of this project is therefore to amplify the voices of persons with disabilities. This will provide them both the opportunity to make themselves heard, and an enhanced access to more equitable, quality public services. The target district is Tramkak in the Takeo Province, and the funding, around 150,000 dollars, is provided by the Dutch Foreign Ministry’s Voice grant facility, managed by Oxfam in Cambodia. Our partner in this initiative is Epic Arts. You can read more about this flagship project here. You can also download our latest report, watch our project videos, dive into the materials we produced for our National Conference on Social Accountability at the beginning of 2020, or learn more about inclusion in I-SAF by watching our training series dedicated to this topic.

Citizens’ Voices and Actions in Social Accountability (2019-2021)

Also as part of Implementing the Social Accountability Framework (I-SAF) and as a first, API and Oxfam brought the idea of social accountability to Phnom Penh, more specifically to the administrative unit of Khan Sen Sok, insisting that local authorities and service providers such as primary schools and health centres need to be responsive to the citizens’ feedback and demands. We are also exploring how social accountability can be expanded to social protection services like the application process for equity cards that entitle low income and otherwise disadvantaged citizens to free of charge health services. The public should know what the service standards and the costs of these services are, and should be able to provide opinions and influence changes. In 2019 and 2020, Oxfam Cambodia has supported this piloting effort with 50,000 dollars per year. Watch the videos of some of our project activities here, learn more from our informative animations here, or read our latest report here.

Strengthening Youth Participation in Local Planning and Budgeting (2019-2021)

We insist on improving the quality of social services offered by local authorities, and one way to do this is to encourage young people to participate in the planning and budgeting processes. This initiative is funded by UNICEF, with almost 130,000 dollars. The target districts are in Phnom Penh, Kandal and Kratie. You can read our latest project report and watch a TV talk-show about it here.

Enhancing Local Democratic Governance in Cambodia (2018-2020)

This project set out to strengthen local governance and social accountability in four communes of the Kampong Thom and Banteay Meanchey provinces. It was funded by UNDEF with a total budget of 150,000 dollars. To achieve our goals, we focused on citizens’ participation in monitoring service delivery by local authorities, and we benchmarked this by two citizen scorecard surveys. The first served as the baseline, expressing citizens’ needs and demands, while the end survey evaluated the results achieved. The scorecard findings can be read here. API worked with three implementing partners, the Cambodian Organisation for Women Support (COWS) in Kampong Thom, the Village Support Group (VSG) in Banteay Meanchey, while the Coalition for Partnership in Sub-National Democratic Development (CPDD) disseminated the results in a national conference on social accountability in February 2020. You can read our last project report here.

Promoting Rights, Voices, Choices and Decisions for Citizens (Pro-Citizens, 2016-2019)

Objective: Contributing to improve local governances and democratic participation of citizens.

Result:

Implementation of the Social Accountability Framework (I-SAF, 2016-2018)

Overall Objective: To reduce poverty through democratic, inclusive and equitable local governance and more accessible and equitable public service delivery.

Specific Objective:To enhance the performance, responsiveness and accountability of local government and service providers (specifically communes, health centres and primary schools) in 20 districts Ratanakiri, Mondulkiri, Koh Kong, and Kampot.

Result:

Promoting good governance by increasing access to information and strengthening the independent media (2015-2018)

Overall Objective: To contribute to a more equitable, open and democratic Cambodia by increasing access to information, a demand for good governance, and an independent media

Specific Objectives:

Result:

Enhancing the citizens’ access to public information through using mobile technology (APIM, 2015-2016)

Overall Objective: To contribute to poverty reduction and better protection and promotion of rights and voices, particularly for young people, women and vulnerable people and groups, by promoting a culture of public information disclosure, strengthening democratic participation, and transparency and accountability within the Decentralisation and De-concentration framework in Cambodia, particularly in the targeted Commune and District Councils, and advocating for equitable

Result:

Working Towards an Access to Information Law in Cambodia: Bridging the Government and Citizens for Participatory Law-Making (2014-2018)

Overall Objective: To support the drafting of an effective Cambodian Access to Information law by engaging the sectoral base, assessing the policy gaps, and providing inputs for integration.

Result:

Strengthening Democratic Governance (SDG, 2014-2018)

Overall Objective: To enhance the availability of public information to the public through mobile technology and improve two-way communications in order to ensure transparency, responsiveness and accountability of the local councils within local citizens in target areas.

Results:

Increasing Access to Public Information (IAPI, 2013-2015)

Overall Objective: To contribute to poverty reduction and better protection and promotion of rights and voices, particularly for young people, women and vulnerable people and groups, by promoting a culture of public information disclosure, strengthening democratic participation, and transparency and accountability within the Decentralisation and De-concentration framework in Cambodia, particularly in the targeted Commune and District Councils, and advocating for equitable and sustainable public policy.

Specific Objective: was to increase access to information for both the public and sub-national authorities as fundamental to effective participation and accountability in sub-national governance.

Targeted areas: 49 communes and 10 districts of 5 provinces: Targeted groups: Youth (young), women/mothers, fishermen, farmers, elderly people, people with disabilities, and members of Community Based Organizations

Result:

Strengthening Action for Enhanced Road Safety in Cambodia (SAFER Cambodia, 2013-2014)

Overall Objective: Strengthen the law against drinking and driving and to improve its implementation, in contributing to saving lives and reducing injuries from drinking driving related accidents in Cambodia.

Result:

API and CRY, with the support of the National and Provincial Raod Safety Committees, organised five public policy forums on drinking and driving in five provicnes with 398 participants (44 women). 15 focus groups discussions were organised during the forum. Findings from the forums exposed gaps in existing road traffic law related to drinking and driving, the current policy is casual and inadequate. There are gaps in traffic law enforcement on drinking and driving as traffic police are not strict and do not enforce the law on powerful and influential rich people. The police lacked equipment and techniques to implement this law. At the forum, a survey conducted with 320 people showed 88% of the respondents support developing a policy on drinking and driving. Recommendations were made to establish a strict policy/legislation, imposing serious penalties, strengthening an approach to prevent drinking and driving, and also accelerating an alcohol policy.

A RSN meeting was conducted and eight main topics were presented and discussed. As a result participants knowledge on road safety increased, an issues statement was produced and some challenges were solved. By June, 25 questionnaires were completed. The team continues to follow up remaining RSN members who have not yet completed the questionnaire.

The project team also attended a number of activities which were organised by the Cambodian Red Cross, NRSC, HIB, CRY, and AIP Foundation.

Four main challenges were encountered. Firstly, it was difficult to get Government speakers and make them in focusing on topic. Secondly, the National and Provincial RSC illustrated its limited ownership in the activity. Thirdly, addressing the findings of issue gaps in policy and enforcement with new drafted traffic law. Fourthly, time constraints in developing advocacy training materials fit for all stakeholders. In addition API has its challenge of investing more staff than planned in the project implementation.

Promoting the Effectiveness Of Public Expenditure in Local Education (PEOPLE, 2012-2014)

The Advocacy and Policy Institute (API) in partnership with the Cambodia-ASEAN Center for Human Rights Development (CACHRD) is implementing a project ‘Promoting the Effectiveness Of Public expenditure in Local Education’ funded by USAID through Result for Development (R4D) 2012-2014. This project aims to promote public accountability and enhance the effectiveness of public expenditure in the education sector, particularly early childhood education through conducting evidence-based research and advocacy activities.

Objectives: To promote public accountability and enhance the effectiveness of public expenditures in the education sector, particularly the early childhood education and care by conducting evidence-based research and advocacy activities.

Actions & Results:

One Window Service Offices (2012-2013)

Enhancing People’s Participation in One Window Service

01 January – 31 December 2012

Actions & Results:

3,714 citizens directly engaged with technical staff, leaders, and policy makers of OWSO at national and sub-national levels through giving their feedback and inputs in 17 OWSO public fora and conducting social accountability tool which called “Citizen Feedback” survey. Citizens’ questions and recommendations were recorded, analysed and provided to OWSO and DO leaders to improve the services. Drawing on the survey findings, we propose the following recommendations towards improving OWSO’s service delivery as well as DO’s performance for stakeholders’ consideration: Realise access to information, maintain and improve current performance as a majority of clients confirm their basic satisfaction, ensure the sustainability of OWSO, delegate appropriate functions to OWSO so it can facilitate requisite paperwork/documentation for its clients to access services, promote proactive District Ombudsmen; addressing the issue of OWSO staffing, both technical staff and its leadership, will contribute to improving OWSO’s performance, professionalism and client satisfaction, which will result in fewer complaints, a clear mapping of OWSO clients and potential clients in each target area in close cooperation with local authorities, Line ministries should delegate to OWSO the whole set of official procedures/functions required to deliver a complete service, especially given that the name “One Window Service Office” implies it provides all relevant services at one place and there should be more OWSOs at the district offices for rural and poor potential clients who do not live in or near the municipality.

OWSO located in Chbar Mon, Kompong Chhnang and Pursat Municipalities accepted citizen’s feedbacks, met with project key stakeholders at provincial levels every six months to address the OWSO challenges both technical and staffing issues.

OWSO have provided services to business people, farmers, women, students, civil servants, motorcycle and car owners and heads of households. Base on citizen satisfaction survey business person (52 percent), farmer or labourer (12 percent), teacher (8 percent), public servant (7 percent), student (6 percent), while the rest responded taxi driver, motor driver, nurse and homemaker (15 percent) accessed OWSO services.

OWSO provided 10,835 services to approximately 6,270 clients with total income US$59,286.33 in 2012.

People’s Access to Public Information (2012-2013)

Funded by United Nations Democracy Fund (UNDEF)

Amount of the UNDEF grant: USD 200,000.00

Objectives: Improve access to information and information disclosure happening in six communes in three provinces.

Actions & Results:

The Access Initiative Country Report (TAI, 2012)

The TAI Cambodia Coalition is comprised of the following organizations: The Advocacy and Policy Institute (API), the Community Legal Education Center (CLEC), the Culture and Environment Preservation Association (CEPA) and the Centre of Development Oriented Research in Agriculture and Livelihood Systems (CENTDOR). The Coalition has produced the first assessment report on environmental issues in Cambodia by focusing on areas of access to information, public participation, access to justice and capacity building in 2010. TAI Cambodia works to promote access to information, good governance of natural resources, transparency, social accountability and responsive government.

All 18 case studies were prepared by the TAI-Cambodia Research Team of 22 researchers.

The 18 case studies in the report were consolidated and synthesized by Dr. Raymond Leos in cooperation with Mr. Neb Sinthay and Mr. Lam Socheat. All the researchers used the assessment method developed by The Access Initiative, a global network of civil society organizations.

TAI Cambodia gratefully acknowledges the World Resources Institute for establishing the Global TAI and technical support.

Unless otherwise noted, the opinions, interpretations and findings presented in this document are the responsibility of the TAI Cambodia Coalition. For additional information about The Access Initiative, including its members and leadership, please see www.accessinitiative.org

Strengthening Cambodian Sub-National Democratic Development (2011-2013)

Enhancing the Democratic Space (2011-2012)

Support to Improved Access to Information in Cambodia (2010-2011)

Working with the Cambodian Parliament to Support Information Disclosure and an Access to Information Law (2010-2011)

Strengthening civil society to actively engage with the National Assembly (2008-2010)