Joint Letter on the 2021 Administration Budget

Last week, API endorsed a position paper our partners from the NGO Forum addressed to the National Assembly and the Royal Government of Cambodia, requesting that the current draft of the law on the National Budget for 2021 be reconsidered. The network grouping together various civil society organisations is mainly worried about the impact of the planned budget cuts on the ability of the subnational administrations to properly exercise the functions prescribed to them by the existing legislative framework, as well as by the committments to make further progress towards decentralisation and deconcentration in the years to come.

API shares these worries and has always been advocating for a meaningful delegation of competences from the central to the local levels of the administration, as long as this means really bringing decision making proceses closer to citizens, as long as this enables actual, broad and inclusive participation and, at the end of the day, as long as this improves the quality of the public services offered. There is, however, no point in transferring competences, if the corresponding budgets are not available. Therefore, we would like to insist that these reforms should be followed through in a substantial, sustainable and efficient, rather than in a merely formal way. Khmer readers can consult the full text of the position paper here.