New CAFs Learn about I-SAF

In the second week of November 2021, our Digital I-SAF project team held a series of training sessions in two districts of Mondulkiri, teaching 16 new community accountability facilitators (CAFs) the basics of implementing the social accountability framework. In both Ou Reang and Pich Da, the freshly recruited volunteers belong to the Bunong indigenous group, and most of them are young women. The main objective of the training sessions was to enable them to conduct the information for citizens (I4C) and budget disclosure campaigns, to facilitate community scorecards and interface meetings, helping the residents of their communities take evaluate the performance of public service providers and take part in the drafting of joint accountability action plans (JAAPs). Most of the participants proved to be very active and showed satisfaction with the dynamic learning methods we proposed. During the session, some of the new CAFs raised the question of language accessibility, which is especially relevant for elderly indigenous people who are not always able to read texts in Khmer. The planned I4C campaign will thus have to rely on audio material in the Bunong minority language too, in order to make sure that all residents actually understand their rights vis-à-vis public service providers. This activity is part of our project called “Supporting Meaningful Civic Engagement for Improved Accountability by Leveraging Digital Technologies“, which is funded by the European Union and implemented by API in partnership with CARE Cambodia, as well as with local NGOs. In Mondulkiri, our efforts benefitted from the help of our partners from the Alliance for Conflict Transformation (ACT).