BackIntroduction
In
early 2002, NGOs in Cambodia decided that their NGO Statement to the 2002
Consultative Group Meeting would focus on poverty reduction, and that this
statement would be their main source of new input to the National Poverty
Reduction Strategy (NPRS). This
document provides a rapid comparison of the recommendations provided in the
NGO Statement and the corresponding contents of the final NPRS.
The
NGO Statement was a collaborative effort between three NGO membership
organizations, namely the Cooperation Committee for Cambodia (CCC), the NGO
Forum on Cambodia and the MEDiCAM association of NGOs working in health,
together with contributions from various NGO sectoral networks.
The final document included a main statement followed by 22 sectoral
and issues papers. When NGO
sectoral groups were invited to the 28-29 May NPRS workshop, they used their
sectoral papers as their main written contribution to the small group
discussions. The NGO Statement
was also presented by NGO delegates at the Consultative Group meeting on 19-21
June 2002, and is part of the official Consultative Group meeting
documentation available on the web-site of the Council for the Development of
Cambodia. The NGO Statement built
on and added to the existing NGO submissions to the national strategic
planning process, namely:
§
“Results
of Initial Discussions among NGOs/CSOs on the National Poverty Reduction
Strategy of Cambodia” (November 2000), a publication of the NGO Forum on
Cambodia, produced after two months of sectoral discussions and the holding of
a national workshop on the I-PRSP in October 2000 involving 85 NGO
representatives.
§
“Results
of NGO Discussions on the Draft Socio-Economic Development Plan” (August
2001), produced following a meeting of 32 NGO representatives from a variety
of sectors in July 2001.
§
“NGO
Recommendations to Enhance the Success of the RGC's Governance Action Plan”
(June 2002), a publication of the NGO Forum on Cambodia, produced with the
input of 6 focus groups discussions involving a total of 98 informants, plus
53 individual informants.
Following
distribution of the first draft of the NPRS in the 26-27 August 2002 National
Workshop, the NGO Forum produced, in September 2002, a report entitled
“Cambodia’s draft Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper – Has NGO Input Been
Included?” This report focused
on the chapters in the first draft of the NPRS dealing with: the Macroeconomic
Framework; Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries; Health; Education; Rural
Development; Water Resource and Management; Land Policy and Urbanization;
Trade; Gender; Natural Resources and Environment; and Governance.
It also made general comments on the participatory process and about
the need for prioritization.
Following
release of the second draft on 30 October 2003, the NGO Forum produced “A
Rapid Comparison of the NGO Statement to the 2002 CG Meeting and the Second
Draft of the PRSP in Cambodia”, which is the predecessor of this report.
The
second and final drafts of the NPRS incorporated some of the issues raised in
the above-mentioned report. However,
the addition of these issues in the main text is not likely to assure their
execution unless they are also reflected in the NPRS matrices and related to
costed actions with monitorable indicators.
There are also many other issues mentioned in the NGO Statement to the
2002 CG Meeting which are not reflected in the final draft of the NPRS.
It is not suggested that the final NPRS should necessarily include all
these issues. Indeed, NGOs have
emphasized that the NPRS should undergo a prioritization exercise to determine
what should be included and what should not.
Also, the NPRS is just one of many government documents, and many NGO
recommendations may well be heeded without their explicit inclusion in the
NPRS.
It is hoped that this rapid assessment will provide a useful tool for assessing which NGO recommend-ations have been included in the final revision of the NPRS, and where there is room for further NGO advocacy. For explanation of the issues from which these recommendations arise, please refer to the full text of the NGO Statement to the 2002 CG Meeting.