Phnom Penh, February 17, 2016: Council of Ministers’ Department of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) arranged a dialogue between Ministry of Interior (MoI), Ministry of Foreign Affairs Cambodia (MoFAC), and approximately 70 CSOs representatives from various sectors in Cambodia. Within this rare dialogue opportunity, CSO Representatives have raised the most concerns and problems, which have been facing in Cambodia. Those include:
1. Restriction from authorities to implement their activities-asking permission where the law allows notification only
2. Limitation of freedom of expression
3. Arresting of the environmentalists
4. The slow respond of competent ministry on administrative procedure regarding registration application or change the head of NGOs
5. Concern on the implementation of LANGOs and
6. Collaboration between CSOs and all level of authorities to conduct the activities smoothly to contribute developing the country, especially asking for formal meeting between CSOs and Prime Minister.
In response, the Department of CSOs of the council of ministers committed to:
1. Arrange such event happen quarterly
2. MoI will host Dissemination and Consultative Workshop on Implementation of LANGOs,
3. Accelerate the registration procedures and firmly responsive
4. Create technical working group to handle the specific issues
5. Create a new Facebook page to response the issues on time and
6. Reporting to supervisor to intervene any other issue raised in the meeting.