Cambodia and WB push state institutions and civil society for partnership

By Chhay Sophal/CHEMS for PCO

Phnom Penh (4 December, 2013): The Project Coordination Office (PCO) of the Ministry of Interior (MoI) this week has provided capacity building on knowledge, skills and real practice of partnership to officials from state and non-state institutions of both national and sub-national levels.

The training – with support from the World Bank and in cooperation with SILAKA — was done at Governance Resource & Learning Center (GLRC) inside the MoI from Tuesday to Thursday.

Speaking in his opening remarks, Mr. Hov Lenin — PCO Acting Project Manager — said the training is part of a series of capacity building made by the Demand for Good Governance (DFGG) and GLRC.

After briefing on the background and objectives of the DFGG, Mr. Lenin said although the royal government’s rectangular strategy in the second term (2008-2013) has focused on partnership and effective mechanism to generate and coordinate between state and non-state institutions for partnering, the attitude for working together among them is still limited.

“In this regards, it is necessary that the government and civil society must continue to make more efforts in order to improve partnership, leading to achieve deep and comprehensive reform,” he said, adding that partnering would create leadership and ownership for real transparency and accountability, including “sustainable development, equity and social justice”.

During the two and haft day training course, Ken Caplan — American who is the Director of the UK-based Charity and Building Partnership for Development — was invited to be the trainer.

Ken told the participants who are the key government officials from both national and sub-national level and leaders from NGOs and media that the training aims to build awareness of available knowledge and resources about partnerships between state and non-state actors in Cambodia; develop practical and analytical partnering skill; and support the application skills and knowledge to current partnering challenges.

The topic of “Promoting partnerships between state and non-state institutions” for the training is selected from a result found in the DFGG Research on Partnerships from June 2012 to March 2013. The research – made through interviews with numerous government, civil society representatives and academics; conducting mini-workshops in Phnom Penh and Email surveys with local non-governmental organisations — found that most of the respondents need capacity building on the topic.

It is the sixth training this year that the DFGG or GLRC has conducted and the training is part of the learning programs of the DFGG implemented by both the Royal government of Cambodia and the World Bank.