Consultative Meeting on “Promoting more effective partnership
between INGOs and other CSOs” building on Oxfam’s “Future
Roles of INGO in Cambodia”, 24 Feb 2015
“Building partnership and joint advocacy in
Cambodia”
Mr. Sinthay Neb,
Director, the Advocacy and Policy
Institute (API)
1
Why we think the issues discussed
today are important
• Why? Because a strong civil society is the best guarantee for
influencing policy change and sustainable development.
• Why? Because only when civil society is strong citizens can
influence the conditions that make for their well-being
• Many donors have been interested in supporting NGOs
working together
• When we get together and act collectively to pursue our
interests
• Only by acting together NGOs become strong.
• NGOs can be acted together if they really share the objective,
agree upon a common strategy, trust the way they have
organized themselves.
2
Monday 30 March 2009
How partnership has come about?
There are varieties of ways that the partnership has come
together.
• commonly begin with their own interest on the same issue.
• Motivation to come together encouraged from their analysis.
• Have had prior experiences of working together to certain
extent on same issues and activities of common concerns.
• Have interest and need in working together more.
• Require a multi-sectoral approach across various levels.
• Because each sectors and level requires specific skills and
expertise – it is only by combining these skills that can make
big impact/results.
• The personal close relationship between leaders of
organizations is the major mechanism for working together.
For examples:
There are groups who come together and
committed to work together on specific issues and
policies.
1. NGO law
2. Access to Information law
3. Cybercrime law
4. New road traffic law
5. Etc.
• These seem to share a common set of
characteristics/principles
– Joint objectives
– Joint perspectives
– Joint strategies
– Joint responsibilities
– Shared interests
– Joint achievements
5
What would be the constraint and
Challenges?
We have faced similar constraints and challenges.
• Leadership: It is often seen in partnership/cooperation
groups whose leaders’ quality is lack on facilitation,
delegation of tasks and responsibilities, and help moving
things forward.
• weakening strategic focus: advocacy strategy.
• Competing between small (or lack of resources) and big
(more resources) NGOs as well as between NGOs and IOs.
• Time and resource availability: There are always constraints
in term of time management, availability and resource
availability. Sometime, member of NGOs could not keep up
with the commitment.
What we can do next….
• There have been many recommendations from all sections of
society, and particularly from CSOs themselves, supporting
the idea that it would be more productive if Cambodian CSOs
and IOs could work together to produce a common strategic
vision identifying clear directions for CSOs, clear roles for
CSOs and key focuses for CSOs so that they can be stronger,
be in harmony and be better prepared in the future to respond
to national and global development trends.
• In the meantime CSOs including IOs can improve their
networking, increase and reinforce their solidarity and foster
harmony among themselves so that they can build a strong
voice to advocate on emerging issues in Cambodia
particularly those that are related to the laws/regulation/policy
formulation.
• Following from what has been said, civil society
organisations in Cambodia, including API and its
partners and networks require to have a clear advocacy
strategy for enhancing their efforts for policy
engagement and change.
• This requires well coordinated, supported and sound
policy to encourage and ensure effective participation
and valid contributions to enable CSOs to continue their
vital work in addressing the needs of Cambodia,
particularly promoting human rights, democratic
principles, people’s welfare and ensuring an enabling
environment for sustainable development of Cambodia.
In short…
• In the current context of Cambodia, support to civil
society is definitely a key priority for the near future, an
essential element in the continuing process of
democratizing the country.
• Despite the important efforts of many DPs in supporting
CSOs since the 90s, civil society is not yet fully
prepared to face the challenges entrenched in their
emerging roles within the democratic space.
• The complexity and multiplicity of the roles that CSOs
are called to play within the changing institutional and
political context of Cambodia are still not reflected into
the practices of civil society support.
Thank you…
…Questions?