United Nations Capital Development Fund

1999 Project Evaluation Results
Prepared by the UNCDF Evaluation Unit

Cambodia

I. Basic Project Data

Project Number:	CMB/97/CO1
Type of Evaluation:	Final
Project Title:	Cambodia Local Development Fund
UN Cooperating Agency:	UNDP
Government Executing Agency:	Royal Government of Cambodia
Sector:	Integrated Rural Development
Date Project Approved:	May 1997
Date Project Began:	July 1997
Date Project Evaluated:	August 1999
UNCDF Budget:	US$ 4,526,400
Total Budget:	4,526,400
UNCDF Expenditures at Evaluation:	4,526,400

II. Background

Following the Paris Peace Accord of 1991, hundreds of thousands of refugees moved into the province of Battambang and then into Banteay Meanchey and other areas. In 1992, The Cambodian Area Resettlement and Reintegration Project (CARERE1) was established by UNDP in Battambang and Banteay Meanchey to provide emergency relief and support for the villages where the refugees were placed. In 1995, CARERE2 moved the focus of the project from emergency relief mode to a more developmental mode, and the UNCDF’s Local Development Fund (LDF) concept with its Local Planning Process (LPP) was integrated as a pilot project.

The thirty-year period of war and civil strife has left the country’s infrastructure in disrepair, with secondary roads in constant need of repair, and main arterial roads in need of upgrading. Poorly designed irrigation structures have broken down, leaving most farmers dependent on rainfall for their crops. In addition, crop loss due to drought and flood has become common. Only a small percentage of the population has access to reliable water for domestic use. Schools are in a state of disrepair with leaky roofs and flooded classrooms during the rainy season. The greatest concern is the effect of the war on human resources and institutions, the economy, society, culture, religion, and the sense of community. These events have had an enormous influence on the process of development.

III. The Project

This project is considered an experiment in decentralized planning and financing of participatory rural development. It is an experiment in restructuring local government institutions, building their capacity, and strengthening civil society, while at the same time building infrastructure. The project is a partnership between the Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC), UNDP and UNCDF. SEILA is the inter-ministerial task force that oversees the project in the five provinces of Battambang, Banteay Meanchey, Siem Reap, Pursat and Ratanakiri, CARERE is funded by UNDP, and the LDF by UNCDF and other donors.
The overall development objective of the SEILA/CARERE/LDF project is to alleviate poverty and spread peace in Cambodia by strengthening the bonds linking society to the structures of the State, and empowering the Cambodian rural population to become fully participating members in the development process through decentralized governance.
The five immediate objectives are:

To develop a participatory, demand-driven process of rural development, infrastructure planning and implementation;
To fund the construction of priority rural infrastructure projects identified through this participatory process;
To augment and institutionalize the capacity of the Provincial Rural Development Committees (PRDCs);
To augment and institutionalize the capacity of the Village Development Committees (VDCs) and Commune Development Committees (CDCs);
To establish incentives for increased internal support for rural infrastructure projects through financial, in-kind, and technical contributions from central government and from local communities, while at the same time developing a sense of “ownership” for the local projects.

IV. Findings of the Evaluation Mission

SEILA/CARERE/LDF has been an enormously ambitious and costly project. It has attempted to reinvent a local government process and deliver vitally needed infrastructure development at the same. Although there is scope for improvement and much hard work yet to be done to institutionalize the structures and processes that have been created, the system supported by the project has been a major achievement. The SEILA/CARERE/LDF system has accomplished the following:

The project has more than achieved all of its goals and objectives and the outputs described in the main phase document.
It has assisted the governments in the five SEILA provinces in establishing a participatory decentralized local government planning and development system in a government/society known for its top down hierarchical style of rule.
It has established a precedent in local government in Cambodia whereby a certain percentage of government committee members must be women.
The system is formally accepted by the RGC and is looked upon by most government officials as the model for decentralized local government in all provinces.
It has had a major influence in the drafting of new local government laws and with the formulation of the Commune Councils in the year 2,000, which is seen as a move towards the democratization of local government.

As of August 1999, the LDF has supported the establishment of 1,144 locally elected VDCs, 134 CDCs, and five PRDCs, five Secretariats and five Ex-Com Committees, all fully staffed by government civil servants.

Due to the lack of baseline data, it is difficult to measure impact; however, from what the Evaluation Team (ET) has observed, the project has attained the immediate objectives beyond expectations. Projects are, on the whole, being completed in a satisfactory manner in less time than planned; villagers are identifying and prioritizing their needs at the grassroots level; and VDCs and CDCs are turning them into viable projects. The provincial government, through the newly established PRDCs, Executive Committee, and Secretariat, is establishing local development bodies and assisting them in designing and implementing the projects. On the whole, local government is markedly different from what it was four years ago. The project has also developed a financial management system that is providing transparency, good tracking, and accountability. In addition, a Decentralized Development Fund (DDF) has been established that provides a system for other donors to invest development funds directly from central government to the provinces. The monitoring and evaluation (M & E) of the projects is carried out by technical staff of the government who have also established a bidding process for contractors.

There are still many problems, particularly the lack of full village participation in the process. Some people and groups are not sufficiently engaged and sometimes are not properly informed. Maintenance of completed projects is a big problem. The project team is aware of this and is working to build up a viable system to address this. Capacities are still low compared to other countries, and planning is still in the beginning stages at the CDC and VDC level.

Key Issues

A. Institutions and Capacity Building

One of the most important results in institutional building is the large increase in communication from the villages through all levels of government. People all through the system have been taught to brainstorm, to ask questions, and to state opinions. Higher government bodies are responding through district integration workshops and through technical and facilitation staff, whose roles are to work with the VDCs and CDCs. Communication has also been greatly enhanced between sectoral ministries through these various structures. Government staff appears to have a much clearer understanding of its roles and responsibilities and seems active and motivated with a feeling of “ownership.” Extensive training at all levels have helped this process. In one year alone, 56,245 people (34% women) were trained in 2,200 workshops in project planning, implementation and management, as well as in sectoral issues such as water and sanitation, gender, governance, etc. One of the strengths of the new system is the establishment of regularized financial management procedures that are subject to internal and external controls. Each year, as the CDCs and VDCs gain experience in implementation, they demonstrate added maturity in needs assessment, planning, and implementing projects. This indicates the widespread acceptance of the CARERE model.

B. The Local Planning Process

To ensure participation, dialogue and accountability, the LPP is necessarily complex. The experimental nature of the programme requires that the process be continuously adjusted. The LPP works as a mechanism for planning and coordinating multiple sources of investments for villages and communes, including LDF, sectoral funds, governmental department budgets, and support from NGOs. This is supported by recent decisions of the RGC, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and the World Bank to capitalize the LDF for new projects. The district integration workshops provide an opportunity for communes to interact with provincial officials, to learn about department policies, and to negotiate the use of resources, effectively promoting the concept of responding to public demand.

C. Delivery of Rural Infrastructure

The sectoral allocation of LDF funds has overwhelmingly favored transportation and irrigation works, and to a lesser extent, school buildings and water and sanitation projects. The technical quality of projects in general is good. Of those projects evaluated, over 80% are acceptable, 18% have problems that can be fixed, and only 2% are unacceptable. However, post-completion evaluations are usually not carried out by technical support staff. Competitive bidding was introduced in 1999 and is resulting in lower costs and higher quality for projects. The average cost savings compared to estimates range from 6% to 10%.

The original allocation process with a multi-criteria framework has proved overly ambitious in the local context and has led to some confusion. Allocation methods between provinces involve various combinations of poverty indicators and population. Some of these indicators are almost certainly colinear and therefore do not all need to be included while others are poor proxies for poverty. The discretion available to PRDCs has led to wide variation in the amounts granted to communes, in some cases double or half the average amount over a three year funding cycle. There is widespread agreement that simple criteria for allocation from communes to villages work best and are most likely to be applied consistently. Within communes, a simple weighting by population may be sufficient.

D. Monitoring and Evaluation

The current M&E system attempts to achieve several different objectives: monitoring of CARERE work and performance, monitoring of PRDC work and performance, monitoring of the local planning process and outputs, and monitoring of LDF subprojects. Data in the commune databases is not updated on a regular basis. This makes evaluation of socio-economic impacts impossible.

E. Reconciliation Areas

An important achievement of the SEILA program is its response to the challenge of including former Khmer Rouge areas. Rapid trust was built up between these former enemies, provincial staff, and CARERE management and staff. It is also remarkable how quickly the people in the Reconciliation Areas “took” to the participatory process of SEILA.

F. Sustainability

The project is costly, for it not only has to provide staff for capacity building, M&E, and management support, it also has to provide salary supplements to government staff. This raises questions as to the sustainability of the project. However, there are several elements that will support the sustainability of the project:

Provincial administrations are continuing to build the capacity necessary to continue this process. National staff in both CARERE and government are increasingly taking initiatives and taking over management of the projects; for example, Cambodians hold two of the five Provincial Programme Managers positions, and the management of rural development is increasingly being taken over by the Executive Committee with technical support and facilitation is provided by the Secretariat.
CDCs and VDCs are demonstrating the ability to make plans for their communities in a participatory and transparent manner and beneficiaries are consistently making adequate local contribution to all projects.
The RGC has officially recognized the Rural Development Structure directed by SEILA, as the official structure in the five provinces in which SEILA operates. In addition, the RGC funded over $200,000 in 1999 and is considering $400,000 to $500,000 for the year 2000.
All local projects implemented by the various ministries in Ratanakiri will require a 10% local contribution, and in Battambang all road projects will require a 20% local contribution.
With the formation of the Commune Councils as administration units of government; it seems likely that the VDCs will be sustained.
The new Commune Councils will have taxing powers, and there are considerations for taxing land in provincial and village towns.

V. Recommendations

There is a need to emphasize villages and communes doing more self-help projects themselves, but with the technical support of local governments. It should be made clear to CDCs and VDCs from the beginning what the government will do and where their responsibility ends.
The allocation process could be altered somewhat to reward villages and communes that initiate and complete projects themselves. This would perhaps help people to build their sense of community while at the same time developing more of a self-help attitude. Emphasis could be put on villages seeking outside help for projects where LDF allocations were insufficient to cover total costs.
There appears to be a strong need to inform the NGO community of the real mission of the project. Where NGOs have assisted in establishing small committees, there is often the complaint that the newly established VDCs often ignore these committees. The project should develop a communication strategy to address this issue.
VDCs often do not represent the majority of the people in a village. New strategies should be developed whereby more of the total village is represented.
It should be made clear from the start that after the first few VDC meetings, all meetings should be run by the VDC Chairperson and not the government facilitator. Also chairpersons should be trained at the CDC level on how to conduct participatory meetings and how to keep different groups involved.
The members of the SEILA team should focus on consolidating current activities, bringing the main experimental aspects of the local planning program to a close (perhaps offering a series of options within the model), and thinking about ways to work strategically given existing constraints and demands.

VI. Lessons Learned

“Buy in” at all levels is critical. With a clearly defined mission endorsed by all those at the top, and through training and close supervision, the mission was integrated among government staff. The project was driven by a clear sense of shared goals and vision that was “bought” by the great majority of players. Government was involved from the beginning and was the actual implementor of the project; therefore, the project had ownership throughout the government. Local government can be transformed to be more participatory and decentralized when there is “buy in” at the top of the provincial government. The present governors of both Battambang and Banteay Meanchey enthusiastically supported the project, as did other influential people in the provinces, including two former governors.
Success is needed for demonstration effect. A successful local government project in one province (in this case two provinces) can lead to replication on other provinces and eventually receive support by the national government.
Flexibility is required - Although operating with the same mission and strategic objectives, there were different methods of fund allocation and project selection that allowed for considerable adaptation to local situations.
Learning while doing is most effective for capacity building. Intensive training at all levels of provincial government was followed by opportunities for staff to implement what they learned, while at the same time receiving back-up technical support. This process not only dramatically increased the capacity of staff but also changed their behavior, attitudes, and work habits, and, in the end, greatly assisted in transforming local government.
Sincerity of efforts must be perceptible to the beneficiaries. Beneficiaries who saw the possibility of immediate benefits from government realized from the beginning that the participation asked for was real and not another of the many empty promises from government.

VII. Evaluation Team

The evaluation was carried out by:

Robert A. Leonard, Management and Planning Expert (Team Leader)
Dr Robert Guild, Engineer
Cristina Mansfield, Community Participation Consultant