Approximately 3,000 govern¬ment officials and represen¬tatives from various non-governmental organizations (NGOs) attended the “30th Anniversary of the Partnership between the Royal Government of Cambodia, Non-Governmental Organizations and the People of Cambodia 1979-2009” on November 24 at the National Institute of Education in Phnom Penh.
The celebration of the growing partnership between the Royal Gov¬ernment of Cambodia and non-gov¬ernmental organizations was jointly conducted by the American Friends Services Committee, Church World Service, World Alliance for Citizen Participation, Cooperation Commit¬tee for Cambodia, Dan Church Aids/Christian Aid, Development and Partnership in Action, Jesuit Refugee Service, Lutheran World Federation, Maryknoll, MeDiCAM, Mennonite Central Committee, NGO Forum, Ox¬fam, Quakers Australia, Star Kampu¬chea, World Vision International, and Youth Star Cambodia. The ceremony was presided over by Samdech Techo Hun Sen, Prime Minister of the Royal Government of Cambodia.
Prime Minister Samdech Hun Sen said that the ceremony was a great opportunity for assessing the Cambo¬dian government’s and NGOs’ weak¬nesses and strengths, what has been done, and what has not been done to allow Cambodia to pursue more ag¬gressive, more vibrant and more ef¬ficient implementation in the future.
Samdech Hun Sen continued to say that the exchange of dialogue on the role of NGOs in socio-economic development, prolific partnership, and the proper and the efficient use of funds will indeed help the Cambodian government fine-tune and customize its operations in order to accommodate the people’s actual needs and various national development plans and strate¬gies, especially the National Strategic Development Plan and the Rectangu¬lar Strategy Phase II.
The Premier added that this event will also look at partnership develop¬ment between the Cambodian gov¬ernment and NGOs in defining the strategic direction for tighter, more harmonized, and more predictable collaboration to ensure further re¬sults. These included: showcasing the contributions and achievements of NGOs for the past 30 years (1979-2009) in economic restoration and development efforts; reflecting on the experience and good partnership between the Cambodian government, NGOs and the people of Cambodia; and looking forward to prolific coop¬eration and partnership between the Cambodian government, NGOs and the people of Cambodia to jointly ad¬dress challenges in the next decade.
“Taking this opportunity, on be¬half of the Royal Government of Cambodia, I would like to show my appreciation to the organizing com¬mittee for the successful and smooth running of the event. Also, I would like to extend my profound thanks for both national and international NGOs as well as aid agencies and all the Cambodian people for their untiring works in the last 30 years dedicated to charitable and humanitarian work and national development in Cambodia. I am confident that national and inter¬national NGOs and stakeholders will remain committed to strengthening cooperation and partnership and play¬ing a key role in development prog¬ress to bring about prosperity, devel¬opment and harmony in Cambodia,” he said during his opening remarks at the 30th Anniversary of the Growing Partnership celebration.
Prime Minister recalled that Pol Pot’s regime toppled the Khmer Re¬public on April 17, 1975 and forced the people to desert Phnom Penh. The people became slaves and prisoners of a prison without walls. Millions died of hunger, inadequate health care, forced labor, and massacres.
He emphasized that after the 7th of January 1979, Cambodia was left with nothing from the last re¬gime, contrary to Lon Nol’s Khmer Republic which inherited abundant resources from the People’ Social Community. Left behind by the Pol Pot Regime were separation of fam¬ily members, ruin, the deaths of mil¬lions of people, the destruction of economic infrastructures, and count¬less residual problems.
“For the last 30 years, since the collapse of Pol Pot’s genocidal re¬gime, our motherland has faced com¬plex obstacles, both politically and economically. The establishment of a new administrative authority from nothing was challenging in all sectors, including human resources and ma¬terials. In such a situation, we noted that many NGOs arrived, especially after 1979 and started implementing many activities with the government to help resolve many problems, main¬ly in food supplies and social affairs, while some other developed countries closed their eyes on the suffering of the Cambodian people and also put pressure on politics through economic embargos on the country and Cambo¬dian people,” he said.
Prime Minister Samdech Hun Sen added that to rescue the people out of starvation across the country and to re-establish administrative authority, the government used total measures to tackle those problems. The govern¬ment did not have materials or any sort of budget, except for some food col¬lected from the Pol Pot regime which it distributed to its armed forces, state in¬stitutions, and the Cambodian people.
“Remarkably, NGOs played an important role as key messengers to the outside world by reporting on the suffering of the Cambodian people when Cambodia was isolated by pol¬itics and economic embargos from other western countries,” he said.
To promote and improve the effi¬cient development of partnerships and good cooperation between the Cam¬bodian government and NGOs in the future, the Prime Minister Hun Sen has provided ministries, institutes, authorities of all levels and NGOs with a number of recommendations to cooperatively focus on priority goals for the short-term and mid-term. They are as follows: building capacity and raising the professional qualifications of NGOs; increasing cooperation in the implementation of programs by aligning national development pro¬grams; increasing the responsibility and efficiency of fund management; adhering to the principle of partner¬ship in providing appropriate solu¬tions as demanded by the commu¬nity and beneficiaries; promoting the participation of partners in planning and implementing initiatives; show¬ing counterparts good will for more cooperation; and acknowledging and promoting the participation of benefi¬ciaries in Cambodia.
eva Mysliwiec, executive Direc¬tor of Star Cambodia and Rep¬resentative of the Organizing Com¬mittee, said that she has worked with the American Friend Services Com¬mittee and began working in Phnom Penh in 1980.
“I remember well my arrival in May 1980, in a country devastated by war and genocide. I remember vividly my first meeting with Sam¬dech Hun Sen who was then Foreign Minister and 28 years old. I was not much older and I remember feeling very humbled and overwhelmed with compassion at the enormity of the task that lay ahead,” she said.
Eva Mysliwiec added that when she arrived as Representative of the American Friend Services Committee in Phnom Penh in 1980, her organiza¬tion was one of five NGOs, including Oxfam, CIDSe, Church World Ser¬vice, and World Vision, working in Cambodia.
She noted that over the last three decades, there has been consistent growth in partnership between NGOs and other development sectors, in¬cluding the private sector, between NGOs and local civil society, and be¬tween NGOs and government at both local and national levels, as well as with international networks.
She added that informal NGO net¬works exist in almost every province and play an increasingly important role in contributing to an informed dialogue on development processes and issues.
“As we move into the next de¬cade, I would like us, our NGO com¬munity, to remember that we have been at our best when our work has been motivated by compassion, when we shared a common purpose with the people and the government, when we led by example, and when we took the time to build relationships based on mutual respect and understanding in Cambodia,” she said.
According to a report by the Min¬istry of Interior, there are a total of 1,933 non-governmental organiza¬tions and 1,274 associations working in Cambodia. (SEAW)