My program manager and others from the VSO Country Office in
Cambodia are coming for a placement visit this week and I am preparing by
putting together action plans for the next year. However, I still have
to do a survey so that the District government can tell me what they
want to do. What I have observed (and been asked to contribute by the governor
and the NCDD staff) so far is that it's the 'technical' stuff that they are interested
in - administrative tasks such as writing documents, putting together proposals. etc., in Khmer. This is all
fine and good and I do see several ways in which I could be useful, but this is
barely scratching the surface of good governance advising, in my opinion.
So, how can I ensure that they are also interested in leadership
and accountability? It's such an intangible thing, these two topics. Which I
suppose is why it's not something on the mind of the leaders in government here,
and also why some rigorous Monitoring and Evaluation needs to be part of the
agenda. The capacity for M&E, to 'criticize' leaders and hold them account,
is something I fear is too far outside the box for Cambodians. At NCDD, one of
their goals is to
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| Hierarchy much? Council of Ministers building, Phnom Penh |
