World Bank looks at impact of small grants program
Thirty-four people, one from each of 34 local NGOs that received Small Grants from the World Bank Cambodia
Small Grants Program (SmGP), attended a one-day workshop on October 8, 2007 to share their best practices, opportunities and challenges during the implementation of their projects, and to hear about WB’s project on strengthening civic engagement.
World Bank Small Grants Coordinator and Social Development Specialist Nil Vanna said the workshop was organized to outline the important role of civic engagement in the process of poverty reduction and development in Cambodia and to share their practices and challenges.
“It is a good chance for them to share their experience and to learn from each other,” she said. “It also provides them a place where they can build a strong network.” The SmGP in Cambodia has been running since 2003, and so far 34 local NGOs have received grants to implement project activities, under the themes: Civic Engagement, Youth Engagement for Local Development, Youth Engagement for Better Governance, and Strengthening Civic Engagement by Supporting Demand for Good Governance.
Best practice has been seen on the ground such as closely cooperating with local government (commune council members). Some small grant programs were integrated in commune development plans, such as small-scale irrigation schemes, citizen rating reports for local good governance, bringing local government and community together to discuss local development, and encouraging commune council members elected from all political parties to work together.
“They usually look at each another as an enemy,” said Bun Rithy, Director of the Democracy Resource Center for National Development (DND). “Now both community and local government are changing to positive attitudes, moving from being enemies to being friends and colleagues. Because of this change, we see a lot of results on the ground, for example, recently the government gave 4,800 hectares of land back to people.”
Sam Serey Wathana, Executive Director of Rural Community and Environment Development Organization (RCEDO), said the small grant program under his management is used to bring service providers and service demanders/users to meet face to face to discuss how to improve services.
“We see that public services have improved and more and more people come to use them,” he said. “We also see that people change their behavior and become much more involved in community development, for example, organizing their own campaigns on dengue fever during its outbreak.”
In areas implementing Small Grants Programs there had been great changes in the behavior of young people, with reduction in gangsterism and drug use. Young people were also standing for commune elections and showing increasing interest in involvement in politics. They are being encouraged to be community reporters and community information distributors.
Some youth volunteer activities are also supported through small grant programs that provide students the opportunity to share the knowledge they learn from university with communities and to gain experience from the community and develop themselves as good citizens.
Eva Mysliceice, Director of Youth Star, said youth volunteers live like people in the community: they don’t come with money; they stay with villagers and work with them to find ways to improve living conditions and to help their children and set an example. “The more we can all set examples, the more power that would be”.
Workshop participants strongly voiced a long list of the challenges they faced in the implementation of their projects.
They said poverty led most rural children to drop out of school and enter the workforce without proper life skills, yet there was no proactive response from the education sector or from donors to promote non-formal education or short-term life-skills training.
There was low interest and limited understanding of laws in the community, and people lacked courage to give voice to their common interest; selfishness and self-interest were also widespread. Partisan political influence and pressures were barriers for citizen participation. There is strong fear, and the feeling that people who stand up against perceived injustices are being seen as opposition party activists. Watchdog and advocacy activities are not seen by villagers as being in their real interest, and it was difficult to enlist people for voluntary work. Villagers are mainly concerned at getting income, and are favorably inclined towards people who provide them with gifts. All levels of authority are used to maintain a centralized system of patronage, inhibiting decentralization and limiting accountability towards the people that officials are mandated to serve.
People tend to take a short-sighted approach towards development, seeking immediate results rather than working towards long-term goals.
Participants said commune councils and communities have no rights to influence control of natural resources. Red tape at all levels of government continues to be a barrier for civil society to implement development.
People are isolated from information, lack communication skills and have limited motivation to champion reform. There is a need for improvement in knowledge on decentralization and civic rights and accountability of government service providers.
Participants were also critical of some NGOs. They said information about weaknesses and best practice is not adequately shared: NGOs lack lateral contact, each working alone and responsible only to its donor.
(Source: The World Bank’s Newsletter: volume 5, number 11, November 2007)