3. H-A-R Action Plan Implementation

The first two chapters of this Report used empirical evidence to identify the scope and specific nature of the coordination challenge in Cambodia. This broader perspective provides a clearer understanding of the development assistance context of Cambodia and contributes to understanding an approach that might be taken to strengthen aid management and the linking of aid to development results.

The primary mechanism for addressing this coordination challenge is GDCC-TWG mechanism. This Chapter considers some of the specific activities that have been implemented by Government and the TWGs, and attempts to assess their impact in promoting aid effectiveness in the context of the H-A-R Action Plan.

H-A-R Action Plan Implementation through the TWGs

The TWGs reported on their 2006 activities to the GDCC meeting that was held in February 2007. In the main, the TWGs appear to be progressing well, both in regard to implementing their own workplans and with respect to the H-A-R Action Plan.

Particular areas of progress were reported in:

• Development of sector plans and policies, including legislation in some areas including telecommunications, infrastructure, agriculture and water, gender and governance;

• Where these strategies had been developed they were often associated with capacity development strategies;

• Joint approaches to monitoring and review.

Where TWGs experienced less progress, the challenges they encountered included the following:

• Insufficient resources being identified to adequately finance the implementation of TWG activities;

• Representation was not always at a sufficiently senior level to ensure that decisions could be taken while on other occasions issues under the mandate of a ministry other than the Chair of the TWG, including cross-cutting issues, could not be discussed as there was not sufficient cross-Governmental participation.

These observations relating to both progress and challenges broadly confirm the findings of the GDCC-TWG Review that was undertaken in the latter part of 2006. As discussed in Chapter Two, the Review resulted in the production of a 'Guideline on the Role and Functioning of the TWGs' and this was itself followed up with a meeting of all TWG Chairs and Government focal points in April 2007. This meeting discussed potential modalities of CDC support to the GDCC-TWG mechanism and agreed that a needs assessment be conducted to consult further with the TWGs on their aid coordination-related needs. The next sections of this Report therefore proceed to consider in more detail the activities that took place across all TWGs and the progress/challenges reported in implementing each of the five action areas of the H-A-R Action Plan, and may also be used to inform future areas of support that might be deemed necessary by TWGs.

H-A-R: The National Framework for Promoting Development Results

Ownership

Government leadership in the TWGs is linked to the development of plans that clearly articulate national priorities. Good progress has been made at sector/thematic level in elaborating NSDP priorities as programmes/policies are established or are being prepared for health, education, agriculture & water, HIV/AIDS, mine action, energy, fisheries, land, governance, judicial reform, planning, public financial management, and public administration reform. The development of these strategic plans should provide a catalyst for increased programme formulation by Government, moving away from the trend of development partners developing most project proposals and leaving sometimes limited scope for revision by Government. The next phase of the Public Financial Management reform will also make a significant contribution to the linking of plans and budgets at macro and sector level as it will include a focus on the development of sector budgeting practices and procedures.

The Strategic Framework for Development Cooperation Management, which was approved by Government in January 2006, also attempts to enhance ownership and ensure coherent aid management at a macro level by elaborating the respective roles of Government ministries and agencies. Toward the end of 2006 these roles were elaborated in the 'Guideline on the Role and Functioning of TWGs', providing more detail on PIP/MTEF linkages and responsibilities at TWG level, and in providing clearer direction on the supporting role of CRDB/CDC. The Guideline also clarified the leadership role of Government, emphasizing the supporting role of TWGs which provide a forum for dialogue and review.

Alignment

Based on the sector plans and programme-based approaches that have been established, development partners are requested to align their support around the priorities that have been articulated. The alignment of development assistance around NSDP priorities was considered in some detail in Chapter Two, which concluded that development assistance, in the main, is relatively well aligned to national priorities, although alignment must take place at more than an aggregate priority level if a real impact is to be assured toward meeting the Cambodia Millennium Development Goals (CMDGs), in particular on maternal mortality. The new Agriculture & Water Strategy, which was completed at the end of 2006, provides a good example of such an approach and builds on the established successes of the education sector, which reports that all support is routinely aligned

This relates also to efforts to identify multi-year commitments, which the CDCF meeting will attempt to do for the first time with information then recorded in the CDC Database. Chapter Two considered the predictability of CG pledging, for example, and found that in 2006, the first year of the NSDP, recorded disbursements were 83% of pledges made at the CG meeting in March of the same year. This compares quite favourably with the data from 2005 (identified in the Paris Declaration monitoring survey) that indicated that 69% of funds recorded in the Government financial framework at the beginning of the year were then recorded as disbursed in the national system (although it must be noted that the methodologies for measuring these two figures are markedly different). The CDC Database also now allows for predictability to be monitored over time and, based on discussions in the Partnership and Harmonisation TWG, there may be a need for further analysis of this issue to identify and explain challenges to timely disbursement as well as to the accurate recording of aid flows in RGC systems.

The H-A-R Action Plan also envisages the production of a comprehensive capacity programme at sector level, as well as the reduced use of stand-alone PIUs. The OECD survey precluded the need for a national survey and noted that coordinating the provision of capacity development support remains a significant challenge. Although significant sums have been directed to capacity through the broader reform effort (Governance and public sector reform received the second highest level of disbursements in 2006), there is therefore some concern that this support may not be complemented through the provision of coherent support at sector level. It is therefore encouraging to note that sectors and TWGs, including Partnership and Harmonisation; Agriculture and Water; and, Forestry and Environment, have developed comprehensive capacity building strategies in the context of their sector plans.

One consideration for development partners is to work with Government in agreeing new principles for the management of TA, recognising that in a new partnership-based environment TA must display an increased ability to play a convening role and to serve as a bridge between Government and development partners. International TA personnel are expensive and it is therefore reasonable that they should be expected to display the commensurate skills that are suited to the Cambodia development context, i.e. partnership building with a focus on capacity development and knowledge transfer. The effectiveness of TA can also be promoted by establishing clear deliverables together with modalities for jointly monitoring performance and impact.

With regard to PIUs, the Paris Declaration survey recorded only 49 PIUs, although this number may be a significant under-recording as the data collection exercise for this Report indicates that there are at least 152 (see the discussion in Chapter Four). Progress toward developing a strategy was made through the development partners who participate in the Partnership and Harmonisation TWG, and progress toward some form of a Guideline may be forthcoming in 2007. One related aspect of PIU integration concerns the need to streamline incentive payments. The Council for Administrative Reform has issued a Sub-Decree of the harmonised application of performance-related incentives. While some Government agencies, including MEF and CRDB/CDC, were able to establish these schemes with development partner support, others, including the Ministry of Health, have found the process to be rather more challenging although a Performance management System has been established.

Tied aid was also recorded during the Paris Declaration survey with 86% being recorded as untied. This suggests that the issue of aid untying, which is in any case a concern that must be addressed in donor capitals and headquarters, is not of concern and need not occupy excessive amounts of time in the Cambodia aid effectiveness dialogue.

Harmonisation

The analysis in Chapter Two more than adequately emphasised the challenges of deconcentrated and fragmented development assistance. The result of many development partners working in many sectors may be that: (i) the demand for local expertise is high with consequences for coherent and effective development; (ii) priority sectors may exhibit significant coordination problems that undermine the ability to manage and lead; and (iii) there is a risk that partners focus on their own results and profiles, distracting attention, resources and effort from the NSDP effort. The need for development partners to harmonise their support so that a focus on achieving results, as opposed to simply managing aid, can be promoted can hardly be overstated. The expected commencement of a Budget Support programme in 2007 is therefore welcomed by Government as a potentially effective response to this challenge.

Table Twelve. Partnership Analysis: Identifying Co-Financing and Delegated Partnership Arrangements

The methodology in this table is to use implementing partners as the source of data on partnerships; this reveals that some partners who have not reported project activity in 2006 (e.g. OPEC Fund, Norway, Netherlands) are shown here to be the source of some project activity. There are also a number other co-financing partners who have not recorded co-financing support in the CDC Database (e.g. USA, Switzerland). In both cases these financial contributions are not reflected in the main disbursement analysis as, to avoid double-counting, this data is calculated using only funding sources.