Phnom Penh, 12 August 2020 – Transparency International Cambodia (TI Cambodia) and ActionAid Cambodia (AAC) organised a signing ceremony on sub-grant agreements for CSO partners to implement 3-year strategic programmes (2020-2022). At this signing ceremony, TI Cambodia and ActionAid Cambodia signed sub-grant agreements with a total of 9 implementing partners who will contribute to different parts of the programme interventions.
TI Cambodia received the core fund from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) to implement the strategic programme on promoting transparency, integrity and accountability. As a contribution, Transparency International Cambodia and ActionAid Cambodia were also awarded the financial support from European Union to implement a 3-year project titled, “Greater Young Women Empowerment in Decision Making and Accountable Public Service Delivery” in Phnom Penh and 9 provinces, starting from January 2020 to December 2022. The project budget is worth of EUR 2 million. The objective of this project implementation is to create an enabling environment and empower youth, particularly young women, in Cambodia to effectively participate in decision-making processes to improve public service delivery, particularly gender-responsiveness, through innovative technology platforms and to engage in policy dialogue with key decision-makers and service delivery entities at local and national levels. One of the key interventions under this project is to provide sub-grants to local non-government organisation (NGOs), community-based organisations (CBOs), informal groups and media partners, given the fact that they are the key actors who would be able to reach out to a wider range of beneficiaries especially marginalised population in their respective geographical coverages. As a result of the rigorous and transparent selection process, TI Cambodia & AAC have selected the 7 respectful partners; Cambodian Journalists Alliance (CamboJA), Politikoffee, Building Community Voices (BCV), Cambodian Civil Society Partnership (CCSP), Children and Women Development Center in Cambodia (CWDCC), Youth Council of Cambodia (YCC), and Thmeythmey.com to implement activities that contribute to the achievement of the project’s expected outcomes.
Mr Hong Reaksmey, Country Director of ActionAid Cambodia, said that this partnership will strengthen CSOs and media’s efforts to build and improve young people’s capacity and participation in monitoring of public service delivery at local level. As the core of the project interventions, youth will play a key role in working with local authorities and relevant stakeholders to enhance accountable and gender responsive public services. As media and CSOs will take a lead in building capacity of youth and enhancing their participation, we see the significance of CSOs’ and media’s contributions to the delivery of the project success.
In this signing ceremony, TI Cambodia also signed the partnership agreements to continue our support for the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers Democratic Union (CCAWDU) and the Federation of Associations for Small and Medium Enterprises of Cambodia (FASMEC). TI Cambodia continues to work with CCAWDU to empower female union leaders to take action in raising awareness and building capacity of female trade union members in order to increase participation of women in trade union and promote better governance in the garment sector. In addition, TI Cambodia also maintains its engagement with FASMEC to enhance business integrity among small and medium enterprises.
Mr Pech Pisey, Executive Director of TI Cambodia, said that collective action is always core of TI Cambodia’s strategy. Working with relevant stakeholders, such as government, CSOs, media and business associations which bring different expertise and experience is crucial for the success of our work. TI Cambodia or ActionAid Cambodia alone would not be able to make the programmes successful. We firmly believe that we are stronger and do better jobs when we cooperate and are well coordinated.
Transparency International Cambodia and ActionAid Cambodia would like to extend our thankfulness to our donors SIDA and EU who have been TI Cambodia’s core donors to support the operation and the implementation of our strategic programmes. Without this generous support, we will not be able to continue our mission in promoting good governance, democratic reform and anti-corruption efforts in Cambodia.