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Title: The 2nd MCEV (Mentoring, Coaching and Exposure Visit) to India
Posting Date: 10/12/2009 10:01:46 PM

The 2nd MCEV (Mentoring, Coaching and Exposure Visit) to India

The 2nd Mentoring, Coaching and Exposure Visit (MCEV) study tour to India to learn on how to apply Social Accountability tools (SA tools)prepared by PECSA program of the World Bank-Cambodia after awarding of 12 successful proposals of 2nd Social Accountability School, for 11 days from on 15th to 24th June, 2009. Among 8 people who from Cambodia were divided into two sub groups, one group sent to Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh state where is target area of SAMARTHAN organization and another one to Raipu where the urban area of Chhattis Garh state working by PRIA.

The two sub groups have been planned to visit the tool implementation of Participatory Planning, Community-Based Monitory, Social Audit and Citizen Report Card. The Bhopal team 4 members are Mr. Yem Makara, SILAKA; Mr. Suos Ramo, AMARA, Cambodian Womens Network for Development; Mr. Yuk Bunna, Buddhism for Development (BFD) and Mr. Khath Bora from Centre Depute et de Development Agricore Cambodian (CEDAC). And the other 4 members of Raipu are Mr. Oeur Ty, Trade Union; Mr. Va Savoeun, Gospel for Children; Ms. Chea Chey Sovanna, Program Officer of ACP and PECSAs Program Facilitator of Star Kampuchea Organization and Ms. Nil Vana,The World Bank-Cambodia Country Office.

In development processes, to get citizen engagement with all processes of government strategies and development programs, SA tools are the first requirement to get people to start their role and responsibility in each involvement. SA tool is very important to promote people to get their needs and achieve good governance or good society. These tools are very important to collect voice of people to pressure on services providers of government to improve quality, effectiveness and efficiency. These are very popular tools in India among NGOs and governments to get people involve and participate in their project.

First, the Participatory Planning tool, it has been using at commune level of Cambodia through commune planning or commune development programs. But to get more attention and participation from people in this work, the study in detail on this tool should be done to get more ideas in implementation the job.

Second, people can participate in each project better and easy than the other tools is Community-Based Monitoring or Evaluation. This tool gets people to involve directly in the project which implements in their area. Generating people group by NGOs or local authorities to observe, checking or tracking on the processes of development project with data in their hand are the job that people can do themselves. But the facilitation from NGOs or local authorities still need.

Third, Social Audit needs supports from government or strong commitment of NGOs which tries to get people to use this tool. Getting information from authorities or big development projects are the obstacle one for Cambodia that’s why communication skills or building good environment between facilitated NGOs and government agencies or officers required. Lack of or wrong information on projects leads to make mistake in social audit implementation. In India, before social audit promote to do widely in the country, the Right to Information Act was adopted to pave the way for developing this country through getting people participation in its development projects.

Fourth, the technical skills of social research conduction and some more knowledge of communication and advocacy are the basis need of Citizen Report Card implementation. Conducing data collections on services of institutions or agencies with right information to give feedback on them are hard to do for no or less research experience NGOs or institutions. The confidential information collected required for service providers. So, this tool seems need a lot of skills like research, communication and advocacy and spend much as well for implementation.

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