Policy Dialogue in Practice, an Example from Cambodia

How is Policy Dialogue put into practice in the education sector in Cambodia? What’s working, what isn’t? How has it been strengthened? And how effective is it, taking the example of dialogue about budget allocation to education?

Vincent Vire, from the European Union Delegation to Cambodia presents the scene in Cambodia, where there is a comprehensive institutional framework for partnership between the Royal Government of Cambodia and local development partners, including NGOs, ranging from the highest level to sub-technical working groups in 19 sectors. 

However, Mr Vire noted that these platforms do not always provide for a fully open and constructive dialogue as discussions often follow strict agenda points leaving little room for debate.

Mr Vire showed how the EU Delegation, in cooperation with other development partners in the education sector, tried to better structure and strengthen policy dialogue. “We really needed to start to get into some discussions that can make a change in terms of implementing policies or strategies in the sector,” he said recently to capacity4dev.eu.

To do this, the Delegation encouraged all development partners to agree on a few common areas of concern with the aim of raising these issues jointly with the Cambodian Ministry of Education. The resulting policy dialogue soon began to offer results, according to Mr Vire, as development partners started to all talk with the same voice, thus sending the same signal to the Ministry.

In addition, the Delegation proposed to add a specific agenda item on policy discussions at the quarterly meeting between the Ministry and donors, which was eventually accepted by the Ministry, paving the way for a much more open and constructive dialogue around challenges in the sector.

“That really created a very good dynamic, as well as enthusiasm and solidarity among the development partners – really in one year we could see a big difference in terms of how the education sector working group was working,” he said.

The coordination effort of all development partners, as well as continuous policy discussions, allowed the Ministry to better grasp the priorities being highlighted by the development partners, and key action areas began to appear on the Ministry’s agenda for action. For example, the need to focus more on quality issues, and better targeting interventions towards disadvantaged areas and vulnerable groups. In that sense, the improved coordination and policy dialogue have provided a space for a capacity development process to happen.

Mr Vire provided an example of policy discussions about budget allocation to the education sector. Research and analysis on budget allocation undertaken by the Delegation uncovered that spending on education was not keeping pace with budget increases across other Ministries, and there was very little increase of funding towards interventions to improve equitable access and quality. Furthermore, there was a significant under spending of the Ministry of Education budget. All this left the development partners wondering whether their contributions still made sense and whether these were not just substituting government resources in the sector.

Again, a policy dialogue bringing together all development partners and the Ministry of Education proved effective in yielding results.

“Each development partner was really taking every opportunity at each meeting and workshop to bring up the issue of budget allocation decline and under-spending,” said Mr Vire. “Many partners provided input to this discussion.”

"An important result was that the […] Minister of Education wrote to the Ministry of Finance to express their concerns about the decline [of resource allocation],” explained Mr Vire. “So we actually fostered some dialogue between the two Ministries on this issue.” 

There were many subsequent meetings between the two Ministries and with development partners. As a result, the operational budget of the Ministry of Education spent on scholarships, textbooks, school operating budgets, etc, should increase by about 10% in 2013 compared to an annual average of 2.4% in the last 5 years.

The experience in Cambodia, according to Mr Vire, shows that the policy dialogue effectively shaped discussion on some of the important issues facing the education sector. Much of the progress in Cambodia rested on gathering a consensus among the development partners – donor partners and NGOs.

Though such work takes time and dedicated staff to do the research,  Mr Vire believes it is worth the investment. “It requires a lot of time for policy dialogue,” he said. “It’s a lot of invisible work but that can have a huge impact on implementing strategies on the ground.”

This collaborative piece was drafted with input from Vincent Vire and Jerome Dendura with support from the capacity4dev.eu Coordination Team.