Monitoring the CMDGs

Purpose of Project

Preparatory Assistance for CMDG/NSDP Monitoring and Evaluation aims to accelerate poverty reduction through more effective and efficient national policy formulation and implementation. It works to enhance Cambodia’s capacities for monitoring and evaluation, including people, processes and systems, at national and sub-national level. UNDP is providing technical assistance to the Ministry of Planning (MoP) to produce the 2010 CMDG progress report and to monitor and evaluate progress towards achieving the CMDGs at national and sub-national levels using CMDG scorecards. The project also supports MoP in monitoring the implementation of the National Strategic Development Plan, the Government’s poverty reduction strategy. The NSDP is widely regarded as being an MDG-based plan, with two-thirds of its indicators drawn from the CMDGs.

Main Activities

• Develop and pilot sub-national CMDG scorecards and document and disseminate a knowledge product on localization of CMDGs in Cambodia.
• Provide capacity building and technical assistance to the Ministry of Planning for the development of Cambodia’s 2010 CMDG progress report.
• Develop a communications and advocacy strategy for the CMDGs.
• Define a strategy and programmatic actions for a national policy dialogue on achieving CMDGs and for sub-national CMDG-based planning and service delivery to be included in UNDP’s 2011-2015 Country Programme Action Plan.

Key Results

• A Capacity Assessment of the Ministry of Planning (MoP) was completed and shared with the technical working group on planning and poverty reduction (TWG PPR) as a basis for a capacity development plan to be supported jointly by development partners as part of a program based approach for the MoP.
• A new methodology used to estimate sub-national poverty levels and to express visually MDG progress at the sub-national levels using information from the commune database was developed by the National Committee for Democratic Development’s Monitoring and Evaluation Unit. The results were published and widely disseminated at a national conference in September 2009.
• Two internal working documents, an MDG gap analysis and an identification of nine best practices for MDG achievement, were completed and are being used as inputs into the 2010 CMDG report.
• A Local CMDG Scorecard, a tool to monitor progress of CMDGs at sub-national levels, has been developed based on data from the Commune Database, tested and automated. It is intended to be used in the new sub-national planning processes and by Commune Committees for Women and Children (CCWC). The use of local CMDG scorecards has been incorporated in the sub-national planning guidelines and in CCWC planning guidelines.
• Trainings on the use of sub-national CMDG scorecards have been provided to staff of all the 24 provincial Departments of Planning. They are all now able to generate scorecards for their own provinces using the CDB.
• Six regional workshops targeting staff of provincial departments of planning, representatives from provincial and district councils of all 24 provinces have been held to disseminate the poverty and CMDG maps and to promote the use of CDB-based CMDG scorecards in sub-national planning. A CMDG game has been developed and was tested during the workshops.
• The first rough draft of the CMDG 2010 Progress Report based on the inputs from UNDP’s CMDG 2009 Gap Analysis has been circulated to line ministries for comments. Consultation meetings with Line Ministries have been held to validate the data for each indicator and to further discuss the challenges and the strategies to achieve the CMDGs by 2015. The second draft of the report will be widely circulated for comments to all Technical Working Groups.

Background

Cambodia signed the Millennium Declaration in September 2000, committing itself to achieving the eight Millennium Development Goals by 2015. In 2003, Cambodia localized the MDGs and adopted a special ninth Cambodia MDG on demining, UXO and victim assistance. The Government presented its first Cambodia MDG Report in 2003, setting out development goals and targets for Cambodia to achieve by 2015.

In line with its CMDG commitments, the Government developed its national poverty reduction strategy, the National Strategic Development Plan: Growth, Employment, Equity and Efficiency to Reach the Cambodia Millennium Development Goals (2006-2010). The NSDP was revised and extended in 2009, producing the NSDP Update 2009-2013 and bringing the plan into line with the term of the Fourth Legislature of the National Assembly. The NSDP update specifies selective, over-arching and pro-poor goals and enumerates targets to be met during the period 2009-2013. Two-thirds of the NSDP monitoring indicators are drawn from CMDG indicators. The Ministry of Planning has a mandate to formulate and monitor the NSDP and to report to the Government on progress and achievements.

The Ministry of Planning finalized its Strategic Plan in 2007, highlighting key activities and resources needed for monitoring the NSDP. The MoP Strategic Plan provides a framework with which development partners can align their support. Development partners are committed to supporting the MoP and are ready to align their support to the MPSP with a view to helping MoP move towards a programme based approach. Under a programme based approached, partners engage in development cooperation on the principle of coordinated support for a locally owned programme of development.

UNDP is helping to develop the capacity of the MoP to monitor progress made on achieving the CMDGs at both national and sub-national levels and implementing the NSDP. This improved monitoring in turn informs decision-making at national and local levels for poverty reduction and the development of the country.