General Information |
Project/Program |
Programme |
Project Name |
Innovations for Decentralization and Local Development (IDLD) |
Duration |
24 Months : From 01 July 2008 to 30 June 2010 Several times extended for a total period of 46 months, up to end of April 2012 |
Donor |
UNCDF |
Implementiong Organization |
National Committee for Democratic Development - Secretariat |
Sector and/or Subsector Classification |
Development |
Region |
Cambodia |
Financing |
USD 2,051,165 of which USD 0.5 M remained unfunded |
Analytical Information |
Stakeholders |
UNCDF , RGC(Royal Government of Cambodia), UNDP and other Development Partners funding |
Cross-cutting Issue |
Environment |
|
Gender |
|
Impact Analysis |
Probably one of the most important achievements of the IDLD is that with a relatively small budget (USD 1.55 M) it secured a ‘foot on the ground of UNCDF’ for a period of almost 4 years, in which the concept of a Local Development Outlook, as a ‘new product’ for UNCDF was tested and piloted, whilst at the same time the IDLD can also be credited for a few concrete contributions to the D&D agenda such as the production of a planning decree and various planning guidelines and a Sub National Finance Law. The achievements of the project thereby lie in its contribution to the content but even more in the fact that the documents were (finally) approved and adopted. Given, however, the limited scale of actual fiscal decentralization thus far, the practical influence and impact of the documents has been limited to-date, but are expected to become useful for the next step of the reform which is presently unfolding. |
Effectiveness |
Ownership/Partnership |
Evaluation |
Development partners have played an important role in Cambodia’s D&D(Decentralization and De-concentration) reform since the CARERE/Seila period. Through their financial and technical support, development partners (including UNCDF), have contributed not only to rural development through decentralized governance, but also generate necessary demonstration effects to advance decentralization policy. Since the mid-1990s development partners have been working mainly to support commune level. However, after the adoption of the Strategic Framework on D&D and in the context of the IP3, more focus has been shifted to district level. |
Rating |
4/5 |
Policy Coherence/Harmonization |
Evaluation |
As made clear in the foregoing paragraphs, through expert advice, rather than through piloting, being UNCDF’s traditional trademark within Local Development, the IDLD contributed to systems development for sub-national planning and finance, by making a contribution to putting in place the required legislation. |
Rating |
3/5 |
Evaluation Framework |
Evaluation |
The final project evaluation was commissioned by the independent Evaluation Unit of UNCDF, in New York, with the following broad objectives :
• Assess the extent to which the expected end of project results/outcomes have been achieved;
• Assess in how far the project has contributed to the stated development outcomes and – notably- the stated intermediate outcomes; and
• Assess and document the lessons learnt from particular approaches and innovative types of interventions applied and/or tested by the project. |
Rating |
4/5 |
Alignment/Composition of Finance |
Evaluation |
he total budget as per the ProDoc was US$ 2,051,165 of which US$ 250,000 was initially expected to be received from Danida for the development of an M&E database, while a source for another US$ 250,000, mainly for international consultancies to develop ‘option papers for sector decentralization for Education, Health, Agriculture, Water & Sanitation’ was yet to be found. |
Rating |
4/5 |
Other Remarks |
In general, and considering the relatively small size of the project, both in term of funding and staffing, which allowed UNCDF to keep ‘a foot on the ground’ in Cambodia, the project performed reasonable well overall. It substantively contributed –as documented in this report- to a handful of tangible outputs, some of which are sustainable through adopted legislation and guidelines (notably the planning guidelines and the sub-national finance law). |