ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL HOLDS DIALOGUE ON UN ACTIVITIES IN CAMBODIA

Press Release
ECOSOC/5714

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL HOLDS DIALOGUE ON UN ACTIVITIES IN CAMBODIA

(Reissued as received.)

GENEVA, 8 July (UN Information Service) -- The Economic and Social Council continued this morning to discuss operational activities in the field of development, with representatives of United Nations agencies in Cambodia emphasizing the level of coordination prevalent among the programmes they oversaw.

Paul Matthews, Resident Representative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Cambodia, said heads of agencies in the country, the recipient of $500 million in aid since 1993, met once a month to cover items of interest to all the members of the United Nations community and to focus on items pertinent to the development agencies.

Bruno Lefevre, Cambodia representative of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), said coordination between United Nations institutions in Cambodia was "real and very useful". However, he added, important problems still faced the team, and recommendations concerning a greater delegation of powers and better co-ordination between the funds, the programmes and the agencies in the field were of utmost importance. The UNDP and UNESCO representatives, as well as officials from the World Food Programme, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Children's Fund and the United Nations Population Fund, told the council how their programmes and activities in the country sought to address problems related to reconstruction following years of armed conflict and underdevelopment. The panellists also fielded questions put by the delegations of Denmark, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Haiti, Canada, France, Finland and Bangladesh.

The Council, which opened its annual session last week, has been discussing, among other things, ways to strengthen the system for coordinating the field activities of United Nations development programmes to avoid duplication of efforts and increase efficiency and effectiveness in general. It will resume its plenary session in the afternoon at 3 p.m. with a dialogue on United Nations operational activities in Senegal.

Statements

PAUL MATTHEWS, Resident Representative of United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Cambodia, said Cambodia today was responding to a transitional challenge: to move from conflict and destruction to peace and stability, from a centrally planned to a free market economy and from poverty to prosperity. Since 1993, some $500 million of external cooperation assistance had been going to Cambodia. Goals of the aid included reconstruction of infrastructure and enhanced investment in human resources. Half of Cambodian children under five were malnourished; access to health services covered barely half the population, while only 32 per cent of people had safe drinking water. Moreover, the regulatory functions of government were underdeveloped. Yet, despite the numerous problems, the Royal Government, in power since 1993, had achieved macro-economic stability: inflation had been reduced and the national currency had been stabilized.

Mr. MATTHEWS said UNDP was helping the Government elaborate sizeable programmatic responses to its challenges. Heads of agencies met formally once a month to cover items of interest to all the members of the United Nations community and to focus on items pertinent to the development agencies. There were presently theme groups on poverty, governance and HIV/AIDS. A further group, on the environment, was being established. The UNDP's programme emphasized demining, rural development, public administrative reform and the environment, and capacity building was the main goal.

PHILIPPE BOREL, Country Director for Cambodia of the World Food Programme (WFP), said the programme's main aim was to save lives, and that goal was generally achieved -- food was delivered to those who needed it; but development assistance over the long term with food aid was a more difficult task. Recently the WFP had finalized its new programme for Cambodia, which would coincide with the funding cycles of other UN development programmes for the country. The organization had worked with sources throughout the country and had consulted with other official development partners: bilateral donors, the UN system and related agencies, and agencies that could make the programme more effective -- those who could offer technical assistance and make the process more efficient. With its various partners, the WFP pooled its efforts to strengthen the capacity of the Cambodian agency for rural development; the intent was to make technical projects more effective, using food aid; and with various non-governmental organizations, the WFP worked to meet the needs for nourishment of all Cambodians. The organization also worked to "map" poverty around the country; helped to provide health information on AIDS; and, exceptionally, it provided foodstuffs in prisons when the situations there were unbearable; this unusual step had been taken in response to a request by the United Nations Centre for Human Rights. Food aid was targeted as a priority to households with women as heads, and to vulnerable women, as experience had shown that such aid was used most effectively and in a sustainable manner.

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BRUNO LEFEVRE, Representative of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in Cambodia, said the agency had developed its programme for Cambodia over the past five years to better respond to priorities set by the Royal Government, and to ensure concerted action with other United Nations agencies. The monthly meeting of agencies was valuable to exchange information, update analyses and adjust action based on developments. UNESCO also participated in all the thematic groups of the resident coordinator. It cooperated closely with other United Nations agencies on large scale projects, although its programme concentrated on the consolidation of peace and political stability, the struggle against poverty and the education and training of youth. Coordination between United Nations institutions in Cambodia was "real and very useful". Important problems still faced the team, however, and recommendations concerning a greater delegation of powers and better co-ordination between the funds, the programmes and the agencies in the field were of utmost importance.

GEORG PETERSEN, of the World Health Organization (WHO), said that since health concerns cut across many sectors, WHO had established connections with many other agencies, including UNICEF. The main effort in Cambodia for the WHO was the re-establishment of a basic health system; that included coordinating international, non-governmental organization and United Nations support to the health system. Much attention was paid to planning, funding, implementation, and evaluation, and many agencies and donors had "bought into" the project; UNICEF had taken on the responsibility, for example, of supplying the Government with health drugs, while WHO had concentrated on health and drug policy. An expanded programme on immunization and polio eradication also had been instituted in close cooperation with UNICEF; Cambodia had achieved remarkable increases in its vaccine coverage and WHO was confident that polio would be eradicated from the country by the year 2000. The WHO furthermore had been executing agency for part of the UNFPA's Cambodia programme. Other cooperative programmes were carried out with the World Bank, and a WHO staffer had been seconded to the Bank to help with a malaria programme. HIV/AIDS posed a major threat to Cambodia, Dr. Petersen said; and WHO worked closely with UNAIDS on that problem.

BRUNO LEFEVRE, of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), praised the efforts of successive resident coordinators in Cambodia to maintain a harmonized approach between the various agencies. The monthly meetings helped resolve administrative and security problems, and there was cooperation on the preparation of various documents and other signal events. Despite the challenges, the Cambodia country team was working along the lines of the General Assembly's guidelines, and it was helping Cambodia fulfil its needs for development.

GEORG PETERSEN of WHO, reading a statement on behalf of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), whose Cambodia representative was unable to attend, said UNICEF had reopened its office in the Cambodian capital in 1979;

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at the time only three UN agencies were represented in the country. The agency had to redefine its mission after the arrival of other agencies in the early 1990s; now the tasks of all were more clearly defined, and were outlined in the newly developed plan of operations, which would run into the next century. The UNICEF was focusing, among other things, on primary education, helping with technical issues related to the eradication of polio, and advising the Government on its programme for national immunization; programmes were not only national but followed up regionally and locally. A nutrition programme had been adopted by the Government earlier this year, with help from UNICEF along with other agencies, and in implementing the programme all agencies would be playing distinctive but complementary roles. Other areas of focus included battling trafficking in children, child exploitation for purposes of sexual abuse, and child labour, in cooperation with other agencies. Similarly, cooperative programmes were being carried out with UNAIDS. Teamwork was essential in all these endeavours.

In an exchange that followed the formal statements, country delegations asked, among other things, whether coordination between the United Nations agencies was conceived in such a way as to address the specific problems affecting Cambodia, and whether special skills had been developed. They also asked for further details on: the system of "Country Strategy Notes" as applied to Cambodia; the role of the resident coordinator system in facilitating the follow-up to major conferences in the country; whether minutes from monthly meetings of the agencies were shown to the Government; the use of common premises; the establishment of theme groups; methods of application of the "food-for-work" programme of WFP; the usefulness of the joint manual for resident coordinators, the scope of instructions from headquarters, and constraints on capacity-building efforts.

Mr. MATTHEWS said the many and urgent needs of a country like Cambodia facilitated coordination between agencies. All agencies felt they had more than enough work to do within individual mandates, and they recognized that this could be done better if synergies were coordinated with others. They did not have any special methods for coordination; rather, it was the situation which facilitated the setting of priorities, as agencies were forced to come together to seek to maximize resources.

The Government was weak, he said, but the agencies tried to resist imposing their programmes. That weakness was positive in that agencies were able to target their concerns and ensure good integration with country priorities. The Government had allocated a piece of land where common premises of United Nations agencies were to be built, but the financing had not followed. Common premises would be helpful to further improve collaboration between the programmes. The single largest programme was a rural development programme which had transformed from an emergency type programme to one on capacity development. Theme groups were useful when they addressed national priorities, but these did not always correspond with global

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priorities. In regards to the reform programme in the United Nations, anything that the agencies could do to improve their response to national priorities of governments was good.

Mr. MATTHEWS said capacity-building operated at the level of building human skills and institution-building. Public administrative reform was of crucial importance, but there was a need for a political will, which was still missing. As for coordination, the different agencies received their instructions from headquarters, and the only problem was the considerable disparity in the degree of centralization of the different organizations. Demands on the resident coordinator, who wore not two but ten hats, were tremendous; about 50 per cent of his time was spent on UNDP work, and the rest on various other responsibilities.

Mr. PETERSEN said WHO participated fully in coordination between the agencies. The Government was responsible for donor coordination, but United Nations agencies helped support government capacity in doing that. As for coordination on specific health issues, WHO had worked on HIV/AIDS in Cambodia before the advent of UNAIDS; that new agency could be of support, barring delays before it could function fully.

Mr. LEFEVRE said that obvious synergy was developing between the agencies in Cambodia. The country strategy programme was new and should be ready by the end of the year, but the process had already produced positive results. Capacity-building for the census had been extremely effective, and had included training the national team and installing a computer system to analyse data.

Mr. BOREL said government capacity was low due to the effects of the genocide, migration and the terrible problem posed by the need of civil servants to seek supplementary salaries. The causes of poverty had to be understood, and in Cambodia they were multiple, including poor harvests, lack of purchasing power and little market integration. WFP in Cambodia was in transition between emergency aid and development, with programmes since the end of 1994 being oriented toward development rather than distribution of food to the displaced. The WFP had a marvelous programme but it could not do everything alone; therefore coordination was important.

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