Phnom Penh, December 5-6, 2011
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen distinguished national and international guests,
Dear All Participants!
It is my pleasure to be here in the opening of this important national forum on “National Social Protection Strategy for the Poor and Vulnerable People in Cambodia”. Taking
this opportunity, I would like to praise the management and officials
of the Council for Agricultural and Rural Development for organizing
this forum. I highly value the management and officials of the council
who have done a splendid job and realized numerous achievements for the
country and the people in the area of social protection, especially for
the poor and vulnerable both in urban and rural areas.
This
national forum is of great importance for the management and senior
officials of the Royal Government who are in charge of overseeing social
and local development work so that they can monitor and review the
policy and updated progress of priority areas, especially in the face of
the global economic crisis and climate change.
I am convinced that the National Social Protection Strategy for the Poor and Vulnerable People which
is being disseminated in this forum is the actual implementation of
the National Strategic Development Plan Update 2009 – 2013, the
socio-economic agenda of the Royal Government. This clearly reflects the
firm determination of the Royal Government in restoring and developing
the economy as well as alleviating poverty incidence and realizing the
CMDGs.
The
Royal Government of Cambodia updated its National Strategic
Development Plan in 2009 to reaffirm its focus on pro-growth and
poverty reduction strategies, including the expansion of social
protection coverage, assisting the people to adapt to crises, creation
of human capital, productivity improvement, sustained and equitable
growth. This clearly indicates that the Royal Government still considers
the poverty reduction and social protection as its priority as it is
working extremely hard to alleviate poverty incidence by: (1) ensuring
long-term growth of 6- 7% per annum, (2) distributing the benefit of
growth equitably, and (3) ensuring the sustainable use and management of
natural resources.
In
particular, over recent years, the Royal Government has been doing its
utmost to overcome all impediments caused by the global economic
crisis and domestic natural disasters and, as a result, we achieved
decade’s average growth of 6% and poverty reduction was trimmed to 26%
in 2009.
In
2011, the growth was initially projected to reach 7%, but due to
uncertainty surrounding the US and EU economies and impact of the
recent flood, we lowered our growth prediction to around 6%. Annual
inflation rate was contained at 5.5%. Our international reserve has
been increased to USD 3 billion, equivalent to 4 months of import. The
poverty rate declined from 47% in 1993 to 30% in 2007, followed by
further decline to 26% in 2010. We are convinced that the poverty rate
will be further trimmed to 19.5% in 2015 to correspond to the CMDGs.
Moreover,
the Royal Government of the Fourth Legislature of the National
Assembly also gives high priority to the implementation of social
safety net policy, including the improvement of workplace conditions,
the enforcement of the Law on Social Security, the implementation of
pension scheme for disabled workers and their dependents, and
protection of workers governed by work regulations and assurance of
work-related accident for all workers. Along with this, the Royal
Government has been providing support to the disabled and families of
the dead soldiers, as well as veterans and retirees through the
implementation of a far-reaching pension system by continuing the
implementation of the national social security fund.
Within
this context, the Royal Government will further enforce the Law on
National Social Security Fund and the Law on the Establishment of the
National Veteran Pension. The Royal Government will continue to increase
the salary of civil servants by 20% each year and take charge of
paying 6% of the civil servants’ salary to the national social security
fund till the end of the current Royal Government’s term.
In
general, the social safety net or social protection are not something
new to the society of Cambodia. In particular, the Rectangular Strategy
– Phase II stipulates good governance in social protection by
strengthening institutions and cooperation with development partners,
and expanding social services and rescue programs. Along with this, the
Royal Government has formulated the National Social Protection Strategy for the Poor and VulnerablePeople to
transform our vision and target into a real implementation to respond
to the concern and needs of the people, especially the poor and
vulnerable. The implementation of this strategy will require the
strengthening of existing interventions and institutional capacity, and
creation of new programs to address current loopholes. The next step of
this strategy’s implementation is to identify short-term actions to
maintain the stability and sustainability of social protection progress
achieved so far. In the medium and short term, the national social
protection strategy will prioritize the establishment of an efficient
and sustained social safety net system that focus on the poor and
vulnerable, with social welfare services for the vulnerable. In the long
term, the National Social Protection Strategy for the Poor and the
Vulnerable will define a sustained and deepened framework of social
protection for all Cambodian people, with provision of acceptable
package of basic needs and services.
Along
with this, the Royal Government is also implementing social
protection-supported activities by improving human capital in health
and education sector, and other social sector activities as well as
other social interventions including the (a) reduction of the poor’s
vulnerability, (b) natural disaster relief measures, (c) assistance for
the effected people, (d) the expansion of rehabilitation and
integration programs for the disable, drug addicts, trafficking victims
and under-age wrongdoers, and expansion of welfare programs for
elders, orphans, widows, poor families with women as heads, female
victims, the homeless, veterans and their families (e) the prevention
of crime and protection of community safety at communal/sangkat level,
district/khan level, municipal/provincial level and national level by
cooperating with development partners and other stakeholders.
Moreover, the Royal Government has been implementing the ideology of“letting no one die of starvation nor ignorance” in
addition to the social protection mission, especially for the poor and
vulnerable people. Through implementing this ideology the government
has been providing foods for those people in need during the farming
season and has been prepared to tackle any problems that arise from
unexpected flooding or drought. For instance, during these past
two-three months the government has taken immediate measures and paid
high attention to the wellbeing of those flood affected victims both
during and after the flood by helping regenerate farming activities to
ensure that no one die of starvation nor ignorance.
Taking
this opportunity, in order to ensure social protection for the poor
and vulnerable people with broad participation from all relevant
stakeholders and to ensure effective reduction of poverty and urban and
rural gap, I would like to raise the following recommendations:
- Coordination: Social
protection for the poor and vulnerable people is a cross-sectoral work
which requires the coordination and harmonization of effective
intervention and cooperation among competence ministries/institutions as
well as active relation with development partners and civil society
organizations that support this sector. Since most programs of social
protection are cross-sectoral in nature, I would like to urge for the
strengthening of facilitation mechanism heads by theCommittee for Agriculture and Rural Sector Development and Rehabilitation and
relevant ministries/institutions to avoid work and
regional/geographical duplication, harmonize policy options and work
procedures and to coordinate the use of resources and budget provided
the government and development partners.
- Identification of the poor and vulnerable people for policy implementation: In
order to transform social safety net into a comprehensive and broad
social security regime, Cambodia must be careful with the issues of
social fragmentation which cause by paying unbalance attention on
certain group of people within our society. Hence, I would like to urge
comprehensive and broad identification and update of poor and
vulnerable families identity frequently across the country. At the same
time, I would like the Ministry of Planning to cooperate with
sub-national authorities in leading the work of updating poor families
identity program frequently and seeking the possibility of expanding
its coverage nationwide.
- Sub-national administrative roles and capacities: To
realize the objectives of such strategy requires the combination of
programs that cover chronic poverty and starvation and those programs
for human resource capacity development that could transform the
vulnerable and poor people into effective production force of the nation
in order to actively contribute to country’s socio-economic
development. The roles of sub-national authorities are crucial and
necessary for coordinating work implementation, identifying the poor and
vulnerable people, and monitoring and evaluating the efficiency of
strategy implementation at the sub-national level. Taking this
opportunity, I would like the working group of the Committee for Agriculture and Rural Sector Development and Rehabilitation to
closely and effectively cooperate with the Ministry of Interior and
the National Committee for Sub-national Democratic Development in order
to strengthen the roles, responsibilities, and capacities of
sub-national officials in fulfilling their duties and effectively
implementing the social protection strategy.
- Monitoring and Evaluation: The
monitoring and evaluation of intervention programs and the whole
strategy is necessary for assessing the social protection policy in
Cambodia. The national strategy for social protection is a live document
which is flexible to changing circumstances and the sources of
vulnerability as well as assessing the systematic lessons learnt from
past implementation of programs and intervention. At the same time, even
though the monitoring and evaluation of special programs and
intervention will be carried out by competence ministries/institutions, I
would like the Committee for Agriculture and Rural Sector Development and Rehabilitation to
play a coordinating role and cooperate closely with the Ministry of
Economy and Finance, Council for the Development of Cambodia, Ministry
of Interior, Ministry of Planning, to conduct general monitoring and
provide technical consultancy for the implementation of the social
protection strategy. TheCommittee for Agriculture and Rural Sector Development and Rehabilitation should
also prepare independent monitoring on the strategy to support
dialogues that consists of true information on how to coordinate the
preparation of further strategies.
Before
ending, I would like to urge relevant ministries/institutions at the
national and sub-national levels, national and international
development partners to abide by the general principle of comprehensive
implementation of programs as laid out in this strategy paper to
ensure effective implementation as planned.
Finally, along with the opening of the National Forum on the Dissemination of National Social Protection Strategy for the Poor and Vulnerable People in Cambodia, I would like to wish Excellencies, ladies, and gentlemen with Four Gems of Buddhist Blessing.
EndItem.