In early 2008, ANSA-EAP was tapped to provide technical assistance to the World Bank’s Program to Enhance Capacity for Social Accountability (PECSA). PECSA aims to strengthen Cambodian civil society organizations to use social accountability approaches and tools and to promote networking among SA practitioners nationally and internationally. It is designed to enhance and strengthen the practice of social accountability in support of the World Bank-supported Demand for Good Governance (DFGG) Project of the Royal Government of Cambodia.
A key PECSA activity was the Social Accountability School, a three-week course on basic SA concepts and tools, which was organized in Phnom Penh in March-April, 2008. The SAS was designed jointly by the Society for Participatory Research in Asia based in India, and the Ateneo School of Government, host institution of ANSA-EAP. The local partner in Cambodia was the nongovernment organization, SILAKA.
Six Cambodians who participated in the SAS joined a follow-up Mentoring, Coaching and Exposure Visit (MCEV) to the Philippines organized by ANSA-EAP. The MCEV participants initially went through a two-week online coaching and mentoring program to deepen their knowledge and skills in the application of social accountability techniques in their projects. Four Filipino specialists provided mentoring assistance.
After the mentoring program, the Cambodians travelled to the Philippines in October 2008 to take part in an intensive immersion course on social accountability. They visited Abra Province where they met with the Concerned Citizens of Abra for Good Government (CCAGG), a community-based civil society group actively promoting social accountability. The Cambodians received hands-on experience of CCAGG’s textbook delivery, road project monitoring, and community gatherings.
Following their field exposure, the participants had meetings in Manila with key civil society and government officials to discuss their fields of specialization. On their final day, they presented their project proposals to a panel of specialists who gave their comments and provided constructive feedback. They were expected to go back to Cambodia with strong proposals that can generate funding and are achievable in the Cambodian context.
Dr. Angelita Gregorio-Medel, ANSA-EAP Project Director, explained the rationale for the MCEV: “The proposals that are coming in are not meeting the standards of the World Bank. We want to show that the graduates of the exposure visit program, and of the Social Accountability School as a whole, can acquire the means to prepare better proposals… and with a good chance of getting approved.”