Viriya research project

Local Community Development: The Cambodia Experience

I. Introduction

1.1. Background of the Study

In order to keep the promise and achieve the Eight UN Millennium Development Goals – all by the target date of 2015 – there have been a blueprint agreed to by all the world’s countries worldwide and all the world’s leading development institutions. They have galvanized unprecedented efforts to meet the needs of the world’s poorest and eradicate poverty as a core. At the same time, we can see the world’s trend is evolving and moving toward a global community, and, we need all individual countries to act accordingly, especially least developed countries – developing countries.

For Cambodia, the Millennium Development Goals set targets for combating in extreme poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation and gender discrimination. By 2015, Cambodia is hoped to be having much improved human resources, less poverty and inequality, reduced prevalence of HIV/AIDS, enhanced conservation of Cambodia’s environmental heritage, and a society without discrimination against women and where all girls and boys have better and equal access to education. In order to achieve these goals, Cambodia is moving its transitional economic process from the past to the present, and, the Royal Government of Cambodia has opened internationally to many nongovernmental organizations' cooperation and efforts throughout the country, especially local communities. To raise communities’ strengths, an NGO, Lutheran World Federation (LWF) came in to Cambodia in 1979 in a mission: “To answer humanity needs　after Pol-Pot regime”. Its running programmes have formed structural competency development which, in terms of strategic strengths, is beneficial for the people, right-based participation and empowerment. LWF intends to withdraw a little at a time in providing direct service to communities and individuals at the time they can manage development process on their own with their trained abilities. It will try to transfer resources from supporting national government and public institutions to focused activities helping the ultimately isolated rural poor communities instead.

Recently, a project named “Integrated Rural Development through Empowerment Project” has been carried on in Kampong Chhnang province, Teuk Phos District with the assistant of local government agencies. Although there are special project and tools to promoting development in this local community in terms of raising well-being of the people and reducing poverty to minimum level, it seems there are questions whether the approach really promote the community or not.

1.2. Significance of the Research

The study will provide insights into important link between NGO and local community. It will clarify both perceived negative influence and gain by the project implemented. It will ensure the well-being in the community through measurable indicators in different aspects of the project.

Furthermore, by using inductive research method, the study would generate practical theories and perceptions of the community, model of new development theory, understanding of tools for local community and rural development, and simultaneously, the contribution of cooperative NGO and the intervening government policies.

1.3. Research Problem

There have been awareness that NGOs are coming in to help by pursuing development agenda and approaches based on grassroot participation in local community level. Likewise, Lutheran World Federation formed and used the Integrated Rural Development through Empowerment Project to enhance the living standard as well as socioeconomic welfare of the people in the community. However, the efforts they were trying to promote are sustainably less productive and do not lead to the benefits either in the long or short-run. Hence, there are questions regarding the implementation of the project that need to be addressed and as the following:

1. How effective is the LWF-Cambodia’s approach to promote local community development in Teuk Phos district?

2. What are the indicators for success of LWF’s operational project for sustainable local community?

3. How does LWF project contribute to the community’s well-being?

1.4. Research Objectives

The study attempts to find out the effectiveness of the project used by LWF, Integrated Rural Development through Empowerment Project (IRDEP), toward local community development. In order to understand the development procedure and sustainability, the study aims:

o To describe the nature and implementation of LWF project in the selected villages.

o To determine the effectiveness of the project in terms of promoting local community development.

o To describe community’s perception as to the NGO contributions to their well-being.

o To recommend measures to enhance the effectiveness of NGO in promoting local community development in rural Cambodia (NGOs; government; communities; researchers).

1.5. Scope and Limitations

This study will be conducted in Teuk Phos district, Kampong Chhnang Province, Cambodia using selected NGO, which is Lutheran World Federation Cambodia, and its implemented project (Integrated Rural Development through Empowerment Project). It will be done within 2 months due to constraints on financial resources.

II. Theoretical Framework and Review of Related Literature

The complex theoretical framework of this study is based on definitions and concepts of the dynamics using community and local development theory, rural development, project effectiveness theory which concentrates on measurable indicators selected, government and NGO partnership theory, NGOs in development theory, and local sustainability theory. By putting together the essential elements of these theories and framework, the study advances to determine convergence of the effectiveness of the project implemented by the NGO and how it reflects the well-being of the local community in terms of measurable indicators and perception of the people.

Development theory

Over time ‘development’ has carried very different meanings. The term ‘development’ in its present sense dates from the postwar era of modern development thinking. The lineages of development are quite mixed. It includes the application of science and technology to collective organization, but also managing the changes that rise from the application of technology. Development virtually from the outset has included an element of reflexivity. It ranges from infrastructure works (roads, railways, dams, canals, ports) to industrial policy, the welfare state, new economic policy, colonial economics and Keynesian demand management (Pieterse, 2001, p. 5-7). An overview of meaning of development over time is in Table 1 (Piertese, op cit., p. 7).

Table 1. Meanings of ‘development’ over time

Period	Perspectives	Meanings of development
1870>	Latecomers	Industrialization, catching-up
1850>	Colonial economics	Resource management, trusteeship
1940>	Development economics	Economic (growth) – industrialization
1950>	Modernization theory	Growth, political & social modernization
1960>	Dependency theory	Accumulation – national, autocentric
1970>	Alternative development	Human flourishing
1980>	Human development	Capacitation, enlargement of people’s choices
1980>	Neoliberalism	Economic growth – structural reform, deregulation, liberalization, privatization
1990>	Post-development	Authoritarian engineering, disaster

This table shows ‘development’ as a whole has been changing through time and context of human society. In the 1990s, development was considered to have reached a stage of ‘post-development or anti-development’, that is, there were supposed to be no negative substantial changes and disasters happening in the process of development. In contrast, another new concept of development emerged as a lasting tool and thrived to cure post-development thinking in order to maintain the world economically and environmentally during the late 1980s. Contemporarily it has affected many new development ideas and projects regionally and locally such as the concept of this particular research study in local community sustainability in rural development.

Rural development theory

The concept of rural development has changed significantly during the last three decades. Until the 1970s, rural development was synonymous with agricultural development and, hence, focused on increasing agricultural production (Harris, 1982; Chambers, 1983; ADB, 2000). By the early 1980s, according to Harris (1982, p. 15), the World Bank defined it as “…a strategy designed to improve the economic and social life of a specific group of people – the rural poor.” Four major factors appear to have influenced the change: increased concerns about the persistent and deepening of rural poverty, changing views on the meaning of the concept of development itself, emergence of a more diversified rural economy in which rural non-farm enterprises play an increasingly important role, and increased recognition of the importance of reducing the non-income dimensions of poverty to achieve sustainable improvements in the socioeconomic well-being of the poor. Chino (2000, p. xiii) added that today’s concept of rural development is fundamentally different from that used three or four decades ago. The concept now encompasses “concerns that go well beyond improvements in growth, income, and output. The concerns include an assessment of changes in the quality of life, broadly defined to include improvement in health and nutrition, education, environmentally safe living conditions, and reduction in gender and income inequalities.” Fernando (2008) points out inclusive rural development which covers three different but interrelated dimensions (Figure 1): economic, social, political dimensions.

Figure 1. Three dimensions of inclusive rural development

This figure illustrates the elements necessary for empowerment programmes which engage in growth, capacity enhancement, competency improvement, opportunities. Furthermore, the proposed study will be of strategic importance for combining key development stakeholders, including NGOs and local authorities, to work together in the selected local communities in terms of achieving their common strategic goals of alleviating poverty in rural areas.

Community/local development theory

In some situations development is used as a synonym for growth. When used without reference to quality or consequences, development may be good or bad. However, Cook (1994) argued that “in the context of community development, development is a concept associated with improvement and it is a certain type of change in a positive direction.” Though, he said the consequences of efforts to bring about development might not be positive, the objective is always positive. He added its distinguish characteristics which focus on a unit called ‘community’ and induce non-reversible structural change. To stabilize preferred situation of structural change, he suggested of use of paid professionals/workers, initiation by groups, agencies or institutions external to the community unit, emphasize public participation, participate for the purpose of self-help, increase dependence on participatory democracy as the mode for community (public) decision-making, and use a holistic approach.

With the notions of structural change and positive growth inside the community, this study encourages the entry of external NGO and its project to empower and promote local development in developing countries.

Project effectiveness (indicators) theory

Indicators can be described as ‘a set of rules for gathering and organizing data so they can be assigned meaning’ (Innes, 1990, p. 5). They can perform many functions: description, simplification, measurement, trend identification, clarification, communication and instigation (Hoernig, 2001). Based on these ideas according to Wideman (2000), project effectiveness indicator review is a form of project evaluation　in progress status, effectiveness and efficiency, completion status, and specific problem areas. In his project review, project effectiveness is assessed based on actual conditions or opportunities, appropriateness, achievement of results, acceptance, intended or unintended consequences, responsiveness, financial result, and working environment.

Principally, project effectiveness will be considered in this study as measurement of NGO operation’s effectiveness. Criteria to be looked at are common set of goals and objectives (objective attainment), degree of satisfaction, well-being indicators of the community, perception and responsiveness to project effect, and decision-making.

Partnership (Government and NGO) theory

According to Pieterse (2001), after development thinking has been more or less successively, state-led, market-led and society-led, it is increasingly understood that development action needs all of these in new combinations. New perspectives and problems (such as complex emergencies, humanitarian action) increasingly involve cooperation among government, civic and international organizations, and market forces. Human development, social choice, public action, and urban/rural development all involve such intersectoral partnerships. For government at local and national levels, this increasingly involves a coordinating roles facilitator and enabler of intersectoral cooperation.

Much of the interest in partnership in development circles since the 1990s has been aimed at seeking to build links between the work of government agencies and NGOs in development projects (Farrington & Bebbington, 1993). Brown & Ashman (1996) also suggest that cooperation between government and NGOs needs to span gaps of culture, power, resources and perspective if they are to be successful. In broad terms, the creation of partnerships is seen as a way of making more efficient use of scarce resources, increasing institutional sustainability and improving beneficiary participation. Lewis (2007, p. 93) added that, at a more general level, creating links between government agencies and NGOs may have implications for strengthening transparency in administration and challenging prevailing top-down institutional culture, both of which may contribute to the strengthening of the wider ‘civil society’. Both NGOs and government tend to cooperate and support each other in the context of local rural community projects, though there is a concept of efficiency which argues that NGOs provide services more effectively than government agencies can (Smith, 1987) and, intensivness, that NGOs are able to generate self-sufficient, self-reliant and sustainable interventions for local communities. There are many arguments regarding the NGO-government partnership; in the case of this (proposed) study, local authority has been playing facilitating and supporting roles for the NGO projects in the community. The NGO is project-based, implementing interactions with the community without having to overcome positions or policies taken by the authority, thus helping to smooth the way for development.

NGOs in development theory

This section focuses on what development NGOs actually do, and argues that what they do can be summarized broadly in terms of three main overlapping sets of roles: those of implementers, catalysts and partners (Lewis, 2007, p. 88). Of course, each role is not confined to a single organization, since an NGO may engage in all three groups of activities at once, or it may shift its emphasis from one to the other over time or as contexts and opportunities change.

The implementer role is defined as the mobilization of resources to provide goods and services, either as part of the NGO’s own project or programme or that of a government or donor agency (Carroll, 1992; Chambers, 1987; Bebbington, 1991; Kaimowitz, 1993). It covers many of the best known tasks carried out by NGOs and includes the programmes and projects which NGOs establish to provide services to people (such as healthcare, credit, agricultural extension, legal advice or emergency relief) as well as the growth of ‘contracting’, in which NGOs are engaged by government or donors to carry out specific tasks in return for payment. The role of catalyst is defined as an NGO’s ability to inspire, facilitate or contribute towards developmental change among other actors at the organizational or the individual level. This includes grassroots organizing and group formation (and building ‘social capital’) (Thomas, 1992; Putnam, 1993), empowerment approaches to development (Rowlands, 1995; Friedmann, 1992), lobbying and advocacy work (Korten, 1990; Covey, 1995; Van Rooy, 1997), innovation in which NGOs seek to influence wider policy processes, and general campaigning work. The role of partner encompasses the growing trend for NGOs to work with government, donors and the private sector on joint activities (DFID, 1997; World Bank, 1996; Farrington & Bebbington, 1993), as well as the complex relationships which have emerged among NGOs, such as ‘capacity building’. The new rhetoric of partnership now poses a challenged for NGOs to build meaningful partnership relationships and avoid dependency, co-optation and goal displacement. All in all, NGOs in rural communities operate with a distinguished (clear, focused) viewpoint. They study the areas, tradition, situation, and need of the people so that they can formulate goals which find a way out of poverty and offer lasting self-help approaches even without further assistance of NGOs in the future. Additionally, in reality, most governments of least developed countries seemed stuck in long-term power-holding relationships with dictators and corrupt officials. The rise of NGOs to help the people is a good start in development locally and in offering alternatives to unresponsive government.

Local sustainability theory

Local sustainability is likely to follow the general perspectives of sustainable development as a core. Custance & Hillier (1998) agree that sustainability development lies at the heart of government's policies, meaning to achieve a balance between three broad objectives – maintenance of economic growth, protection of the environment and prudent use of natural resources, and social progress which recognizes the needs of everyone.

What is ‘sustainable development’?

There are some aspirational statements on this theme, the most commonly quoted being Brundtland’s: “development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (in Custance & Hillier, 1998, p. 281f).

Refining this notion of sustainability, Heal (1998, pp. 14) outlines what he considers to be the essence of sustainability: “We have now outlined earlier approaches to sustainability, their limitations, and the intuitions and concerns behind this concept. The time has come to build on this. I suggest here, and argue in detail below, that the essence of sustainability lies in three axioms:

- A treatment of the present and the future that places a positive value on the very long run;

- Recognition of all the ways in which environmental assets contribute to economic well-being;

- Recognition of the constraints implied by the dynamics of environmental assets”.

Based on these ideas, additionally, OECD’s (2000) sustainability consists of three dimensions which interact among each and with each dimension’s individual indicators, namely economic, social, and political dimensions. The following discussion (see Methodology, below) details the relationship between this view of sustainability and implementation of the study itself.

Framework for the study

By narrowing the concept of sustainable development in the international arena into local sustainability within the context of community development, the framework for this study moves from development theory per se to local community development theory: The roles implemented by NGOs with assistance of the local authority’s policies have the potential to elevate local sustainability for rural poor to the highest criterion for project effectiveness.

Figure 2. Theoretical framework for the study

Every element of theories embedded within this study is connecting itself in a specified chain framework in local community development. Logically, the above figure shows the relationship and interaction of every single theory which flows in terms of supporting one common direction: effectiveness leads to sustainability. Similarly, the following figure is going to show the conception of this study in the same common direction in which will answer the research questions, as well as achieve the objectives of the study.

Figure 3. Conceptual framework of the study

Assumption

The favorable assumptions of the study are:

1. Objectives are verifying effective indicators.

2. The people are satisfying.

3. There has been full participation of the three fronts: NGO, local authority and the people.

4. The project is implemented in administrative capable manners of leadership, linkages, networking, etc.

III. Research Methodology

3.1. Research Design

The study will be conducted in Teuk Phos district of Kampong Chhnang province which locates approximately 91 kilometers west of the capital city of Cambodia, Phnom Penh and since it will be an Ex-Post facto case study research the need of using comparative data of pre-LWF and post-LWF project implementation will be considered. This study will look at comparison between how the situation in particular rural area was before entry of LWF project and the situation after LWF’s existence and as well as the outcomes and the effectiveness of the project in order to assess well-being of the community in terms of NGOs roles in local sustainable development.

3.2. Research Methods

3.2.1. Variables of the study

(a) Independent variable: LWF approach, Integrated Rural Development through Empowerment Project (IRDEP).

(b) Dependent variable: Local community development of Teuk Phos district.

(c) Intervening variable: Government policies.

3.2.2. Respondents of the study

People living in Teuk Phos are first and foremost main sources of information in this research and will be drawn from 8 communes where the project is implemented; all of LWF staffs worked for the project along with the local authority in the selected sites will be interviewed.

3.2.3. Sampling

The study will use Satisfied random sampling, which is to know about people’s perception on their satisfaction over project implementation and current status. Proportional allocation of specific beneficiaries of the project is ………. Next is Key informant (expert survey). All LWF staffs that are directly involved in the IRDEP project implementation, monitoring and evaluation as well as a number of government officials of the district will be selected as key informants.

3.2.4. Data Collection

Primary data: Triangulation will be a qualitatively good technique to get primary data regarding this research. It comprises of three angles: Survey questionnaire, in-depth interview and field observation. A survey of questionnaire will be designed to compare the past and present condition of the community and implementation of the project operation. It urges to know the perception of the people, how they view LWF, and their well-being and satisfaction (in terms of education, healthcare, income, knowledge of agriculture and banking, livestock raise, decision-making, and so on). The interview will give awareness of how project carriers and facilitators evaluate themselves in the roles of helping betterment for poor people and their own future vision of the project results when LWF withdraws. Simultaneously, field observation can take place anytime during site visit to verify accuracy of both means above. This helps validate and ensure that the data is gathered correctly and effectively.

Secondary data: It will be based on LWF annual report, current monitoring report and implementation progress, community and district archive, etc.

3.2.5. Data Analysis

In the academic research, data will speak for themselves. After the collection, the data will be analyzed using statistical methods such as Frequencies, percentages, and charts to describe, compare and explain about the findings. Moreover, in order to address the main research questions in this study, the relationships between independent, dependent and intervening variables will be discussed and further research will be recommended. Finally, the outcome will lead to finding of answers to the questions.