Advocacy in Cambodia: Increasing Democratic ... - Pact Cambodia

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Increasing Democratic Space less pressing need for NGOs to organize them. On occasion networks have not sufficiently coordinated their events, especially International Women’s Day, resulting in low turnout at some individual events because too many events were organized on the same day. As special events consume energy, time, and resources, coordination needs to be a priority and effectiveness carefully analyzed. Most advocacy campaigns have not featured a strategic media campaign, though advocating organizations are learning to court the media. The most common media strategies include press releases, radio, and television spots. More innovative approaches include inviting journalists on field trips to learn about a situation or video taping speeches made by the Prime Minster and high officials to circulate at the village level that inform villagers of promises made. In view of the importance of the media in raising awareness and generating sympathy for a cause, a separate section on media strategies is presented below. Staging Organized Action Civil society groups have been conducting organized action in the form of demonstrations, strikes, and peace marches since before the 1993 elections. Marches are a regular part of special event days such as International Women’s Day. Demonstrations in front of national institutions such as the National Assembly, Royal Palace, Independence Monument, and Wat Phnom also feed into media campaigns, as any time large groups of people gather the media will usually attend. Examples of demonstrations include the march for the Commune Council Election Law lobbying and, more recently, the demonstration organized by Women For Prosperity to protest the suspicious deaths of three women commune council candidates. The demonstrations serve mainly as a symbolic protest to express the anger and solidarity of a group or network. As demonstrations consume enormous amounts of energy and resources, it is important for organizers to have a clear understanding of the intended effect of a demonstration, as well as possible roadblocks to organizing an effective one. NGOs have experienced delays in the past in obtaining authorization from the Phnom Penh Municipality to organize demonstrations and occasionally have not received authorization to march, as was the case when 20 NGOs wanted to demonstrate against corruption in 2001. Some PADV held this event during Women’s Day 2002 to raise awareness about Cambodia’s domestic violence problem. Banteay Meanchey province. demonstrations have small attendance. Follow up to demonstrations is important and organizers need to learn how the energy generated during an event can be harnessed for future activities. The main protest recourse for garment workers is the strike, which uses controlled conflict as a bargaining tool. Strikes can take the form of marches and demonstrations outside factories or of work stoppage, in which workers enter factories, punch their time cards, but refuse to work. Both strategies have become common practice in Cambodia, and a review of press articles from the past two years indicates that in most cases workers are able to win limited concessions through such action. Pro-enterprise supporters argue however, that demonstrations are not effective because workers automatically lose their regular attendance bonus of $5 paid at the end of Women For Prosperity (WFP) organized a non-violence march around Wat Phnom in January 2002 to protest the suspicious deaths of three women commune council candidates. The WFP Director spoke to participants during the demonstration (left). 26
each month. Facilitating Engagement While education can be a powerful strategy, awareness-raising alone is usually not enough to accomplish advocacy campaign goals. It is important for advocates to make issues relevant to target advocacy audiences. This section explores other strategies used to engage the public with government. Open Forums/Debates One of the most common engagement strategies used in Cambodia today is the public forum. This mechanism brings together the various actors involved in an issue along with members of the public. Public forums have been organized around issues such as the environment, corruption, land and fishing disputes, and the legalization of prostitution. Forums are often organized at the provincial level, closer to the conflict. Although not always tension-free, forums present an important mechanism to allow people to express their views and hear arguments they would not normally encounter. Although the process is not within the usual cultural forms of communication, benefits of public forums make them attractive to participating actors. The regular COPCEL monthly meetings facilitated by CDRI present an example of positive engagement. The meetings were initiated to minimize conflict revolving around commune elections by creating a forum for dialogue between the main political parties, government departments, election officials, and civil society groups. On average, 35 people attended each meeting, and meetings were held over a period of more than 2 ½ years. While discussions were not always smooth, the forum was considered highly successful. Its success is attributed to an absence of hidden agendas, follow-up one-on-one meetings, a non-judgmental context, and maintaining accurate minutes distributed to meeting participants. These minutes were adopted and widely distributed to government agencies and the four governors and vice-governors of each province. A more recent form of engagement was commune council candidate debates. These A candidate debate, held in January 2002. debates have great utility because they allow local leaders to explain why they are the best candidates while allowing members of the public to ask questions about past performance and current agendas. These debates are certainly a cornerstone of local democracy. A variation of this strategy is the election debate organized by the Cambodian Labor Organization for labor union members. Although organizers encountered difficulties in organizing the debate and one of the candidates did not appear, 1,500 union members attended and the debate was considered a major success. Consultative Process A deeper form of engagement is consultation, a process in which community representatives, NGOs, and other members from civil society are invited by the government to provide input on draft legislation and policies. One example is the inclusion of fishing representatives at a national workshop to provide feedback to the Department of Fisheries on the draft community fisheries sub-decree. This type of consultation usually occurs at the insistence of NGOs or because of stipulations in bilateral and multilateral assistance agreements. For example, most of the international banks require government consultation with civil society prior to enactment of legislation. In the same way, the U.S. Embassy uses its quota system as an incentive to encourage the Ministry of Labor to include labor union representatives at Ministry meetings. An equally compelling engagement strategy is what could be termed ‘reverse consultation,’ when NGOs ask lawmakers to provide input into a draft law. For example, advocates for the domestic violence law organized a workshop in which they asked parliamentarians to provide feedback on the draft law, under the assumption that lawmakers who gave their input into a draft law would be more likely to support that law when it was under review at the national assembly. Exposure Visits An exposure visit to other countries is another excellent engagement strategy, although it is one available more to donors than NGOs, who do not usually have the financial resources for this type of advocacy. When AFL-CIO reached an impasse with the Ministry of Labor on the new Increasing Democratic Space 27
Page 1 and 2: advocacy in cambodia: increasing de
Page 3 and 4: executive summary The Cambodian non
Page 5 and 6: sectors reviewed in this document
Page 7 and 8: livelihood of populations, includin
Page 9 and 10: Pursat Rice Miller’s Association,
Page 11 and 12: Protected Forest and Land Dispute:
Page 13 and 14: implementation. Without policy impl
Page 15 and 16: drafts incorporated into the new La
Page 17 and 18: the relocation site and not at the
Page 19 and 20: Landless Families: O’thkov Villag
Page 21 and 22: Short-term and long-term implicatio
Page 23 and 24: EMOs do not traditionally base thei
Page 25 and 26: or even fearful to solve conflicts,
Page 27: collection of information on public
Page 31 and 32: analyzing impact of advocacy activi
Page 33 and 34: communities and NGOs can work with
Page 35 and 36: influencing the legislative process
Page 37 and 38: informal contacts and being able to
Page 39 and 40: CHART OF LEGISLATIVE PROCESS (10) K
Page 41 and 42: considerable public attention, but
Page 43 and 44: lessons learned Advocates have lear
Page 45 and 46: ecommendations The following are re
Page 47 and 48: conclusion Outside of human rights
Page 49 and 50: conclusion of the forum, the govern
Page 51 and 52: level can sustainable resource use
Page 53 and 54: literature, interviews, and field v
Page 55 and 56: Future Considerations The following
Page 57 and 58: Timeline of Land Issues Over the Pa
Page 59 and 60: The new Land Law will require betwe
Page 61 and 62: labor The garment factory labor mov
Page 63 and 64: input from AFL-CIO, the largest lab
Page 65 and 66: intervene are by activating the Lab
Page 67 and 68: ights have, in principle if not in
Page 69 and 70: commune council election law The ca
Page 71 and 72: maximize the group’s collective i
Page 73 and 74: communication between EMOs and dono
Page 75 and 76: The CCEL campaign was the first opp
Page 77 and 78: in every four women (25%) aged 15-4
Page 79 and 80:
estimates the number of sex workers
Page 81 and 82:
elections saw an increase to 14 fem
Page 83 and 84:
healthcare. While many women know t
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losing influence. For this reason,
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plaintiffs at a disadvantage. A sec
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level to increase interaction betwe
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courses for members of the media (p
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economic issues NGOs are advocating
Page 95 and 96:
come together to discuss problems a
Page 97 and 98:
the issue on the government’s age
Page 99 and 100:
premier center for rights-based and
Page 101 and 102:
Penh. Watson, Gabrielle, 2000. Advo
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Advocacy in Cambodia: Increasing Democratic ... - Pact Cambodia

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