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

Increasing Democratic Space
efficient and avoid overtaxing network members.
It should be possible for agencies that feel strongly
independent or that disagree with other agencies’
philosophies to participate if they have the best
interest of the Cambodian people in mind.
In order to move their advocacy agendas
forward, actors from some of the less-coordinated
sectors should meet to put together a long-term
advocacy approach with short-term and long-term
objectives. These objectives should be revisited on
a regular basis and adjusted as needed. To
maximize efficiency, sectoral leaders should
identify opportunities to link these exercises to
preparation of the annual Consultative Group
(CG) report prepared by NGOs.
Promote Cross-Sector Communication
Advocacy leaders interviewed for this report
are accumulating a vast amount of experience.
However, because they work in different sectors
they usually do not know each other. Bringing
these activists together for some event, possibly a
yearly national advocacy conference, will facilitate
sharing of experiences and encourage leaders
working on difficult issues. Such an event would
allow local activists to broaden their horizons in
the same manner that the 1999 gender conference
brought two hundred women from all
backgrounds together.
Another cross-sectoral activity could be a
workshop on legislative lobbying. Various groups
working on legislative issues have expressed the
need to learn more about lobbying techniques.
Advocates going through the legislative process for
the first time are often unsure of what their next
steps should be and would benefit from
exchanging experiences with others who have
extensive experience in lobbying.
Increase Grassroots Participation in
Agenda Selection and Policy
Formulation
Advocating organizations should follow the
community fisheries campaign’s example and take
every opportunity to include local activists in
networks and policy formulation activities. This
will increase the advocacy capacity of ordinary
citizens and ensure that advocacy campaigns are
relevant and responsive.
Foster Government Authorities as
Advocates
The most successful advocacy strategies
focus on developing constructive relationships
with government. Elected officials represent a
constituency. Capacity building of government
officials in advocacy within government would be
useful to instill a sense of responsibility and
accountability.
As elected representatives, the new commune
council members will be the advocacy targets of
ordinary citizens and will in turn advocate for their
constituencies with higher levels of government.
With access to information and increased
advocacy skills, the commune councils may act as
conciliators to mitigate conflict at the local level.
Build Capacity: Include Exposure Tours
and Tie In to Ongoing Campaigns
To be effective, advocacy capacity building
programs need to be conducted within the context
of an issue. Exposure visits allow participants to
observe advocacy in action. Exposure tours should
have a mechanism built in to process lessons
learned from the tour.
Focus on Economic and Social Issues
The majority of advocacy efforts have focused
on rights issues. While these are doubtlessly
important, these advocacy campaigns have not
been based on popular support but rather have
been sustained by organizations. However, there
are other important advocacy issues that are more
likely to receive popular support because they are
organized around interest groups.
Examples of interest groups include market
vendors (who deal with market monopolies), taxi
drivers (who pay unofficial fees to transport
riders), and meat sellers (who are required to sell
their products to particular slaughterhouses,
ostensibly so that they can be inspected, though
inspections are rare). These groups would benefit
from information about current laws and their
rights to not be abused by local officials levying
unofficial ‘taxes.’ Larger economic issues could
include trade policies and the implications these
policies have on people at the local level.
Build Advocacy Capacity Beyond
Leaders
Currently advocacy capacity appears to reside
mainly with a few leaders. To ensure sustainability,
future advocacy capacity building efforts should
focus on building capacity beyond these advocate
leaders to NGO program officers, for example.
Likewise, government officials could use
capacity building in drafting successful legislation.
This would include strategies for including the
needs of their constituencies in proposed
legislation, providing technical expertise in line
ministries to provide cogent arguments that are
rooted in empirical data, and methods for
following legislation through to implementation.
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