Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
To enhance aid effectiveness, some key challenges desperately need to be addressed. These in-
clude the use of program-based approaches (PBAs), the strengthening of [Technical Working
Groups], promoting the role of civil society organizations, improving government systems, par-
ticularly public financial management, and finally improving the database on aid delivery and
management.
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All these things mattered on some level. But without directly addressing the political
obstacles that stand in the way of these prescriptions, they are reduced to tautology—an
assertion that aid effectiveness could be improved by improving the effectiveness of aid.
Most diagnoses of Cambodia's development complex overlook the reality that highly
skilled and dedicated Cambodian officials—and there are many—remain constrained by
the political logic of the system. Brian Lund of Oxfam recalled meeting Cambodian ag-
ricultural extension officers who have “ten times the training” he received back in Aus-
tralia, but no way to apply it. If the adherence to templates and models began as idealistic,
rooted in the post-Cold War narrative of constant forward progress, it ended as pragmat-
ic, a way of keeping the development complex humming down the path of least political
resistance.
All of which brings us to the United Nations, whose 24 entrenched agencies in Phnom
Penh form a sort of Ground Zero for the Cambodian development complex. Two decades
after UNTAC, the UN mission is still cemented to its headquarters in Phnom Penh by a
strong institutional inertia and a pervasive fear of losing its access. This is not in itself
exceptional. Everywhere it operates, the UN is forced to work closely with host govern-
ments, which has led to a global tendency for UN personnel to tread carefully on sensitive
issues. In Cambodia, however, escalating government pressure has forced the global or-
ganization into a particularly ineffective position.
In March 2010 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs wrote to Douglas Broderick, the UN's
Resident Coordinator, threatening to revoke his diplomatic status and expel him from the
country. Broderick had issued a statement mildly criticizing the passage of the govern-
ment's new Anti-Corruption Law. According to one ex-UN employee, the incident made
a strong impression at headquarters. “Nobody else wants to get a letter like that, wheth-
er or not that letter had any substance,” the former staffer said. In the UN, risk aversion
has now been elevated into a philosophy of management. One international NGO director
summarized the prevailing thought process as, “Get through your posting without ruffling
any feathers, get a few ticks, move on to the next posting.”
A notable exception is the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
(OHCHR), the one UN agency with a mandate to speak out about sensitive issues.
OHCHR, established in 1993 to carry on the work of UNTAC's Human Rights Compon-
ent, has always had a fraught relationship with the Cambodian government. Since the
mid-1990s, the government has made repeated attempts to close the office down, and the
