How the DAC Began

Background

International organisations began providing emergency rehabilitation services to people with disabilities in Cambodia as early as the 1980s. During the 1990s, the number of such organisations expanded rapidly. However, they often worked in isolation, with a minimum of coordination among themselves and with the Cambodian Government.

By the mid-1990s, many people working in the Cambodian disability and rehabilitation sector had recognised that existing programmes were not leading to financial, technical and managerial sustainability, and were not able to meet the full range and extent of the needs of PWD. A patchwork of initiatives in the disability sector were over-servicing some areas and ignoring others, as money was channelled into projects based on what caught foreign interest rather than on what was most needed. Services available to the disabled tended to be clustered around cities, leaving them inaccessible to rural people, who remained largely unaware that they existed.

Task Force on Disability Issues

In September 1995, the Ministry of Social Affairs, Labour, Vocational Training and Youth Rehabilitation (MOSALVY - formerly MSALVA: see sidebar), with the support of expatriate advisors, responded to this situation by initiating a joint ministry-NGO Task Force to develop a common national strategy for addressing the needs of people with disabilities.

The first step of the Task Force was to map out a picture of Cambodia's existing disabled sector. This ensured that any plan of action would remain anchored to the genuine requirements of the disabled population rather than being at the mercy of what donors chose to fund.

Task Force Recommendations

The Task Force reported its recommendations in October 1996. It identified enormous gaps in services for the disabled and made detailed recommendations for action across the spectrum of issues relating to PWD. It also established Guiding Principles for the implementation of its recommendations.

A major recommendation was for the establishment of a permanent national body to address these issues with a common voice and in a coordinated manner. As a result, in 1997 the Disability Action Council was established, and became fully operational in September 1998 upon the receipt of a firm funding commitment from the USAID / Leahy War Victims Fund. At the same time, the DAC Secretariat was formed to provide administerial and technical support services to the Executive Board; Advisory, Technical and Specialised Committees; and Working Groups (see organisational chart). A MOSALVY Ministerial Declaration ("Prakas") later formalised the DAC's official status as a semi-autonomous national coordinating body.

Today the DAC forms one of the largest cooperative organisations in this country, with many government and non-government, national and international organisations under its umbrella (see list of Affiliated Organisations). A comprehensive Strategic Directions plan has been developed that will bring changes to the lives of people with disabilities nationwide.

Go to DAC Vision, Mission, Roles