I- Background

Objective:

"To address the needs of mine survivors and other persons with disabilities by supporting activities of the Landmine Victim Assistance Steering Committee (LVA-SC) and enabling the Government of Cambodia, in collaboration with key stakeholders, to develop and implement a National Plan of Action for Victim Assistance (NPA-VA) for the period 2007-2009 and beyond"

AusAID initially requested that Australian Red Cross (ARC) should support coordination of the survivor assistance sector in Cambodia through the general management and coordination of the Landmine Victim Assistance (LSA) Program. Through consultations and assessment during the design phase it became evident that addressing national sector coordination efforts in a comprehensive and effective way requires further assistance to sector initiatives than the technical support that the ARC Coordinator can provide within the scope of managing the LSAP. This section proposes an approach to LSA sector support that address a clearly identified need by the sector and which builds on already existing structures and initiatives.

In 2005, the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention's Standing Committee on Victim Assistance and Socio-Economic Reintegration (SCVA) increased it efforts to ensure the successful implementation of the Convention and concrete progress in meeting the needs of landmine survivors before the Second Review Conference in 2009. A questionnaire was developed in consultation with the Convention's Implementation Support Unit and key stakeholders, including the International Campaign to Ban Landmines and the ICRC, to assist the 24 most affected States Parties, including Cambodia, in developing a plan of action in relation to mine survivor assistance.

In June 2005, the Disability Action Council (DAC) prepared a response to the questionnaire on behalf of the Government of Cambodia which included information on the situation in 2005, objectives for 2009, plans to achieve some of the objectives, and the means to implement the plans. This response was presented to the 6MSP. The Zagreb Progress Report summarized the responses made by Cambodia (situation and objectives) and other relevant States Parties. The Zagreb Progress Report acknowledged that the questionnaire was "not an end-product but rather an initial step in a long-term planning and implementation process." Cambodia has yet to finalize a National Plan of Action based on the Zagreb report.

The Landmine Victim Assistance Steering Committee (LVASC) established in 2006 has as its principle aim the oversight of the development and subsequent implementation of a National Plan of Action for Victim Assistance sector (NPA-VA) following from the Zagreb process. The committee is comprised of the main national and international organizations and agencies working in the sector. The DAC was appointed to be secretariat for the Committee. It however lacks the capacity to follow up the implementation of its Terms of Reference. This particularly is related to engaging all the necessary actors operating at national, provincial and regional levels, to ensure that the undertaking of developing the National Plan of Action is based on the widest possible consultative process, and to oversee the coordinating activities necessary to support its implementation.

It is therefore proposed to support DAC to accomplish the objective of this program component by achieving four specific outputs:

• Capacity is developed within DAC and MoSVY to follow up the work related to the LVASC:
  • To increase the capacity of DAC it is proposed to recruit a consultant and a coordinator having the necessary expertise to coordinate and facilitate the general activities of the LVASC - this will include the development and implementation of the National Plan of Action (refer to Annex 9 for tentative ToRs for consultant and coordinator). The consultant will collaborate closely with the coordinator, who is expected to continue and follow up the work after the consultant has completed his/her six month assignment. Based on need, it can be considered to apply for a volunteer from one of the Australian volunteer programs to support the DAC and coordinator in its work. This is not considered as a viable substitute for the hiring of the consultant, as time pressure will not allow for the volunteer to be in place early enough in the process. DAC will require some office support to incorporate the new staff in their operation and supervise their work.
  • It is an aim of this program objective to promote intergovernmental collaboration and ownership in the SA sector. Two individuals in MoSVY will be asked to join the project team and to be involved in the work with the NPA-VA. As a motivating factor, and to ensure their continuous involvement, they will be given a financial incentive to participate in the work. The financial incentive will be dependent on productivity as well as active participation. A plan for how the financial incentives will be managed and awarded will be developed. This plan will be included in the cooperation agreement between ARC, DAC and MOSVY. It is expected that the consultant and coordinator take a leading role in guiding and motivating MoSVY members of the group, providing capacity building where necessary. The Cambodian Mine Action and Victim Assistance Authority (CMAA) has the formal responsibility for the survivor assistance sector. However, at present they do not wish to be directly involved in the development of the NPA-VA. If this situation will change in the future, adjustments in the composition of the project team might be made to include a representative from CMAA.
  • A working group for the development of the NPA-VA will be established, consisting of members from the LVASC. The members of this group will monitor progress and provide support to the project team where necessary. The DAC consultant and coordinator are responsible to convene the working group, to which they will deliver monthly reports. The consultant and the chair of the working group will report to the Landmine Victim Assistance Steering Committee on a three-monthly basis to discuss the progress of the activities and on any significant implications.
• Cambodia's National Plan of Action for Victim Assistance is developed and delivered to 8MSP:
  Although the consultant and coordinator are expected to follow up all tasks from the LVASC, the predominant activity in the period June - December 2007 will be the NPA-VA, which will be presented at the 8th Meeting of States Parties in November 2007. The plan will aim to provide effective solutions to the following areas:
  • To respond to the immediate and ongoing medical needs of mine survivors;
  • To develop capacities to meet the psychological and social support needs of mine survivors;
  • To actively support the socio-economic reintegration of mine survivors;
  • To enforce and ensure that national legal and policy frameworks effectively address the needs and fundamental human rights of mine survivors;
  • To improve and increase national physical rehabilitation capacities based on the recent PRC evaluation;
  • To develop or enhance national mine survivor data collection capacities; and
  • To ensure that in all survivor assistance efforts, emphasis is given to age and gender considerations.
  In order to undertake an effective and thorough process to address these issues the project team will collect information by:
  • Wide consultations at national, provincial and community level, ensuring that all affected parties are heard in the process.
  • Based on guidance in the initial stages provided by recommendations from the Minister of MoSVY and the work already undertaken in the report presented in Zagreb in 2005.
  • Key members of the LVASC are expected to take a lead in collecting information in their respective field of expertise in order to assist the work with the plan.
  • Conduct a workshop, where the draft NPA-VA is presented and discussed, as a further step to assure sufficient input from the sector, and for quality assurance purposes. The costs of this workshop will be fundraised from other donors. Feedback from this workshop will be incorporated in the final draft of the NPA-VA, which in turn will be adopted by the LVASC and approved by the Government of Cambodia before the presentation at the 8 MSP in November.
• The NPA-VA is disseminated in Cambodia and implementation systems are established:
  Once the final NPA-VA is adopted, LVASC will establish the mechanisms for implementing the plan. This includes:
  • Dissemination of information on the NPA-VA as widely as possible, in order to ascertain an understanding of the new guiding principles for survivor assistance in Cambodia.
  • A workshop (funded by other donors) will convene as many actors in the sector as possible to present the plan and implementation mechanisms. These mechanisms include the identification of lead responsibilities for implementation in the various sub-sectors at the national, provincial and regional level.
  • Monitoring and review mechanisms will also be established within the framework of the LVASC, as well as determine responsibilities for undertaking these tasks. CMAA, MoSVY and DAC are expected to take a lead in these discussions, in order to ensure national ownership of the processes.
• The NPA-VA is being implemented with the involvement of the staff from MoSVY
Depending on the outcomes and specific mechanisms set in place, DAC and MoSVY should take a lead role to conduct and coordinate monitoring visits to SA service providers. Important in this process is the assessment and discussion with service providers to identify any gaps emerging during the implementation of the NPA-VA. LVASC is a natural forum for these discussions. Sustainability issues in the SA sector will be addressed among other ways by formalizing communication links between agencies operating in the sector and the Cambodian government through relevant ministries.

Management and coordination
DAC will as the secretariat for the LVASC hold the following responsibilities:

1. Hold contract management responsibility for the project; this will include management of relationships with, especially, CMAA and MoSVY; and other relevant Ministries;
2. Ensure that comments, recommendation, decisions given by the Steering Committee are executed;
3. Work with the project team to produce and present regular progress report to the DAC Governing Board and the LVASC

The NPA-VA working group, consisting of the project team (DAC consultant/coordinator, MoSVY and selected members from LVASC) will be established to oversee and assist in the work with the plan. This group will meet regularly (and more frequently than the LVASC) to:

1. Oversee the project progress implementation and provide necessary feedback and comment to the project team;
2. Provide necessary immediate feedback, comment and recommendation to the team for alignment purpose;
3. Monitor and evaluate on activities implementation with the agreed timeframe;
4. Approve of project expenses

The LVASC will provide direction and overall decision making in the work with the NPA-VA. It will

1. Oversee the progress and implementation and provide necessary direction to the project team and/or working group;
2. Members of the LVASC will actively participate in providing information and direction in their specific fields of expertise;
3. Approve the Content/Output of the National Plan of Action;

Beneficiaries

The direct beneficiaries of the LSA sector support component are the survivor assistance sector operators and the Cambodian Government via the development of the National Plan of Action. It is also specifically DAC and MoSVY for the elements of the project that lead to greater collaboration between these two actors. Indirect beneficiaries of the project comprise a much wider group, and include landmine survivors, their families and communities, other people with disabilities, other Ministries such as MoH and MoEYS and Mine Action operators in general.

Second year plan

The process of implementation of the plan will be ongoing, and needs continuous follow up by the secretariat and coordinator in DAC (i.e. taking the lead in delivering progress reports). A review of the plan and the process should be undertaken in the second year of implementation, and might include discussions of a framework for a national long-term survivor assistance program 2009 and beyond.

Five year vision

In a five year perspective it is anticipated that the effectiveness in the delivery of Survivor assistance will increase, that the Cambodian government will develop a greater commitment and ownership in the delivery of survivor assistance services and that the role of DAC will evolve to become a government advisory/consultative body on survivor assistance services. Also it is expected that the government itself will increase its contribution both in financial and human resource terms to the delivery of these services. DAC will have an enhanced role in the coordination of activities and can in particular provide a platform for enhanced cooperation with government ministries.

II- Activities

The National Plan of Action has developed since July 2007 by international consultant and project coordinator by organizing the focus group discussion in order to collect all information and data related to landmine survivors and person with disability. The NPA-VA has follow to six components defined in the Final Report of the First Review Conference of the AP Mine Ban Convention is provided below:

Part 1	Understanding the extent of the challenge
Part 2	Emergency and medical care
Part 3	Physical rehabilitation
Part 4	Psychological support and social reintegration Psychological supports Education
Part 5	Economic reintegration Vocational training Micro-finance
Part 6	Laws and public policies

The National plan of Action was collected information and data at the provincial and district level by project coordinator in order to combine the information collected at central level so that the NPA-VA would be responded to neither community level nor the central.

After organizing the focus group discussion and field trip to the provinces, the NPA-VA was developed as the first draft in September 2007 and presented them to Landmine Victim Steering Committee in order to provide the feedback and comments to do the next step.

The NPA has developed from the first draft until the fourth draft because all information in the front pages has to develop such as the number of causalities etc. The last update draft NPA is to review all each objectives in order to make them smarter because the objectives of each Annex are to be immeasurable and unspecific.

Together, Project Coordinator, Sheree Bailey who is Victim Assistance Specialist of Geneva International Center for Humanities Deminding and Teresa Carney who is Progamme Coordinator of Australian Red Cross in order to review the fourth draft of NPA and how to well organize the LVA SC meeting in March.

The fourth draft of NPA-VA presented to co-chairs and members of Landmine Victim Assistance Steering committee in order to update the progressive of NPA-VA and also sharing the obstacles of why the NPA-VA has to take too much time to finalize.

The draft NPA-VA translated in to Khmer version by Project Coordinator since they have to share to key relevant ministries to provide the comments and let them to share the strategic plan and national plan of their ministries to combine into the NPA-VA.

Regularly participated Mine Action Coordination Committee (MACC) meeting in order to report the progress activity of NPA-VA to chair of MACC (H.E Sam Sotha) since NPA-VA is a part of mine action activity.

III- Achievements

• National Plan of Action for Landmine Victim Assistance updated to fourth draft.
• Good collaboration with LVA SC membership and local and international NGOs for information and data collection.
• Representatives from Ministry of Health (MoH), Ministry of Education Youth and Sport (MoEYS), Ministry of Social Affair Veteran and Youth Rehabilitation (MoSVY) and Cambodian Mine Action and Victim Authority (CMAA) to be co- chairs and members of LVA SC (MoSVY and CMAA are co chairs) and DAC is secretariat.
• Co-chairs and members of LVA SC are really fully support and participate the LVA SC meeting and they always provide the comments and feedback to NPA-VA in order to make a good plan for the Royal Cambodian Government to share to 24 states parties since Cambodia is the first country to develop NPA-VA among 24 states parties.
• Current LVA SC meeting on 19th -20th March 2008 provided lots of comments and input to 4th draft NPA-VA and it was proactive meeting if compared the previous meeting that we did not have presentation from representative of MoEYS and MoH.
• The National Plan of Action are available in Khmer version (as draft)

IV- Obstacles

• Inconsistent and irregular attendance at LVA SC meetings by members
• Some members of LVA SC do not attend at all especially poor representation of person with disability organization at committee meetings
• Ministry if labor and Vocational Training, National Information Statistic of Ministry of Planning, Ministry of Women Affair are not part of the steering committee since they are also involved in the National Plan of Action.

V- Move forward

• Meet with MoSVY, MoH, DAC and MoEYS for input on objectives for Annex2 (Emergency and on going medical care), Annex3 (Physical Rehabilitation) and Annex5 (Education).
• Revise objectives based on discussions in the workshop and meetings with the ministries.
• Present revised objectives to LVA SC by the mid May 2008.
• When objectives are approved by LVA SC and then meeting with key actors (ministries, NGOs and INGOs) to finalize NPA-VA to achieve objectives including who will do what.
• Revise the information in the Executive Summary and synopsis for each category based on the input received.
• Present the final NPA-VA to LVA SC by October 2008.
• When the NPA-VA accepted by LVA SC, approved by H.E Sam Sotha Ambassador Mine Action, ERW, Cluster Munitions and Disarmament; and Secretary General of CMAA co signed with H.E Minister Ith Samheng, the Minister of Ministry of Social Affair Veteran and Youth Rehabilitation and then submit to the Deputy of Prime Minister Sok An and finally noted by Samdach Aker Senapdey Techo Hun Sen, Cambodian Prime Minister so that the NPA-VA will belong to National Plan of Action for Royal Cambodian Government.

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