By Ek Tha
PHNOM PENH, 5 Dec. 2012 (PRU) — Cambodia’s Deputy Prime Minister, His
Excellency Dr. Sok An was informed on Wednesday by Madam Pamela Cox,
World Bank East Asia and Pacific Regional Vice President, that “the
World Bank has good cooperation with Cambodia in the area of improving
service” and is looking to expand technical cooperation with Cambodian
institutions aiming at serving the public better.
“I congratulate the Prime Minister (Samdech Hun Sen) for the excellent
work. We already have very good cooperation with your teams and we are
looking at how to move that forward”, Madam Cox told Dr. Sok An, who is
also Minister in Charge of the Office of the Council of Ministers.
The bank has helped Cambodia in public finance and financial management.
Madam Cox, who led a Bank delegation and met with Prime Minister Hun
Sen, said in the meeting, “The Bank looks to have meetings with
Cambodia’s teams in the next couple of months and start to outline
development programmes. We want to continue and expand these
programmes.”
“I am glad that you took the efficiencies to provide services to the people”, she said.
The Deputy Prime Minister recalled the success of the military
demobilisation project. Other reforms have continued, such as the
administrative, judicial and legal reforms.
Dr. Sok An briefed Madam Cox that Cambodia went through arduous
processes in integrating the four factions after the UN-supervised
election in 1993 to get the factions to live and work together under one
umbrella of the Royal Government.
The Deputy Prime Minister explained that Cambodia has invested many
resources and has issued many regulations and laws on how to unify the
different factions, the armed forces and the administration. “If we look
back, we can say that it is a real success story.”
He welcomed the World Bank’s position of working with Cambodia’s
government on public reform, which plays a very important role in social
well being.
Dr. Sok An raised the important aspect of the quality of public
service. This requires capacity building for an estimated 170,000 civil
servants so that they can improve their performance to serve the public
better.
The Deputy Prime Minister sought the support of the Bank to look into
information and communication technology for civil servants since
advanced technology plays a vital role in delivering public services.
Cambodia currently has the National ICT Development Authority (NiDA),
which is a government agency responsible for managing the development of
the information technology industry.
Dr. Sok An requested the World Bank to look into monitoring the quality
of education since there has been a mushrooming of private universities
in the country.
Madam Cox said, “This is what other countries worry about: the quality of education”.
“Our technical teams will sit down and talk with your teams about that”, she said in response.
Dr. Sok An said that Cambodia has the Accreditation Committee of
Cambodia (ACC), which is a national independent body assessing the
quality of higher education.
The ACC was established in 2003 under the supervision of the Office of
the Council of Ministers and chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Dr. Sok
An, to develop the standard of education in the Kingdom of Wonder.
The Deputy Prime Minister said that the Ministry of Education, Youth
and Sport should act to improve performance, while the ACC should
evaluate education quality.
He also sought the support of the Bank for judicial training classes
conducted by the Royal Academy for the Judicial Professions.


