Evaluation of the Impact of CIHR Training

for SEILA Participants

In Principles of Management and Good Governance

William Collins, Ph.D.

Center for Advanced Study

INTRODUCTION

A. Background to the Training

The UNDP/CARERE2 Project in Northwestern Cambodia has conducted an experiment in rural development that entails fairly elaborate structures and procedures that are incorporated in the SEILA national development program. The success of the CARERE2 project depends on the ability of officials of the Cambodian government, notably at provincial, district and commune levels, to administer rural development activities and to understand and perform their development duties with a proper degree of professional competence.

To achieve its objectives, CARERE2 wished to have the Cambodian Institute of Human Rights (CIHR) implement training in the skills of Management to enable the trainees to perform their duties in an optimal way.

The UNDP/CARERE2 project also emphasizes a bottom-up approach to planning and implementation of rural development. This approach requires that government officials administering development interact with the population successfully in a participatory setting. UNDP/CARERE2 recognized that local government officials, in many cases, followed a rigid, top-down model of control of the population and were often unfamiliar with the basic concepts of participatory development.

UNDP/CARERE2 asked CIHR to implement training in Good Governance so that government officials involved in the SEILA program would become more familiar with attitudes and behavior such as impartiality, openness, accountability and the idea of public service, thereby improving their performance in rural development administration.

An associated objective for UNDP/CARERE2 was to have CIHR impart the principles of Management and Good Governance to leaders in civil society, for example those aacaa and monks active in pagoda committees. These leaders were acknowledged to have considerable unfulfilled potential to participate effectively in community development activities within the framework of the SEILA structure, which emphasizes harmonious cooperation with the authorities to assure a successful development process.

CIHR implemented a fifteen month project with support from UNDP/CARERE2 to train key SEILA participants in the principles of Management and Good Governance. A total of 2178 participants were trained, mainly government officials but also including 150 “local private sector leaders.” The training sessions were supplemented by the public dissemination of good governance messages through TV and radio presentations. These media presentations broadcast on national radio and on Battambang and Siem Reap local stations included “talk shows” on good governance themes and air “quiz” shows based on questions and answers related to the main themes of the Management and Good Governance training. These public media transmissions assured that the contents of the CIHR training were broadcast far beyond the circle of SEILA trainees.

The CIHR reported on the training that they delivered in response to the objectives of the donor in a document entitled, Principles of Management and Good Governance for SEILA Participants: Implementation Phase (25 August 1997-30 November 1998) FINAL REPORT.

The cover of this CIHR Final Report is decorated with a picture that is intended to symbolize the CIHR approach to their task. The picture shows a boat in which a man wearing a krama around his neck sits at the tiller shading his eyes to look into the distance as he guides the boat. Five oarsmen row in synchrony while a bailer scoops water out of the boat. The crew all wear their krama around their waists. The legend to this picture reads:

Heading in the right direction and the team rowing in harmony—an essential good governance lesson.

The text of the Final Report returns to this picture to exemplify the approach the CIHR took in their training of the SEILA participants.

The analogy of the Cambodian boat is used, a feature of local culture. If there is no one steering, if the team do not row in harmony, they will drift, perhaps hit obstacles, and generally not get where they intend. SEILA participants were able to assimilate this lesson much better from this familiar analogy. ( Final Report page 6)

The concept of “good governance” that motivates the CIHR choice of image and which underlies their curriculum design apparently reflects CIHR’s understanding of the emphasis of the CARERE2 project and SEILA program. The success of the SEILA program is held to be based on ability of the government (the man at the tiller) to administer development programs effectively and in a participatory manner (the oarsmen).

Following this approach, CIHR endeavored to provide officials with basic lessons in governance, democracy, civic education, and management directly related to the roles and responsibilities of these officials. The key themes of the training were stated to be public service, management skills, ethics, transparency, accountability, public access and dispute resolution.

B. Background to the Evaluation

The Center for Advanced Study (CAS) was contracted to conduct a survey evaluation to assess the impact of the training on the participants and to assess whether or not the objectives of the CIHR Good Governance project directed at SEILA development program administrators were achieved.

The CAS was chosen to conduct the survey evaluation for several reasons. CAS was recognized to have the institutional capacity to undertake this kind of survey and has considerable familiarity with the governance sector.[1] The CAS also completed a similar survey of CIHR training for The Asia Foundation (TAF). TAF had supported CIHR training of government officials at the provincial, district and commune level in advance of the National Elections. This TAF funded CIHR training shared many similar components with the CARERE funded CIHR training.[2] Moreover, CAS had also recently conducted an intensive case study of governance practice in the context of the SEILA development program at the commune and village level in one of the SEILA provinces in the Northwest for UNCDF, which is a major contributor to the UNDP/CARERE2 project.[3]

UNDP/CARERE2 asked CAS to provide a systematic and independent assessment of the impact and effectiveness of CIHR’s training in the principles of Management and Good Governance. The survey was intended to assess the impact of the training on the participants’ knowledge, attitudes and performance in their work.

C. Methodology

The Terms of Reference for this study call for an assessment of competency in the curriculum areas covered by the CIHR training and an assessment of changes in attitude and performance in carrying out SEILA duties. Several study approaches were needed to accomplish these assessments. The quantitative findings generated by our survey approach are presented in Part One of this report. The qualitative findings developed from our interview approach are presented in Part Two of the report.

1. Survey Instrument Development

The quantitative approach required the construction of a complex survey instrument. The questionnaire was designed, first of all, to provide a test of competency, knowledge and retention of the Management and Good Governance curriculum delivered by CIHR. But the questionnaire was also designed to investigate specifically the understanding of government officials of the principles of management and good governance that were related to their administrative duties within the SEILA rural development program.

Some portions of the curriculum CIHR presented to SEILA participants for CARERE2 closely resembled the curriculum CIHR had utilized in the TAF supported training. So the questionnaire CAS had developed for the TAF survey provided an initial basis for this CARERE study.

The Khmer researchers at CAS reviewed the Khmer language curriculum materials CIHR had used in their SEILA training and modified and expanded the TAF instrument to reflect the changes CIHR had made for the SEILA training course. This core of the questionnaire was translated into English, fine tuned, and then translated back into Khmer. This part of the questionnaire was then pre-tested in Kampong Chhnang and refinements were incorporated to assure that the questions were framed to be clear, unambiguous and would not require any extra explanations by the researchers during their work with informants in the field.

2. Sampling

A stratified cluster sample design was used to survey trainees in the SEILA provinces. A Control sample, without training and from a non-SEILA province was also included in the survey. CIHR provided us with attendance sheets for all the training sessions provided to SEILA participants. These lists were organized by level in SEILA and government administration. Trainees at the provincial and district level in each province were selected on a simple random basis from the lists. In view of the large number of commune level trainees, cluster sampling of communes was carried out. Communes to be sampled were selected by a simple random method from a list of all communes included in the training. Within the communes selected, trainees to be surveyed were selected on a simple random basis from the participant lists.

The sampling of trainees followed a method of obtaining representative quota samples constructed to reflect the composition of the trainee population, using categories of province and level of service in the SEILA structure. A sample of trainees, N=355, was surveyed out of a trainee population of 2178.

3. Administration of the Survey

Our experience with the evaluation of CIHR training for TAF taught us two lessons. First, we had to make our questions relating to knowledge and retention of the curriculum material challenging enough to obtain a satisfactory dispersion of trainee scores. Our success is reflected in a moderate rate of very high or perfect scores in this survey of trainee knowledge. Second, we had to administer the survey in a way that assured an accurate reflection of the individual respondent’s performance. In this connection, our researchers refused to give any comment on any question in the survey. Our researchers also refused to allow the survey instrument to be taken home by the officials and returned the following day.

This combination of survey administration improvements over our TAF effort produced a picture of overall lower scores than we had obtained in the TAF survey evaluation, using a different, but similar, instrument. Our strict survey administration procedure also probably contributed to an unavoidable number of “user missing” responses when the informant did not wish to commit to either an affirmative or negative response. These user-missing responses are excluded from most of the analysis below. These missing responses also account for slight differences in the size of the sample available for different analyses.

The Center for Advanced Study assembled a highly skilled group of researchers to carry out this assessment project. The coordinator of the field research was Dr. Hean Sokhom. His team of fieldworkers on the quantitative survey evaluation included Ms. Kin Tep Moly, BA, Mr. Heng Kim Van, MA, Mrs. Lim Sidedine, MA, Mr. Hun Tearith, MA, Ms. Chraleung Chanvatey, BA, Ms. Ros Dadanet, BA, Mr. Im Sokrithy, MA, and Ms. In Sokritya, BA. Mr. Kim Sedara, BA, led the team conducting the qualitative interview assessment. His team members included Ms. Nguon Sokunthea, BA and Ms. Chan Kanha, BA. The CAS administrative staff, including Ms. Dy Many, Ms. Van Sovathana, MA and Mrs Khim Kunthy, BA, assisted in the processing and entering of the data for analysis.

FINDINGS PART ONE: Quantitative Assessment of the Training

A. Performance in Curriculum Areas

1. Comparison of High Scores Achieved

Table 1. Comparison of High Scores [Performance at or above 90% correct]

Curriculum Area	SEILA trainees %	Control %	D	Sig.
Management	88.17	83.95	4.22	.303
Good Governance	90.99	86.42	4.57	.215
Moral Governance	41.13	32.10	9.03	.134
Human Rights and Buddhism	66.76	72.84	-6.08	.291
Democracy and Elections	83.38	74.07	9.31	.051
Constitution and Rule of Law	34.37	29.63	4.74	.416
Conflict Resolution	45.07	54.32	-9.25	.133
Gender Awareness	67.89	56.79	11.10	.058

In our earlier study of CIHR training supported by TAF we used the mean achievement of high scores as a measure of the impact of the training in comparisons between groups that had received different degrees of training. If such a measure were applied to a comparison of the trained SEILA group and the untrained control group we would expect a rather large difference between the groups in each curriculum area.

In a few of the curriculum areas we do find the expected gap in achievement of high score levels between the trained and untrained respondents. But in other areas this measure reveals only little impact. The difference in mean rate of high score (³90%correct) performers between the groups, for each curriculum area, is registered in the column marked “D”. The statistical significance of the differences observed (determined by the ANOVA procedure in SPSS) is given in the column marked “Sig.”

The level of significance in these differences of high score performers between Trained and Control groups is generally low. It is conventional to report significance in the form of a probability, “p,” that an association observed could have been produced merely by sampling error. It is conventional to report statistical significance at three levels of “p,” p £.05, p£.01 and p£.001. These mean that the chances of obtaining the measured association as a result of sampling error are 5/100, 1/100 and 1/1000 respectively.

Statistical significance is often put another way. We could say that if p£.05 then we have 95% confidence that our findings of association, in this case a difference in means of high performers between Trained and Control groups, could not be due to sampling error or random effect.

None of the findings shown in Table 1 meets this test, although the differences in the curriculum area Democracy and Elections is close. This means that when we consider the rates for highest performing trainees and control respondents, no significant differences are found. For this measure, the impact of CIHR training is not discernable with significance at the .05 level.

Faced with this rather bleak conclusion there are several possibilities to consider.

1. The measure is not valid and should be replaced by another more reliable measure.

2. The measure is valid. Although there may be not be major differences between the trained and untrained groups, there may be noticeable differences within the trained group itself.

3. The measure is valid. In large part there is little difference between the knowledge of the trained group and the untrained group.

a. This could be because the training provided information that was already part of the ambient knowledge in these curriculum areas in the provinces surveyed. Trainees simply heard repeated what they already knew and so stayed at roughly the same level as the control group.

b. Or this could be because the control group did actually have training in these areas from other sources or from the media, including the media presentations beamed at the SEILA participants. The CIHR training simply brought SEILA participants up to the level achieved by the control group through other means.

4. The real impact of CIHR training may not be in knowledge levels at all but in attitudes. This impact is better elicited through a qualitative methodology that includes depth interviewing rather than a survey evaluation of knowledge.

There may be some truth in all of these possibilities. First, we will consider the differences within the SEILA trainee group, using this measure. Then we will seek an alternative measure that might be more informative. Finally, in Part Two, we will consider qualitative findings that help identify the impact of the training on attitudes rather than on knowledge.

We analyzed the means for high performance (³90% correct) for each curriculum area for SEILA respondents grouped by level in the SEILA structure (Table 2) and grouped by province (Table 3). Analysis of these subgroups does provide interesting findings.

Table 2. Comparison of High Score Performance by Level in SEILA

Curriculum Area	Province	District	Commune	Village	People	Sig.
Management	87.50	90.28	88.42	81.13	88.89	.545
Good Governance	91.67	93.75	90.53	83.02	88.89	.246
Moral Governance	62.50	44.44	33.68	24.53	44.44	.001*
Human Rights and Buddhism	75.00	70.83	60.00	56.60	77.78	.116
Democracy and Elections	93.75	87.50	77.89	71.70	88.89	.011*
Constitution and Rule of Law	52.08	36.11	29.47	24.53	22.22	.025*
Conflict Resolution	45.83	36.11	47.37	62.26	66.67	.011*
Gender Awareness	64.58	68.06	70.53	66.04	77.78	.908

Table 3. Comparison of High Score Performance by Province in SEILA

Curriculum Area	BMC	BBM	PUR	SRP	Sig.
Management	87.10	85.04	91.07	90.68	.472
Good Governance	91.94	91.34	89.58	90.68	.975
Moral Governance	41.94	38.58	41.67	43.22	.903
Human Rights and Buddhism	53.23	69.29	62.50	72.88	.049*
Democracy and Elections	87.10	80.31	81.25	85.59	.564
Constitution and Rule of Law	29.03	22.05	47.92	44.92	.000*
Conflict Resolution	46.77	55.12	45.83	33.05	.007*
Gender Awareness	58.06	69.29	75.00	68.64	.263

When we disaggregate the SEILA respondents into subgroups by level of service in the SEILA structure, we see that there are statistically significant differences between high score performers in the following subject areas. In these areas the higher level officials performed significantly better than the lower level officials.

Moral Governance (p£.001)

Democracy and Elections (p£.05)

Constitution and Rule of Law (p£.05)

However in one subject area, the officials at lower levels performed significantly better than higher level officials.

Peaceful Conflict Resolution (p£.05)

In regard to differences in high score performance by province, we see that there are statistically significant differences in the following curriculum areas.

Human Rights and Buddhism (p£.05)

Constitution and Rule of Law (p£.001)

Peaceful Conflict Resolution (p£.01)

The analysis of differences in high scoring performance between groups, such as trained and control, or between sub groups of SEILA, captures the significant rates for those who have mastered the curriculum. The discovery of statistically significant differences in some subject areas within the SEILA group suggests important variation in the CIHR training impact by province and by level. In regard to level in SEILA, it is likely that the differences are due to degree of previous experience with the curriculum material in the course of duty as a government official. Higher officials are more likely to be familiar with legal technicalities while lower officials are more practiced in mediation and conciliation. We are generally unable to ascertain whether the differences by province are due to differences in teachers and/or teaching technique or inherent differences in the trainee subgroup. A pre-test of knowledge before the training would have enabled us to clarify this point.

2. Comparison of Mean Scores in Curriculum Areas

a. Impact of CIHR Training on SEILA as a Whole

Rather than focus on the high performers, we now look at the mean scores for all trainees and untrained control group in the curriculum areas and compare them in several ways. In the first comparison we look at trainees in comparison with control.

Table 4. SEILA and Control Mean Scores Compared

Curriculum Area	SEILA trainees	Control	D	Sig.
Management	95.4596	93.3128	2.1468	.108
Good Governance	95.9595	92.0027	3.9568	.005*
Moral Governance	88.4153	85.5967	2.8186	.008*
Human Rights and Buddhism	86.6746	87.7289	-1.0543	.655
Democracy and Elections	94.0438	91.4522	2.5916	.041*
Constitution and Rule of Law	80.5954	76.3275	4.2679	.010*
Conflict Resolution	89.6924	90.1529	-0.4605	.755
Gender Awareness	87.4036	85.6584	1.7452	.216

In the table and in the bar charts below, the mean scores for the trained SEILA group and the control are given by subject area. The bar charts, which may be easier to read than the table of numbers, have been generated from the data using SPSS. The charts show the mean scores of trainees and control group for each curriculum area. The difference in mean scores, D, is a measure of the impact of CIHR training in that area.

The last column in the table marked “Sig.” registers the probability that the observed differences in means could be attributed merely to sampling errors or random effects. In four curriculum areas we note from ANOVA charts generated by SPSS that statistically significant differences between trainees and control are as follows:

Good Governance (p£.01)

Moral Governance (p£.01)

Democracy and Elections (p£.05)

Constitution and Rule of Law (p£.01)

In these four areas we can say that CIHR training had a significant impact on the trainees as reflected in their test results, compared to the untrained group. Our confidence that the observed differences in mean test scores between trainees and control respondents in Good Governance, Moral Governance, and Constitution and Rule of Law is not due to sampling errors is 99%. Our confidence for Democracy and Elections is 95%. The differences in the other curriculum areas are not statistically significant at the .05 level.

Bar Charts 1. Curriculum Area Mean Scores

b. Impact of CIHR Training by Level in SEILA

Table 5. Mean Scores Within SEILA Compared by Level.

Curriculum Area	Province	District	Commune	Village	People	Sig.
Management	95.5729	96.6540	94.4498	93.1086	98.1481	.156
Good Governance	95.1290	96.6435	96.3626	93.9308	94.4444	.471
Moral Governance	91.4497	89.3769	87.1711	84.9543	89.5833	.000*
Human Rights and Buddhism	89.5490	88.2629	83.4991	84.2474	88.8889	.236
Democracy and Elections	96.4835	94.7332	92.5208	92.2415	95.0000	.102
Constitution and Rule of Law	85.1515	81.8871	79.0718	75.2830	80.4040	.001*
Conflict Resolution	89.4643	88.3970	89.9248	92.7314	90.4762	.230
Gender Awareness	86.2269	87.0998	88.1199	87.5060	91.1111	.718

We analyzed the SEILA participants’ mean scores by disaggregating the trainees into subgroups by level of service in SEILA and by province. We compared the mean scores between subgroups through ANOVA procedures of SPSS and through post hoc tests in the General Linear Model procedure of SPSS that can make multiple comparisons between all subgroups for each curriculum area and that indicates the significance of these observations.

Table 5 above shows the mean scores for each level and each curriculum area. The column marked “Sig.” indicates the statistical significance of the differences among the SEILA level subgroups. The table indicates that there are highly significant differences by SEILA level in two subject areas:

Moral Governance (p£.001)

Constitution and Rule of Law (p£.001)

In the Moral Governance curriculum area the differences in mean scores between the following levels are significant at the .05 level:

Province and Commune

Province and Village

District and Village.

In the Constitution and Rule of Law curriculum area the differences in mean scores between the following levels are significant at the .05 level:

Province and Village

District and Village.

The other differences in scores for SEILA level subgroups are not statistically significant.

These findings suggest a gap between Province and District on one hand and Village and Commune on the other hand. Lacking a pre test of knowledge before the training for each level, we cannot say whether these differences are due to a different curriculum presented differently to upper and lower levels of SEILA participants in these areas, or to inherently different training challenges presented by the two levels of SEILA officials.

Recommendations:

The importance of these data on an assessment of the impact of CIHR training is that the impact varies according to level in SEILA. This finding suggests the recommendation that in future efforts CIHR should ascertain the needs of the upper and lower level officials and adjust the focus of their training to meet the demonstrable needs of the trainees.

A careful needs assessment should be conducted before the training to reveal what levels of trainees required more work in specific curriculum areas, to bring their scores up to a satisfactory level.

The special needs of the relatively less educated, rural based authorities at commune and village level suggests that an appropriately modified curriculum presentation should be utilized for these groups.

The particularly high averages achieved by respondents in the “People” category, who consisted typically of aacaa, suggests that selected individuals from this group might be likely candidates for capacity building as master trainers and instructors in future efforts, especially for CIHR training at the rural level. The present practice of utilizing Ministry of Interior personnel as master trainers and high performing provincial level trainees as instructors does not guarantee that the desired teacher-student rapport will develop in sessions directed at rural officials.

The approach taken in this study can illustrate how a needs assessment might be designed and carried out.

Bar Charts 2. Mean Scores by Level in SEILA

c. Impact of CIHR Training by SEILA Province

Table 6. Mean Scores Within SEILA Compared by Province

Curriculum Area	BMC	BBM	PUR	SRP	Sig.
Management	94.6114	94.9676	96.7014	95.9296	.619
Good Governance	95.9959	96.0324	95.2315	96.1582	.958
Moral Governance	88.7903	88.2219	88.6372	88.3361	.968
Human Rights and Buddhism	80.8047	87.4799	87.1680	88.6913	.061
Democracy and Elections	94.2487	92.8121	94.1228	95.2297	.282
Constitution and Rule of Law	77.9912	76.8074	82.7378	85.1370	.000*
Conflict Resolution	89.4009	91.8438	90.3770	87.2881	.019*
Gender Awareness	85.9095	87.5334	88.8194	87.4741	.576

We also analyzed our data on the SEILA participants’ test performance by disaggregating the trainees into subgroups by province. We compared mean scores between subgroups through ANOVA procedures and through post hoc tests in the General Linear Model procedure of SPSS enabling multiple comparisons between provinces for each curriculum area and testing for significance at the .05 level.

Table 6 above shows the mean scores for each SEILA subgroup by province. The column marked “Sig.” notes the probability that the observed association may be due to sampling error. The figures produced by SPSS calculations show that there are three statistically significant differences by province. In the subject area

Human Rights and Buddhism

one subgroup comparison is identified as significant at the .05 level,

Banteay Meanchey and Siem Reap

The other two curriculum areas that show statistically significant differences by province are

Constitution and Rule of Law (p£.001)

Peaceful Conflict Resolution (p£.05)

For the curriculum area Constitution and Rule of Law the following province comparisons of means are significant at the .05 level,

Banteay Meanchey and Siem Reap

Battambang and Pursat and Siem Reap.

For the curriculum area Conflict Resolution the following province comparisons of means are significant at the .05 level,

Battambang and Siem Reap.

We are unable to conclude a cause for these differences. Either the training was conducted quite differently from one province to another or there are important differences in the target audience for CIHR training that are reflected in significantly different performances on our test.

In the first case a careful review of the teaching staff assigned to these subject areas and provinces might indicate the reasons for our observations. Findings like this can help CIHR refine its human resource development program to assure uniformly high quality teaching. The only way the second case could be tested is by reference to a baseline of knowledge before the training. These evaluation results might serve as a baseline for future training addressed to these SEILA participants.

Recommendations:

These findings suggest that the impact of the CIHR training might improve if the course design and delivery reflected the real, demonstrable needs of the target audience of trainees.

A careful needs assessment before the training would indicate which provinces required more intense training in what curriculum areas.

The special needs of provinces that show particularly poor scores in a particular curriculum area suggests that the practice of providing the same training for all trainees is guaranteed to depress the overall measurable impact of the training. A fine tuned curriculum focussed on target provinces and more intense training in particular subject areas where weakness exists would be likely to raise mean scores among these poor performers and thereby raise the mean scores of the trainees as a whole.

For example, Banteay Meanchey shows a particular need for reinforcement in the areas of Human Rights and Buddhism, Constitution and Rule of Law. Siem Reap shows a particular need for reinforcement in the Conflict Resolution curriculum area. Battambang shows a need for reinforcement in Constitution and Rule of Law and Conflict Resolution subject areas.

On the other hand, Pursat shows consistently high performance over all the subject areas. This suggests that the Pursat trainee group would be a likely place to look for instructors who have broad and high level knowledge of the curriculum and who might be given training to train their fellow SEILA officials from other provinces.

The exercise we have carried out in this study can serve as a model for the kind of assessment CIHR should conduct as a “pre-test” before training to determine how they should refine their curriculum delivery to be most effective.

Bar Charts 3. Mean Scores by Province

B. Performance on non-curriculum questions in the knowledge areas

In Section A, our assessment of CIHR training impact on knowledge used mean scores of correct responses based on the CIHR curriculum.

We also included questions on the questionnaire that seemed relevant to assessing respondent understanding of the underlying principles in the curriculum areas, but which were not derived directly from the CIHR curriculum materials. These non-curriculum questions, which are discussed in this section, were, of course, excluded from the calculations of mean scores of knowledge.

Our questions, or our invented “wrong answers” offered as options, were designed to probe respondents’ understanding of the concepts and principles of the curriculum when questions were presented in different vocabulary and with different examples than what is found in the CIHR training manuals. We posed these questions to both SEILA trainees and the control group in order to identify prevailing misconceptions or predispositions in the areas covered by the training.

The use of these findings is to indicate aspects of knowledge areas where CIHR might direct attention in their ongoing curriculum development efforts.

1. Management

We asked four non-curriculum questions in this area. We use the variable number in our data set to identify the questions in the description and bar chart below. These variable numbers are listed on the survey instrument, which placed for reference in the annex to this report.

Var00175 asked if a trait of a good manager were “to assure that his subordinates were well paid.” An affirmative response was given by 79% of SEILA trainees and 76% of the Control group respondents.

Var00176 asked if a trait of a good manager were “to choose loyal subordinates.” An affirmative response was given by 50% of SEILA trainees and 46% of the Control group.

Var00181 asked if a quality of a good leader were “to make himself and his followers rich.” An affirmative response was given by 45% of SEILA trainees and 41% of the Control group.

Var00182 asked if a quality of a good leader were “to have good connections to high officials in the Party.” An affirmative response was given by 46% of SEILA trainees and 47% of the Control group.

These data suggest the finding that a large proportion of SEILA trainees view their leadership and management responsibilities to include a concern for the welfare of and close ties among colleagues, within a context of common political outlook. The similarity of the responses of SEILA trainees and the Control group suggests that the CIHR training did not have any impact on these attitudes.

Recommendation:

One of the principles that CARERE wished to have instilled in SEILA officials was the concept and value of “public service.” CARERE rightly maintains that the objective of improving the performance of these officials in rural development administration depends on furthering understanding of this principle. CIHR curriculum development should consider how the principles of public service can be introduced to a target audience with preconceived views of management and leadership like those revealed by our findings.

2. Good Governance

In this knowledge area we asked three questions from outside the curriculum.

Var00186 asked whether a benefit of good governance was “that people do not dare to criticize their leaders.” An affirmative response was given by 17% of SEILA trainees and by 23% of the Control group.

Var00191 asked if good governance included “leadership according to a political party’s line.” An affirmative response was given by 25% of SEILA trainees and by 35% of the Control group.

Var00196 asked if it were a feature of good governance that “a leader kept his work secret because it was government business.” An affirmative response was given by 24% of SEILA trainees and by 28% of the Control group.

The pattern of these responses suggests that there is a sizeable group, around a quarter of the trainees who maintain characteristically authoritarian attitudes toward leadership. But the striking differences between the SEILA group and the Control, on the question of following the party line, indicate the impact of some training in this area. We are unable to distinguish the effects of CARERE training and CIHR training on the SEILA participants in this regard. If CIHR performed a “pre-test” before their training, and a thorough assessment after their training effort, they would be able to demonstrate the impact of their particular training. As it is, the CIHR training impact is difficult to distinguish from the background effect of considerable and continuous training and capacity building efforts in democratic processes carried out by CARERE with these trainees.

3. Human Rights and Buddhism

We are not in a position to rule on the validity of the approach of CIHR to the theory of human rights as expressed in its curriculum and training. We took the curriculum as given and derived our questions from it. As noted above, we based our assessment of CIHR impact in the curriculum areas strictly on the CIHR derived questions. But we also added “wrong answers” or responses not based on the curriculum in order to elicit indirectly what the trainees had understood of the principles underlying the curriculum topic.

The question here was “What are the basic human rights?” The “right answer” given in the CIHR curriculum was obviously adopted from American Declaration of Independence.[4]

Var00213 “The rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” An affirmative was given by 99% of the SEILA trainees to this correct response, slightly above the 97% of the Control group.

We invented four other “wrong answers” from outside the curriculum:

Var00214 “The rights to liberty, equality and fraternity.” An affirmative response was given by 99% of SEILA trainees and 96% of the Control group.

Var00215 “The rights to food, shelter and clothing.” An affirmative response was given by 99% of SEILA trainees and 96% of the Control group.

Var00216 “The right to participatory development.” An affirmative response was given by 98% of SEILA trainees and 97% of the Control group.

Var00217 “The rights specified in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.” An affirmative response was given by 88% of SEILA trainees and 87% of the Control group.

The similarity in scores between SEILA participants and the Control group suggests that CIHR training had little impact on the ability of respondents to answer these questions. Whatever may be the explanation for a general understanding of what “basic” human rights are, or for the general awareness of the founding rhetoric of American and French democracies in both the SEILA and control group, we find it very important that the fifth answer (Var00217 “The rights specified in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.”) received a significantly lower affirmative response.

The first four answers refer to memorable slogans or mottoes or ideals that have become clichés. These rhetorical formulas apparently sound attractive”, or “correct” in the context of this survey, but it is difficult to hold anyone accountable for a slogan. The fifth answer refers to a body of international law to which Cambodia has acceded and covers legal guarantees of rights, for abuse of which there are legal processes to achieve redress.

Recommendation:

The curriculum area Human Rights and Buddhism is one in which the mean score of CIHR trainees was lower than the mean score of the control group. This finding suggests that some serious rethinking of the curriculum area should be undertaken.

The association of Human Rights and Buddhism in this curriculum area assumes that the target audience is knowledgeable about, and committed to, the moral and philosophical principles of Buddhism. That approach should be based on a survey assessment of the attitudes toward Buddhist principles among local authorities. Lacking such an assessment, we can only observe that our data indicates an extremely large percentage of these officials joined the government during a Communist regime that was hostile to Buddhism.

A more appropriate approach to this particular target audience would be to link the human rights curriculum area to principles of the rule of law taught in the Constitution and Rule of Law curriculum area, where our findings show that CIHR training has greater impact on trainees.

4. Democracy and Elections

We asked respondents to indicate whether proposed statements “were characteristics of democracy.” CAS provided the following “wrong answer” statements in this question set from outside the CIHR curriculum. Our aim was to probe how large a minority of trainees was persistently resistant to principles underlying CIHR teachings.

Var00239 “There are frequent demonstrations and strikes.” An affirmative response was given by 31% of SEILA trainees and by 43% of the Control group.

Var00251 “Armed forces may commit any offence but are free from prosecution.” An affirmative response was given by 12% of SEILA trainees and by 14% of the Control group.

Var00252 “High government officials are above the law.” An affirmative response was given by 21% of SEILA trainees and by 22% of the Control group.

The similarity of scores between the trained and control group suggests that the questions are eliciting commonly held perceptions among local authorities in these Cambodian provinces. The rate of affirmative response seems to be a reflection of what the respondent believes to be the actual state of affairs in Cambodia, rather than an indication of the respondents’ understanding of the principles of democracy as taught by CIHR.

Recommendation:

In order for CIHR to design a curriculum that is relevant to the context in which the trainees actually work, CIHR must conduct a needs assessment that includes questions that probe further than presence or absence of knowledge of curriculum material. Such a needs assessment should address how specific, contemporary social issues of Cambodia, like impunity and corruption and increasing social change, can be understood and managed by trainees within a framework of democracy and rule of law. Such an approach suggests that curriculum development must be a constant process that stays in touch with the changing realities of the target audience of trainees.

If more or less the same curriculum is delivered year after year, its formulations may become part of ambient knowledge of local officials. They may be able to recognize and identify the “right answers” on a survey. And it will be difficult to detect much impact of the training as time goes on. But a curriculum ever adjusting insightfully to the challenges faced by the trainees in their work will more likely achieve the expectations that the training will make trainees more familiar with basic concepts and practices of participatory development.

A training curriculum that stresses relevance will be likely to deliver desired changes in attitudes and behavior of local officials toward the objectives of impartiality, openness, accountability and the idea of public service, within an understanding of the principles of rule of law and respect for citizen’s rights.

5. Constitution and Rule of Law

a. What is the Constitution?

CAS offered the following “wrong answers” to the question, “What is the Constitution?”

Var00267 “It is a law that must be respected by the common people but not by the elite.” An affirmative response was given by 15% of SEILA trainees and by 14% of the control group.

Var00268 “It is a peace agreement enabling Cambodia to obtain international development assistance.” An affirmative response was given by 76% of SEILA trainees and by 70% of the control group.

Var00269 “It is a law that can be changed by the victorious political party.” An affirmative response was given by 14% of SEILA trainees and by 21% of the control group.

The data suggests that information provided by CIHR relating to the consequences of democratic elections and the place of the Constitution in the rule of law had considerable impact on the trainees. Trainees seem to understand the limitations on abrupt opportunistic political change of the Constitution, demonstrated in the responses to Var00269.

However the pattern of similar responses between SEILA trainees and the control group to the first two statements indicates that CIHR did not have an impact on some commonly held notions about what the Constitution represents. On one hand, both the trained and control group seem to have an equal understanding that the Constitution applies to all Cambodian citizens of whatever rank. But on the other hand, both the trained group and the control group share an equal misunderstanding of one of the essential values and functions of the Constitution.

Recommendation:

The CIHR should extend or reinforce its curriculum to emphasize the function of the Constitution to establish and safeguard the rights of citizens in a democracy within the rule of law. The curriculum should confront the apparently widely held notion that the Constitution was merely a political device to end civil war and an instrument to satisfy foreign donors.

b. How can the Constitution be Revised or Amended?

Under the rubric Constitution and the Rule of Law, another question set asked “How can the Constitution be revised or amended?” The right answer, “By a law adopted by 2/3 of the National Assembly,” received an affirmative response from 94% of SEILA trainees and from 90% of the control group.

The CAS offered the following “wrong answers” to the question, “How can the Constitution be revised or amended? Our aim was to probe the degree of understanding about the nature of the Constitution that existed among the respondents.

Var00271 “By the King.” An affirmative response was given by 43% of SEILA trainees and by 49% of the control group.

Var00272 “By the Prime Minister and the President of the National Assembly.” An affirmative response was given by 44% of SEILA trainees and by 50% of the control group.

Var00274 “By the Constitutional Council.” An affirmative response was given by 66% of the SEILA trainees and by 67% of the control group.

The responses of the trained and control group indicate that incorrect notions are widespread among local authorities on the place of the Constitution among the other major institutions of the Cambodian State. These fundamental issues are apparently not addressed adequately by the CIHR curriculum.

Recommendation:

CIHR should refine its materials in this curriculum area to show the connection --in principle --of the Constitution to the establishment of a culture of rule of law. The high level of these responses suggests a persistent lack of understanding of the limitations placed on powerful persons in a democratic structure based on a Constitution and based on Rule of Law.

Once CIHR becomes aware of the constellation of misconceptions prevailing among its target audience, it will be able to provide a training that is relevant to the actual needs of the trainees.

c. What are the Characteristics of a State under the Rule of Law?

Another question set under the rubric Constitution and the Rule of Law asked respondents what they thought were basic characteristics of a state under a Rule of Law. The “wrong answers” we provided included the following:

Var00277 “It is a state where the rulers are above the law.” An affirmative response was given by 12% of SEILA trainees and by 17% of the control group.

Var00280 “All people, the government officials and soldiers are under the laws, except the King.” An affirmative response was given by 55% of SEILA trainees and by 65% of the control group.

Var00282 “Judges are appointed by the political party that won in the election.” An affirmative response was given by 26% of SEILA trainees and by 29% of the control group.

Var00285 “Payments to judges can obtain a favorable verdict.” An affirmative response was given by 25% of SEILA participants and by 27% of the control group.

The difference in affirmative responses between the SEILA trained group and control cannot readily be attributed to CIHR training. There is some likelihood that the intensive capacity building in participatory development provided by UNDP/CARERE accounts for much of this difference.

But what is clear is that the CIHR curriculum should include a focus on the gap between what is actual and every day (mis-)practice in Cambodia and the ideals for practice under the principles of Rule of Law. The curriculum should consider how to stimulate the trainees to understand the changes that would be needed if the Rule of Law were adopted.

C. Performance on Non-Curriculum Questions relating Governance to Development

Many of the points included in the CIHR curriculum on which we based our assessment of trainee performance above (Section A) are pitched at rather lofty ideals and are often formulated in the curriculum in an abstract manner. We tried to design an assessment instrument that would measure the impact of CIHR training by examining the performance of trainees on questions drawn directly from the CIHR curriculum.

In Section B we tried to consider some of the misconceptions trainees had, aside from the presence or lack of knowledge that had been assessed in Section A. The responses to “wrong answers” revealed prevailing attitudes and beliefs among the respondents. We concluded that CIHR should consider such misconceptions in the refinement of their training in order to make the training relevant to the needs of the trainees.

UNDP/CARERE engaged CIHR to conduct a Management and Good Governance training program for SEILA officials because it was recognized that local authorities often followed a rigid, top-down model of control of the population and were often unfamiliar with the basic concepts of participatory development.

In this section we tried to obtain responses that would reflect the actual challenges and workplace practices that SEILA officials face in their development activities but that also had a relevance to the Management and Good Governance curriculum that CIHR had delivered to them. Naturally we excluded the responses to these non-curriculum questions from our analysis of the performance of trainees in the knowledge areas of the curriculum. Our aim here was to highlight specific needs of the target population that CIHR should be aware of in designing appropriate training efforts for this audience in the future.

1. Freedom of Public Assembly

Several questions in the questionnaire are derived from our earlier research in one SEILA province on some governance aspects of the Local Planning Process.[5] The value of such a study is that it provides information on the prevailing attitudes and practices of local authorities involved with SEILA that might usefully inform CIHR curriculum development. That information from one province can now be placed in a larger context of responses from the four provinces in the Northwest.

One question posed to SEILA trainees was “Who must give permission before villagers can hold a meeting to discuss development?” The findings are given in the bar chart below, in which respondents could give an affirmative or negative to each of the options listed.

It is clear from the results that local authorities generally consider themselves to have a unique role as convener of village meetings and manager of development. This attitude seems to be the origin of the picture of the government official as the captain of the development ship that CIHR used to decorate their Final Report on the implementation of their training for SEILA, mentioned in the Introduction to this study.

But this model of top-down control over the population is antithetical to the principle of participatory development that UNDP/CARERE is trying to advance in the SEILA program. This model is also inconsistent with the principles of the Constitution and Rule of Law and Human Rights, which are covered in the CIHR curriculum. In these topics the curriculum deals with the broad guarantees on the freedom of citizens to assemble, to form associations, to engage in free speech without having to seek permission from local authorities to do so.

Recommendation:

CIHR could make its training more relevant to the actual challenges faced by SEILA development managers if they brought into the open the dilemmas of Cambodian development imperatives and authoritarian practices and international standards of civil and political rights.

2. Legal and Illegal Exaction by Government Officials

It is often said that Cambodian officials operate within a culture of impunity and that corruption is rampant at all levels of government. These are very delicate matters for an NGO like CIHR, which works in close partnership with the Ministry of Interior, to take up with the government officials who are their trainees. But UNDP/CARERE is committed to working towards greater accountability and transparency among government officials, within a Rule of Law. The objective of UNDP/CARERE in contracting CIHR to conduct its good governance training was to instill the value of public service in the trainees. In order for CIHR to design a relevant and effective curriculum it must understand the attitudes and practices of its trainees.

In order to learn how authorities viewed their responsibilities toward village resources we posed several questions the responses to which appear in the following bar charts. The charts show the percent of affirmative responses by SEILA trainees to the options provided in answer to three questions regarding the mobilization of resources for development. The three questions were:

a. “What local authority may request money contributions from villagers for development?”

b. “Who is authorized to request labor contributions from villagers for development projects?”

c. “Who is authorized to approve the seizure of villagers’ land for development?”

These findings reflect prevailing practices in the SEILA provinces regarding the power that local authorities believe they may exercise to demand resources from the village population. The findings indicate areas where CIHR could develop specific training exercises in the curriculum areas of Good Governance, Moral Governance and Rule of Law.

Recommendation:

CIHR should understand the actual practices of its trainees and use this knowledge to tailor its training to the specific needs of the trainees. CIHR bases much of its training on concepts of moral leadership and respect for the rule of law. Our findings indicate that the limits on the power that local authorities may exercise over villagers and village resources within the law are topics that CIHR should consider in designing relevant training for authorities at the village and commune level. This will be especially appropriate in the context of CIHR training connected to the process of decentralization and the formation of commune councils.

3. The Role of Civil Society in a Democracy.

In order to elicit the views of SEILA trainees concerning the role of non-government organizations in development we asked the following question:

“Who must authorize legally registered Cambodian NGOs to conduct development activities in commune or village?”

The results in the chart above show the percent affirmative responses for each option. The results strongly suggest that government officials view themselves as the gatekeepers for development, able to admit or refuse entry to civil society organizations that have a legal standing in Cambodian law.

Recommendation:

CIHR can make its training relevant to the work practices of its trainees by dealing explicitly with the preconceptions that prevail in the target audience. Our findings suggest that CIHR should fine-tune their curriculum in the areas of human rights, rule of law, good governance and moral governance to take account of the assumption of a controlling and authoritarian role by local authorities with regard to civil society. Once the target audience has grasped the basic and general lessons of the Management and Good Governance curriculum, CIHR can turn its attention to specific problem areas in its training that have been identified. But this process of curriculum development can only succeed if CIHR adopts a policy of on-going needs assessment and impact assessment, in a rapidly changing social context.

The present study can serve as a baseline and a model for the kind of needs assessment and impact assessment that is recommended.

4. Democracy and Elections

The CIHR curriculum in many ways pivots around the axis of enhancing the understanding of Cambodian government officials of the nature and function of elections in a democracy. The CIHR curriculum stresses the concepts of free, fair and credible elections. The curriculum emphasizes the democratic values of an impartial role of government officials in elections and the duty of government officials to accept the results of the elections.

The UNDP/CARERE approach to participatory development has also established elections for the Village Development Committee as a keystone in the SEILA program.

With these expectations in mind, we asked the SEILA trainees some questions about the conduct and consequences of VDC elections. We posed a question in a form that would allow respondents to indicate the options that would complete the following statement:

“According to good governance practice, it is important that candidates for VDC election be selected by…?

The results are displayed in the chart below.

The chart shows that the UNDP/CARERE emphasis on villager participation in creating the Village Development Committee has been quite successfully transmitted to SEILA officials. The most favored affirmative response, given by 89% of trainees, to complete the statement posed was “villagers.”

It is troubling, however, to note that there is also a strong affirmation by around half the trainees that candidates for these village elections should be designated by government officials.

Recommendation:

These findings give rise to the recommendation that, now that the National Elections are over, CIHR should refocus its modules on Democracy and Elections to the specific standards and practices that would guarantee free, fair, credible and democratic elections at the local level. In the context of elections for the new commune councils, which will have key development responsibilities, it is all-important that local authorities be given training that is specifically tailored to deal with the authoritarian preconceptions and practices that have prevailed since the communist regime of the 1980s at the local level.

Another question we asked, under the rubric of Democracy and Elections, in relation to VDC elections, referred to the replacement of “unqualified” persons who were elected by the villagers to the VDC. We asked,

“If an unqualified person is elected to VDC, who is authorized to reject him/her and replace the elected person with a qualified substitute?”

The responses of SEILA trainees showing percent affirmative for each option are shown in the chart below.

The data show relatively low affirmative response for the option “no one” (20%) and the fairly strong affirmative response in favor of post-election interventions by government officials. These findings suggest that the lesson from the CIHR curriculum that in principle government officials should accept the result of the election has clearly not been understood to apply equally to National Elections and local elections.

Recommendation:

As noted several times above, we recommend that CIHR investigate the prejudices, prevailing authoritarian practices, shortcomings in understanding of the principles of good governance among trainees in a pre-test or needs assessment, before the training. With this information CIHR can develop a curriculum to deal with specific problems that have been identified. If the undemocratic practices, which our findings show are accepted as “normal,” are confronted explicitly in the training, CIHR is likely to meet its objectives of having a measurable impact on the knowledge, attitudes and practices of its trainees.

If CIHR takes into consideration specific details of the operation of the top-down model of control of the population that is indicated by these survey findings, CIHR may be able to devise a curriculum that is relevant to the experience of the trainees. CIHR can then develop a curriculum that stresses the principles of good management, good governance, human rights, democracy and rule of law in relation to the concept of participatory development. In this way it will meet the objectives of UNDP/CARERE for the SEILA participants.

FINDINGS PART TWO: Qualitative Assessments of the Training

Introduction

The purpose of this qualitative section is to supplement our objective assessment of the CIHR training in Good Governance and Management with the subjective views of a cross section of trainees along several dimensions. A separate team from that which carried out the quantitative assessment used a semi-structured interviewing technique to elicit views from trainees regarding changes they observed as a result of the training. We asked about changes in their own attitude toward leadership in the SEILA development context and in their own management performance. We asked about changes they perceived in their colleagues in their performance of professional duties as public servants, which might be attributed to the training.

We also tried to ascertain what impact the training had, in the view of respondents, on the general climate of governance and management in the SEILA context, and on the quality of consultation among ranks within the government and between government and citizens. In this regard we also elicited views about the impact of gender training on the ability of women to engage effectively in this consultation.

We tried to ascertain the impact of the training in the principles of Human Rights and the Rule of Law by eliciting trainee perceptions about their role as government officials in regard to civil society. We tried to elicit the trainees’ experience in peaceful conflict resolution. We also tried to probe the trainees’ views on generating participation within the SEILA context and we tried to elicit the trainees’ perceptions about the limits of citizens’ rights.

Finally, we asked our respondents to identify aspects of the training that they perceived to be most problematic and we gathered their recommendations for improvement of the course.

Our presentation of this interview material is, in large part, in the words of the informants. We believe that a qualitative assessment like this, within the framework of a larger study that includes a quantitative assessment, will be most instructive if it offers a rich documentation of trainee impressions of the usefulness and applicability of their training. The diverse and real-life accounts can help contextualize the statistical material presented in Part One. The main value of these data from our interviews is to provide a resource for CIHR curriculum developers as they continue to refine their Good Governance and Management program. This is the kind of detailed feedback that CIHR should be collecting and utilizing in every training effort.

In keeping with the approach taken in Part One, we organize the narrative material in Part Two according to topics that are based on our interview questions about perceived training impact. Our questions reflect the main themes of the CIHR training curriculum and the questions identified in the terms of reference for this study.

Under each topic the interview responses are given by level in the SEILA structure and by province. A province abbreviation is noted for every citation (BBM=Battambang, BMC=Banteay Meanchey, PUR=Pursat, SRP=Siem Reap). We distinguish informants from upper levels in the SEILA structure (Province and District levels) and those from lower levels in the structure (Commune and Village levels), as these informants expectably often have different perspectives on governance. Enough information is given to identify the rank of the trainee in the SEILA structure, while preserving the respondent’s anonymity.

We carried out interviews with 79 informants. The following table indicates the number of informants from each province and from either upper levels of the SEILA structure or lower levels of the SEILA structure

	Upper Level	Lower Level	Total
BBM	5	12	17
BMC	7	15	22
PUR	9	11	20
SRP	8	12	20
Total	29	50	79

One important reason for presenting this material in the trainees’ own words it to underscore that our sample was purposive. We did try to follow a representative quota strategy in sampling levels in provinces. But the actual choice of respondent was not random. We did have attendance lists to guide us to trainees, but many trainees refused to make the time available for an interview. So our sample actually consists of a cross section of CIHR trainees from the four SEILA target provinces and from upper and lower levels in the SEILA structure who were willing to spend an hour or a hour and a half talking to our team and into a tape recorder about the training they had received.

One more note must be made. All these informants have received training in management and gender and good governance skills from CARERE within the SEILA framework. And many of these informants have also received training in Human Rights and Rule of Law from other organizations like ADHOC or LICADHO. Accordingly, many of the impressions our informants voice about the impact of their training on their attitudes and conduct may relate to their experience with the CIHR training but could also be merged in memory with the training in similar topics provided by other agencies. It is nearly impossible for us to attribute the views of any informant strictly to the CIHR training.

Nevertheless, the value of these interviews is that they provide a collection of natural, varied and unexpected observations and appraisals of the changes these informants are aware of, in themselves and in others, and in the governance and development structure within which they work. These statements of the trainees show that they are generally very enthusiastic about the training and reveal genuine and widespread understanding of the course messages. The interview materials are significant in advancing our understanding of the kind of success these capacity building efforts are achieving in the CARERE target areas of the Northwest to diminish authoritarian attitudes and to promote an awareness of the rights of citizens.

Topic 1. Changes in one’s own attitude and behavior attributed to the training.

One of the surprising findings of this assessment was that informants often spoke of the impact of the training on their attitude in terms of a lowering of their temper and a reduction in rude and angry reactions, especially towards subordinates. There was nothing in the CIHR curriculum materials that we saw that would have suggested this emphasis on improved deportment of government authorities was a key theme in the training. We suspect that this was a sub-text that the trainers stressed in whatever subject area of the Good Governance and Management curriculum they were teaching. On the other hand, the kind of self-criticism that is repeated in similar terms from all four provinces suggests the possibility of an echo from earlier regimes in which self-examination and self-criticism was part of a cadre’s duty.

A. Provincial and District Level Trainees.

Relatively few informants from the upper level were willing to articulate the changes that the training had on them personally. These informants found it much easier to discuss the impact of the training on others who were colleagues in the workplace. However those who did respond were highly aware of the changes in outlook which the training brought to them.

1. Banteay Meanchey

BMC [District Chief] 603 We use the word “Good Governance” in which we introduce Human Rights, the election process, the law and principles of management. In the past we held to our customary practices, but when we attended the course we became cleverer and brighter in leading and managing all the work since we concentrate on principles.

BMC [Provincial Planning Department] 647 I knew nothing about Human Rights, I violated other people before. After I attended Human Rights course I start to get aware of my violations. I understand the work because every one has the same rights so they can make a protest. We all men and women have the same rights.

2. Siem Reap

SRP [Deputy District Chief] 912 The understanding from the course and classmates encourages us to have good sense, morality and to bear responsibility for what we have done. We shame ourselves if we had the experience of the course, but continue with misconduct.

SRP [Deputy District Chief] 913 After the course, we need to correct our behavior, don't violate the other’s rights. But if we do not so, it means that we do not get anything of what we had learned. So the course not only provides us with the understanding and good theories, but also helps correct our behavior. From this experience, we can know what is wrong and what is right.

SRP [Provincial Planning Department] 882-883 So far the leadership in my office has improved its attitudes but even I can not always help my temper. Sometimes the leader expresses anger through his attitude but then he also softens his behavior. His purpose is for the lower ranking officials to know the way to work and respect each other. I show examples that we know human rights, we learn and know the law. If higher-ranking officials give us responsible tasks to be carried out, but we don't implement the tasks, we would we violate our duties if we use power to put pressure on others to do these tasks.

B. Commune and Village Level Trainees.

The local level trainees tended to be more candid about the changes the course had had on their personality. The strong theme from all provinces is a reduction in interpersonal violence and cruelty and a decrease in impolite, rude, angry behavior, especially towards villagers, who are considered as subordinates.

The impression these data convey is that many trainees have understood the CIHR message that successful mobilization of villagers within the SEILA participatory development framework and within the larger political context that is emerging, requires a responsive, calm, understanding attitude by officials toward citizens.

1. Battambang

Two themes stand out in the Battambang material on this topic. One is a reduction in violence and anger and an increase in gentleness and professionalism in the conduct of public affairs. The other theme, highlighted by the last few quotes, is an awareness that the lessons of honesty and transparency are often difficult for low paid local officials to put into practice. Our material from Battambang is more extensive than from the other provinces because through previous research we were already acquainted with many of these officials and they were willing to speak with us at length.

The mephum from Banan makes the important point, often forgotten, that this CIHR training is part of a program of conversion from a regime organized along military lines during civil war to a regime organized along civilian lines to develop Cambodian society.

BBM [Deputy Mekhum, Banan] 408 I studied many good meanings of Good Governance and I can understand not to use violence against the people because we have positions as leaders, although people make a few mistakes, but we must not be angry at the citizens. I inform you honestly that my behavior is the same as before attending the course because I was ordained. I have never used any violence but I have had profound awareness of violence after participating in the course. For instance, as a leader we must have the strength to lead citizens without using violence.

BBM [Deputy Mekhum,58, Banan] 427 According to the principle of Good Governance, the leadership level needs to be gentle and be moral guides. The Commune is the main office for the grassroots authority. If the leadership level does not clear a way for people, problems will occur.

BBM [Khum Clerk, Banan] 444 Since I have knowledge of human rights and Good Governance I am more aware of violence. I understand the human rights and Good Governance better than before. Before I attended the courses, I always did anything with mistakes. But today I can arrange work and management. For example, I am an administrator in commune office. We know about the management, we can manage documents. After I attended the courses, I can understand better than before.

BBM [Khum Clerk, Banan] 460 The study of Good Governance serves as a target for people to respect each other and to use polite words and gestures with friends and relatives. The Good Governance is the maintenance of the rights in a harmony with the beliefs of Buddhist followers.

BBM [Mekhum, Banan] 394 After I trained, I understood that the Good Governance could make our governor join all staff people who stayed in our control to cooperate to build our basic governance structure. The attitude that we had before was called power. When we spoke strong words it meant we used our power.

BBM [Mekhum, Banan] 400 Yes, there are some problems, when the villagers ask about something, we try to explain them by using knowledge we have learned from the Good Governance training. They swear at us but we don’t swear at them back. We only tell them, “If you swear at me please do that, I still can sleep well and still smile to you. But if you continue to swearing at me, later you will know that you did wrong to swear at me because I am not angry with you.” To think is no violation, if they have an idea, we cannot use our power to stop them, but they only want to give an idea to the meeting, whether the idea was good or not. We try to understand, if they say something that we think is bad , we have to persuade then until they do the right way.

BBM [Mekhum, Battambang] 299 When we speak impolitely to others, it means that we violate their rights. We know that they must be fed up with us because we use rude words and sometimes we don’t think of their anger. Moreover, we should lessen these problems because we once violate their rights and pressure people’s mentalities to deal with a particular case, we can’t express the rude words, it can affect the rights of people and we can reduce this.

BBM [Mekhum, Battambang] 303 After I attended the course, I understand the procedure to carry out the work. On the other hand, our Khmer leaders and citizens experienced a lot of regimes so the leadership, implementation and methods to work were in accordance with each regime. But the dissemination of democracy and Good Governance is better now. They don’t carry out the work like previous regimes, this is the good way. When I attended the course I was given documents relevant to Buddha history with the Good Governance.

BBM [Mekhum, Bavel] 459 Some village chief quarreled with me, I laughed when they spoke to me, I didn’t show anger. I laughed and eased the work. When we started implementing any work, they looked like they would argue with us about the work but we didn’t quarrel with each other outside working hours. The knowledge of Good Governance helps a lot because the SEILA program is reasonable. When I studied that course, they also integrated the SEILA program.

BBM [Mekhum, Bavel] 464 Before, I see that I have implemented the work with slight awareness, mistakes and confusion. Since I finished the course, I have carried out the tasks in accordance with the lessons. Especially, the work I have implemented is in accord with the Human Rights. I serve the people and have transparency as well as proper justice in agreement with the instruction of the SEILA program that I have already studied.

BBM [Mekhum, Bavel] 465 I have seen that the easiness in making relations to cooperate with each other is well parallel to our lessons and a commune chief stops angering the people. Their fury makes them give up the work. I informed them of all lessons and we told them that we experienced that matter so the leaders’ patience must consist of compassion.

BBM [Mephum, Banan] 556 My attitude changed too, before I was angry a lot especially, when during the rule of the State of Cambodia. Before I used a lot of violence, speaking loudly and with rude words. We want to do something correctly we must used violence, but to do this perhaps affected one's rights. But after that we analyzed this and we could resolve some problems better than before. In my leadership especially, I'm a village chief and in my office the leaders were all soldiers. In my work I always used military orders and at that time we used power. At that time I was always confused before good-governance because I was not yet clear about this.

BBM [Mekhum, Bavel] 472 According to what I learned, honesty is regarded as the loyalty to planning and principle of higher-ranking levels and to the citizens, so we don’t have swindles, suppression and repression. We must not falsify any work to earn a little income ourselves by using and seeking a particular way. This is our honesty. I understand that transparency makes us dare to say and implement any work among the people and in the middle of rice fields, there must not be a mystery and other bribery.

BBM [Mephum, Ek Phnom] 541-542 The knowledge, the documents and some other rules of the learning of the Good Governance are good, but some people, especially myself do not put them into practice, this because of many reasons such as: poor living conditions. So if they are poor, they have to swindle in order to feed themselves. On the other hand, to do the work asked by the government, such as to raise some funds in a week and make a report. But because the salary is insufficient we have no time to do that work, and we spend time for only our private work in order to solve our personal problems.

2. Banteay Meanchey

The striking theme here, as in Battambang, is overcoming bad temper, hot heartedness, and brutal manners when carrying out government duties.

BMC [Mephum, Monkul Borei] 798 We must not bad tempered or violate anyone. We must behave well to villagers in order to make them believe that mephum is good. If mephum is too firm then villager dare not say anything. According to the leader’s explanation Human Rights and development are equal and must be learned together.

BMC [VDC Accountant, female, Svay Chek] 770 In the past, I didn’t understand how to develop my work, but now I understand better. I was moody, hot hearted, rude, but now, I’m not, especially after the course. The lesson says if we do something wrong we need to correct ourselves.

BMC [VDC Chief, female, Monkul Borei] 838 For instance, if we talk about the violence, I once was brutal, violated and intimidated my husband when he made a few mistakes. I am good at speaking and intimidate my husband. In my mind, I have to soften my gesture and body as I take up human rights. I can tell about Human Rights to neighbors who had arguments in the village. The citizens in this village listen to my explanation.

3. Pursat

The themes again in this province are overcoming anger, bad temper, and cruelty, and impolite, rude insulting and violent words and manner. The lessons of calmness, patience and soft spoken tolerance are often attributed to the training the official has received.

PUR [CDC Accountant, female,49, Kandieng] 31 Formerly, I did something without thinking and I always had anger in my body. But now after having studied I also change. I can understand about my mistakes by myself and have patience.

PUR [Chief of Parents’ Association, 57, Bakan] 108 The people who didn't attend the course don't understand it, even for me I didn't know either before I attended the course I was often bad tempered, spoke rudely, but now I speak softly. They let some of the pagoda committee attend the course because in each pagoda the problem always happens, like a quarrel between laymen in the pagoda committee and monks or nuns. They have a little bit of quarrel with rude or impolite speech so they need some laymen to attend the course to promulgate in the pagoda.

PUR [Mekhum, 60,Kandieng] 74 For me, I used to a cruel person and I had a provocative attitude but after study, I changed my nature step by step. We gave up all bad actions, we have never drunk wine with them. That's why they regarded us as a good leader and they respected us because I'm an old man. We used rule but not power. If they do something they should be punished we must explain them clearly when they are wrong. We are the authority but we have never use rude words or speak loudly at them. We speak only good soft words. Since 1979.

PUR [Mephum, VDC Chief, Pagoda Committee, 50, Kandieng] 210 I didn't understand the Good Governance previously and good management for the people and we often proved impolite in the past. When we studied the Good Governance, we were much more aware so the people had much confidence in us to carry out their work and it encouraged the people to cooperate with us enthusiastically.

PUR [Mephum, VDC Chief, Pagoda Committee, 50, Kandieng] 211 In the course, they mentioned to make the committee to be more aware of leading the people and make the people have confidence in us. How we could improve our behavior for the people to regard us as proper leaders in the village. If we express impolite and rude words or attitudes to the people, they won't have confidence in our leadership and cooperate with us enthusiastically. As for me, I haven't had rude attitudes and arguments with neighbors or old people in my life since I was young. I have never insulted anyone and said anything such as insulting words.

PUR [Mephum, VDC Chief, Pagoda Committee, 50, Kandieng] 225 I spoke to them when I went to look at rice dikes, and saw that there were a few mistakes. I said we must not use violent words to each other and we must be tolerant and live near each other and live harmoniously together. When we have a few mistakes, we insult and beat each other and express rudeness, this is not a person who living in society and who has good morality and morals. It seems to have violence in mind. They complain about a few quarrels with commune and district. It is not good, if we are not tolerant with each other it can break the solidarity in the village.

4. Siem Reap

The themes of rude, angry, authoritarian manners, often exacerbated by alcohol, are brought out by these informants as characteristics the training helped them overcome.

SRP [Post Office, female, 45, Puok] 933 Before we attended the course we had a bit of rude attitudes, mostly we did something with our personal concepts. Today, we take the lessons to adjust our attitudes and behavior and facilitate our tempers, we also implement our tasks in an agreement with the lessons so our work must be different from previous work.

SRP [School Vice Principal, female, Banteay Srei] 1048-1049 I have followed the lessons of Good Management. I have changed my mind on the method of management. When I have learnt the Human Right I extracted some principle of the lessons to practice. For example, there is a staff who is often absent. We should not threaten him but we have to follow the lessons in the books, but it could be imperfect because sometimes we follow our opinion. For me, I have changed some of my attitudes. Before, I used to blame people angrily, for example, when someone had made a mistake. And now, after learning, I don't blame them like before, but I instruct them softly. When we do so, they also do a good job. I realize that I should not be angry or threaten them but I should be normal and speak to them softly. When they understand, they do that work easily.

SRP [VDC Chief, Saut Nikum] 1028 The course was very helpful. We dare not commit sin and do not humiliate anyone who is weak. We never constitute trouble. Of course, I change alot. I no longer bring violence on villagers, I am now heartfull. But in the past, I drank a glass of wine, and I always picked a quarrel with other people. And now this manner decreases some, but not 100%. In general, people who attended the course used to drink much wine and to cause some problems, but now they are rather better.

Topic Two. Changes in the attitude and behavior of colleagues attributed to the training.

Under this rubric our informants describe a wide range of changes due to the training. They note changes, or absence of change, in deportment, as in the previous topic. But they also draw attention to the improved pattern of relationships between higher and lower ranks in the government hierarchy to create an effective management structure. Informants also draw attention to the success and failure of colleagues to heed the lessons on good financial management.

A. Province and District Level Trainees.

Informants from the upper levels focus on a mixed success of the training on improved behavior, management and financial transparency among their colleagues. These informants tend to speak mainly of changes or lack of change in their subordinates not their superordinates.

BBM [PRDC Facilitator] 312 In case that we observe the work that the leaders have done, we can understand it by ourselves, but if they do it following the human rights training course and the Good Governance, it is good. If they don’t follow that, they are still the same as before learning. The important thing is to control the management structure. Does this management accord to democracy or other ways? When we joined the course then we really know about this.

BBM [PRDC Facilitator] 317 The important thing is human rights. The people do not understand it yet even though it is their own rights. So when someone says anything then they believe quickly. I mean that when we lack the knowledge then it makes us think that this is natural that the high ranking officers can oppress the low ranking officers, but when we have the same knowledge as they have, they can not so easily cheat us.

2. Banteay Meanchey

The reports from this province are mixed. Trainees have the awareness from the course to be able to identify colleagues whose behavior as a government official has not improved as much as could be hoped.

BMC [District Environment Office, female] 703 It is up to individual’s opinion. If they want to improve their work, they focus on learning, but if they think that the learning is not useful, they don’t focus on it. As for my part, I’m very curious because I always think that in the world aggressors, greedy persons, offenders, human rights violators and powerful persons really exist and they are often proud of money and use power against the poor.

BMC [District Environment Office, female] 704 After learning, they just keep in mind. They remain unchanged. For example, we learn the law and when we finish the course we don’t use it. So the law is not enforced it becomes useless. For me, I focus on the work of gender or of women affairs which we had learned. We can practice and follow it.

BMC [District Environment Office] 692 By my observation, some officers at the district and the communes correct their behavior, but others don’t. Meanwhile, they try to correct themselves, but the correction is not equal yet because they have had a different education. They do not understand their own work well yet so it doesn’t mean they don’t correct their behavior, they do but the speed is sluggish.

BMC [PRDC, Women’s Affairs, female] 660 The stubbornness exists in provincial level and district level, they already studied but they don’t change. According to me, what they do is wrong we should fine them. We still have problems though they studied. They show little change.

BMC [Provincial Education Department] 287 They [who took the course] have changed their manners and behavior. I have tried to make a change but my speech is not good yet. The farmers said that they hardly understand much of this noise, but it is a little easier to listen to. But in my mind, I have never committed the sins and had the retribution on the others. It is my natural habit and I always express my natural polite words.

BMC [Provincial Education Department] 291 Officials in our province have improved their behavior but not completely. Previously there were difficulties such as security in the localities. As for commune chiefs and district governors, there were never scandals as they have education. For the problem of rice fields, people staged protests over the rice fields against each other and some of them came to Phnom Penh to complain in front of the National Assembly. As far as I know, it was the mistake of village authority, but today the citizens are raising up these matters.

BMC [Provincial Planning Department] 678 Yes they change. The work is improving and good relations are improving. For instance, a director of a department attended the course several times. After attending the course his character changed. He stopped loosing his temper with the subordinates. His management is improving too.

3. Pursat

PUR [District Information Department, female, 44] 206 The course improved the good morals of the leader not to abuse or invade the subordinate’s rights. If we failed to study Human Rights we could abuse the subordinate’s rights.

PUR [District Information Department, female, 44] 207 In the past, this phum had a problem because mekhum used bad words to some people. So the people disliked him and he always eliminated phum salary but now he alters because he studied the Human Rights.

4. Siem Reap

SRP [District Chief] 925 In the past, the commune chief boasted of his opinion and his power, but now it is different. He needs an accountant to be responsible for the budget for the interest of the pubic. The implementation of the Human Rights in the SEILA program encourages people in mutual understanding, while finances are now considered with the community in mind, and not just with one's own interest in mind, as was practiced before.

SRP [Provincial Environment Office] 875 Before the course, their manners were not really appropriate for officials because they showed a lot of weak points. After the course, they changed their attitudes and carried out the laws of the Royal Government. Their way of working and expressions are suitable for their manners, they respect the other's rights, the lower ranking official have to respect the higher-ranking officials, they don't express improper attitudes and violate the rights.

B. Commune and Village Level Trainees.

These trainees speak mainly about their colleagues at higher levels. The positive changes noted seem to cluster around the concept of violence and power in relationships. The course seems to have opened an opportunity for oppressed lower ranking officials to find support in the training for a more peaceful and reasonable form of relationship between higher and lower ranking government officials.

1. Battambang

The remarks we gathered from Battambang trainees can be divided into two main categories, comments that suggest a positive impact of the training on colleagues and comments indicating that colleagues have not yet fully applied the knowledge from their training course. In the latter case, the informant suggests that he or she has understood and applied the course teaching in his or her own behavior. We cite the positive remarks first, mainly from Ek Phnom, then the negative remarks, mainly from Banan and Bavel.

a. Positive changes in colleagues

BBM [Mekhum, Ek Phnom] 492 The course had some success, but if they have not studied they are the same, using power. If they have studied at least they reduce power a little bit. Not only the high levels but also the low levels, when they have studied, the do not work wildly, because they understand the law. The bad people in every level are the same. Those exist in all levels. It is normal that the good exists, the bad also exists. There are bad people in both levels. The number of learners from a commune is limited. In this case, if we let people go to learn and the leaders do not know then how can they conduct the people? For me, I want many villagers to learn Good Governance I have, because in this village, I see the authentic results.

BBM [Mekhum, Ek Phnom] 503 For the deputy governor, before the course he seemed to be difficult, but after he has learnt he seems to be easier to work with. Every communication with him was very difficult. I have talked to him frankly saying “If you had thought about it before maybe we would not spend the money for nothing like this, because formerly you drank too much and in every work you used much power.” After learning Good Governance, right now, with the governor or deputy governor I don’t even fear them. I go directly to them, but before, I was afraid because when I arrived, they were very rude to me. If some work had even a very small mistake, they didn’t sign. Now, they are different, when we make mistakes he helps to rectify them. They have abandoned their bad habits considerably.

BBM [Mephum, Battambang] 519 I really know about the commune chief because I usually meet with him during the meetings. I can know that he has changed his behavior. His behavior is in line with the citizens’ opinions and he has no problem with the people.

BBM [Mephum, Battambang] 526 The woman who attended the human rights course is different. If someone shows anger, she will not use impolite words to someone who is angry. She doesn’t reply immediately and take rage against hot blood. I think that she has more awareness of the lesson she studied. Yes, all lessons are significant, first, they respect mutual rights, the rights of women are not lower than the rights of men.

BBM [Mephum, Ek Phnom] 537 After learning, the leaders changed their behavior a great deal. For example, before they drank much wine, but after learning they reduce it. Before, they drank one liter at a time, but now they reduce to half a glass, for good appetite only.

BBM [Mephum, Ek Phnom] 546-547 Some people have learnt and then they compiled the law of Buddha togather with the Good Governance. They think it is good. The Good Governance and the law of Buddha could be together. The people who have gone to study have received books. Because the time was short, we could not understand much we could learn only the principles. In comparing to the past I realize that they have changed, for example, formerly, my district governor, drank too much, then my former commune chief could not tolerate that governor's behaviors and decided to quit his job. After learning Good Governance, the mekhum said that the Governor had changed much. Since we have learnt, just last week the district governor joined our meeting. I approached and greeted him. I saw his face and attitude have changed, because previously when he came to the village, he always demanded something. Now, whatever we give him, he accepts that. His behavior has much changed. He is a simple man different from other district governors. When I run a campaign or start a project, he always comes to the site and advises us to maintain it or clean it. He gives us a lot of good advice. He is a good person, because since I started my work in 1980, I have never seen any other governors or deputy governors with a good character like his at all.

b. Little or no change in colleagues.

BBM [Deputy Mekhum, Banan] 416 Some leaders, who have powers, don’t make any changes after the course. For instance, a minority of district officials have made changes but some leaders still try to prove their position as the highest ranking leaders so they don’t lessen the use of their power. In my observation some officials who have no money use power. They will reduce the power, if they have money. We think that the use of power as contrary to Good Governance. Some officials earn money then they can be quiet. They will do anything in an improper way if they don’t make money.

BBM [Deputy Mekhum, Banan] 417 Officials of both programs studied the Good Governance course and VDC and CDC officials attended the Good Governance at district office, but they have no honesty. Why are their studies the same as pouring water on a duck’s head?. I have difficulty to think about this, they don’t understand the honesty that makes people have dignity.

BBM [Deputy Mekhum, Banan] 418 Some people consider that honesty is not in their interest so they don’t have the honesty either. In such a case we have to observe a person who has no honesty and detect his mistakes, and we will warn him. We should fire him if he doesn’t abandon his badness.

BBM [Deputy Mekhum, Bavel] 485 Some chief of districts didn’t change a lot and some change but in my opinion, not 100%. Sometimes they rely on their power and that makes them forget human rights and Good Governance. In my own opinion I want people to learn. If they understood they will respect human rights. Not only the people make mistakes but also the leaders. I’m not afraid. I dare criticize only my collegues whom I know. But unknown people I cannot, I’m afraid of speaking in that case.

BBM [Deputy Mekhum,58, Banan] 429 Some people are considered as rotten wood so we must brush them aside. Well-educated people have a lot of problems in putting work into practice. Before they work, they consider the national interest as the highest importance, but when they gain their own work, they betray the national interest and turn the public interest in to individuals’ interest so it is the biggest problem. But well-educated people are better than non-educated people.

BBM [Khum Clerk, Banan] 447 For authority like my commune chief and district governor. When I had the relation with them, they used impolite words or violence and violated my rights. I dared not complain. I only dared to speak and ask them. But I have never made relation with any authority who has higher-ranking level than me, but my mind is brave. I mention this, it doesn’t mean that I am raising my pride.

BBM [Khum Clerk, Banan] 448 It is the habit that is difficult for person who has rude attitude, and much impropriety. It is difficult to remove this misconduct. For instance, persons once used rude words and the words they expressed unsweetly. They often used the brutal and angry expressions. Those people are still remaining. As far as I know, higher ranking officials have attended the courses. So I refer to higher ranking officials who have yet to change their behavior at all. They fail to use the morals they learned with those who haven’t attended the course yet.

BBM [Mekhum, Bavel] 471 Some district governors and deputy district governors have corrected their behavior a lot and other have made a little bit of change. So we have seen that higher ranking officials have such behavior. When I saw this, I made evaluation in my mind, that they may not remember what they studied so that they can do like this. I think that this is an innate behavior. I dare to evaluate them.

BBM [Mekhum, Ek Phnom] 494 We also encounter difficulties. Because leaders do not work properly enough. For instance, they come to study one time, but they sign in the attendance list for 3 or 4 days. So I know that they are cheating. I know that they have cheating ideas which are different from the Good Governance principles. They learn one day, but they sign in the attendance list for 3 or 4 days. So this must be concerned with money. For the Good Governance, if we follow its lessons it is very good. Every person has to obey the Good Governance. They have to make a clear plan and decide what to do.

2. Banteay Meanchey

The informants from this province note only the positive effect of the training on the behavior of colleagues. The course in Good Governance seems to have provided a standard by which officials are enabled (and permitted) to evaluate one another’s performance.

BMC [Deputy Mekhum, Monkul Borei] 758 By my observation and communication with him, he is quite correcting his behavior. For example, he often shouted at the commune unit or committed violence. But after the course, he softens his stance. Now it is easier for us to discuss with him, it is not difficult at all. In the past, he often said he was a boss so what he said was right and must be followed. But after the course of the Good Governance, we always discuss with each other to cope with the complicated problem with the 5 members in accordance with the discussion structure. I used to shout at other people who are my subordinates and who are often late for work. I blamed them with a few rude words and then I remembered the course of the Good Governance, and I kept calm.

BMC [Deputy VDC Chief, female, Svay Chek] 804 Before I studied, we didn’t understand each other and never shared ideas and didn’t cooperate. That is why we could not work very well. After we studied, all women in the commune understand each other. After the course the commune committee changed. Previously they were ignorant of villager’s problems. Now they behave very well to villagers, for example, good leading, providing village’s request, helping as they possibly can.

BMC [Deputy VDC Chief, female, Svay Chek] 805 If someone behaves wrong, mekhum and I will correct him in accordance with the lesson we studied.

BMC [Deputy VDC Chief, female, Svay Chek] 806 After the course the present village chief is much better than before. He was full of vice. Now he changed. He drinks wine a little. He cooperates with all the villages. Because he studied Human Rights and he put the lessons into practice.

BMC [Mekhum, Serey Sisophon] 617 They have corrected behavior and management of the work. I would like to inform that most of them improved their behavior. Before they used violence, they thought that they were leaders and used their power to pressure other people. When they attended the course of human rights, and their subordinates attended the courses as well, they have the same awareness and the leaders can no longer violate the rights of subordinates.

BMC [Mekhum, Svay Chek] 743 Of course, for the past observation, the problem is true. Before attending the Good Governance course, he behaves absolutely as the idiom is said GjeTAehIy GjKWCaGjeTAehIy (he is the boss so what he thinks, talks or does is always correct and every body needs to follow him), so if the deputy-units have expressions or ideas, he listens only 40%, not 100%. But now, especially after the course of the Good Governance and the nation’s political situation, he is getting better and better. For instance, when I joined him in the meeting at the district office, he has no more his personal view, no selfishness. However, we give our ideas to each other and follow the hierarchy. When the district governor holds a meeting on the unit commanders or on the other development works, all the deputy-district governors have to help add more ideas to the district governor’s. He takes these ideas into consideration or sometimes he makes an agreement with his deputy in consideration of the consequences or the achievement of the work.

BMC [Mephum, Monkul Borei] 797 There is a little change. It is good to understand each other and compromise. For instance, I committed something wrong, but he didn’t blame me or threaten me. Human Rights he studied he put into practice. I read his documents that is why I understand a little. The mephum and first and second deputies are sensible after the course. They informed me and the VDC of what they learned. After their explanation his character or changed a lot. They also explained to me a little so I am a little bit sensible. Sometimes I don’t know what’s wrong and what’s right.

BMC [VDC Accountant, female, Svay Chek] 777 After a village chief and commune chief attended the course, they give good advice to the younger people in the village. We don’t keep bad temper and are honest to each other and in the past, they often drank a lot.

BMC [VDC Chief, Monkul Borei] 821 They are closer now and better. All of the civil servants are good, they don’t make any mistakes out of what they learnt, especially they pay more respect to people.

BMC [VDC Chief, Monkul Borei] 826 Of course, among my colleagues in this commune after the course we seem to be better and if we all have little mistake we correct each other. Everything is getting better and better no one has any opposition.

BMC [VDC Chief, Monkul Borei] 827 In the past the commune chief seemed to make social class distraction and to hold power. But today he does not do that anymore, he is now easy to contact.

3. Pursat

Our two respondents on this topic are divided in their assessment of the effect of the training, but they take a generally positive view of the impact.

PUR [Khum official, female, 51, Phnom Kravanh] 176 It benefits the leader. For example, in the past the leader exercised his power to oppress people but after he studied in the meeting he could obtain unity among the people.

PUR [Mephum, VDC Chief, 53, Phnom Kravanh] 234 They have corrected their manners but two of 10 people haven't corrected their attitudes, they haven't implemented the principles of law during the work. So this matter still exists, it can't be abolished immediately.

4. Siem Reap

Most informants note positive changes in their colleagues. The last informant quoted, the commune leader from Banteay Srei, indicates his own good understanding of the course training but suggests that there are still those who have not practiced what they learned.

SRP [Deputy Mekhum, Banteay Srei] 965 I inform you all about village leadership. It proves that there are some good points after the course. In the past, the work was often implemented with impolite speaking and behavior against a person’s mistakes, but now, consideration and practice are consistent with the Human Rights and mutual respect.

SRP [Mekhum,56, Puok] 994 I inform you that those leaders who studied human rights made a lot of changes of speech and management. They show polite speeches and there is no violence anymore. If they had not taken part in the human rights training course, they would speak impolitely to their subordinates in contrast with people who studied human rights. Although they don't remember it at all, they easily understand human rights. Yes, I use this knowledge in every meeting, what I know I say. Especially, I quoted the word "transparency" as saying that we can honestly deal with a particular matter. For instance, Mr. A and Mr. B have an angry argument. I ask them one by one, please talk about this argument honestly. I question them with no threat and gun. I use the law of Buddha using polite speech and adhering to transparency to deal with the problem with no argument or conflict.

SRP [Mephum, 49, Banteay Srei] 1035-1036 For my part, I ever did something wrong and I now understand a lot after the course. While the higher-ranking officials also seem friendly to the lower officials after the course, they are not so rude to the lower ranking officials.

SRP [School Vice Principal, female, Banteay Srei] 1050 For my boss, he is also different. On the way of his management, he has more understanding of his tasks and behaves according to what he has learnt. Before, he did not come very often and never listened to anyone's advice. I also did not understand the way he thought, but I still give more and more advice. At last, he became a good man. The same as with a knife, at first it is not sharp, but when we sharpen it, it will be very sharp.

SRP [VDC Chief, Saut Nikum] 1014 Did you observe a commune chief's manner? After he completed the Human Rights course, he changed his manner a lot. He no longer uses his absolute power and he always works together with us.

SRP [Mekhum, 67, Banteay Srei] 1011-1012 There are people who have learnt already, but they don't use their knowledge. What sort of people are they? These sorts of people are called "power using people." The people who like to use absolute power I mean so! People who understand the laws and the Human Rights don't use the absolute power at all. Because they share their rights with us and we may not say anything which means to violate somebody else. The phrase "Don't violate the rights", is meant to provide the same rights to everyone. I am not proud of myself about this but you can see the living standard in my commune.

Topic 3. Changes in women’s attitudes and behavior due to the training.

Many informants drew attention to the impact of the training on their female colleagues, or on themselves if they were women. The gender component of the CIHR training obviously reinforces the strong element of gender sensitivity that is built into the CARERE/SEILA capacity building and into the organization of VDCs.

A. Province and District Level Trainees.

The prominent theme in these comments from both upper and lower level officials and from all four provinces is that the women trainees have become more daring. After the training they seem to dare to speak up in a male dominated government bureaucracy. The gender training of CARERE must contribute largely to these developments, supplemented by the Gender Awareness module in the CIHR training.

1. Battambang

BBM [Deputy District Chief] 372 A Kampuchea Krom teacher, her name is Ms. V, she dares to go to the provincial office. When she met a provincial officer, she contested. For example, she has a project but they did not accept it so she contests on her project. She dares to do that, but other women are not brave to do so.

BBM [PRDC Facilitator] 313 If we go down to the village, we will see their bravery increasing. The women are brave. They are able to contest in the meeting. It is not like before. From year to year I just know a number of them are braver than before.

BBM [Provincial Women’s Affairs Department] 261 Gender work has talked about the rights of women, the rights of children the rights of working together. When we know the laws, know the principles then when we go to teach the people, they seem to understand quickly. Leading the work in my department is also the same. If we have that knowledge, it makes us more tolerant and we know what are the needs of our subordinates. Some need tenderness and others need severity. If we want our work to progress, our heart should be patient, then we can achieve our work.

BBM [Provincial Women’s Affairs Department] 264 I think that the women really have changed after the course, because when we asked them to come to a meeting they know a lot about their work. They know their role and rights. I see the changes for example, before they didn’t speak much because they were afraid, they always thought that they were no better, or weaker than the others. They had opinions but they were afraid of making mistakes while they were speaking. They were afraid of being blamed. But when they have learnt not only the Good Governance but also other complementary courses, the women have become more stable in their work.

2. Banteay Meanchey

BMC [District Chief] 612 After the course the women dare to talk and sometimes they are better than men. I notice that women’s capacity is greater now, but most of them remain shy, but when they dare to talk, they have good ideas, not worse than men.

BMC [Provincial Education Department] 290 You know that men and women have similar abilities. The gender work is also expressed as the ability of women. So we must help together, the first is difficult for women but then they are as strong as men.

BMC [Provincial Planning Department] 649 Since Human Rights came, woman are courageous and have rights to protect. They didn’t dare to do so before. Even I didn’t dare to speak with my director or one who is higher-ranking. Since Human Rights came everyone dares to protest, not only in my department but also in other departments.

3. Pursat

PUR [Deputy District Governor, 44] 86 Women not only perform the development work, but also participate in the AIDS program which is full of shyness for the country women. They are no longer shy and they dare to talk, to ask the right questions (using technical words for sexual intercourse). I admire again and again that our villagers, women, rush to watch the TV program that has many sexual words.

PUR [District Agriculture Department, 46] 193 During the learning, the women who learnt human right were brave because if they didn't understand any point, they stood up and raised questions to the teacher.

PUR [District Information Department, female, 44] 200 They want women to know their own interest. For example, in regard to woman’s health such as suffering from vaginal discharge. Because she is shy, she doesn't want to have any consultation with physician. So she becomes a huge danger. So we would like women not to be so shy. We are oppressed by Khmer women’s tradition. Some women were ashamed of my advice when I told them about birth spacing by their husband using condom with a view to avoiding lots of children.

PUR [District Information Department, female, 44] 202 We can not eliminate our old tradition, we only fortify the knowledge of women to know their interests and roles, especially referring to leadership work. In addition, the women play a key role in taking care of their children because their husband earns money outside. Human Rights is a matter of mutual respect.

4. Siem Reap

This provincial official gives a charming vignette that shows his own deep understanding of management, but also shows the effect of the training on two women in local commune positions in their relations with a difficult mekhum.

SRP [PRDC] 867-868 Two women in that commune served as accountants, but a CDC chief did not need them and he thought that the two women had no time to work, or that they were incompetent, but they were selected as accountants by the elections. And later on I knew what the problems were by going down to the place. I found that two women were quite brave in the meeting and I also admired and paid my respect to them because they expressed good ideas enabling the higher level to understand the commune leader's secrecy. They cited that the CDC chief told them to help, but he never told them about money. The commune chief acknowledged that the reason why he changed accountants is that a male accountant is easier to work with and sometimes he worked at night with an accountant and the women can't work at the night time. I told him it was wrong, the two women were competent with the accounts. While the two replied they never knew the amount of money because the commune chief never told them. They were very brave in the meeting because at that time I was from the provincial level and the commune chief was also present. The two women understand the Human Rights. They fully used democracy and understand the balance between women and men in working.

SRP [Provincial Planning Department] 882-883 Gender work is for protecting the rights of women, it means that they have the rights to take part in meetings and voice expression of ideas or opinions. The gender work is for women to have the right to prevent themselves from being violated by men. The women participate as the weak gender, but they have the right to express the ideas or opinions without receiving repression from men. So we raise two equal things, do men and women play different or the same role? Sometimes women work hard, men use the rights to dominate women, weak gender. We prove weakness to overcome the threats or violence. Women dare to express their own opinions or ideas in a particular participation.

B. Commune and Village Level Trainees.

The strong theme in these remarks is that women have been informed of their rights in the training and are now much more vocal in meetings. These informants often identify women’s rights with the course training on Human Rights and mutual respect.

The female informants seem to apply the lessons of women’s rights not only to their professional relations in the workplace or development committee, but also to their own domestic and community relations.

1. Battambang

The remarks of the female VDC Chief emphasize her sense of empowerment as a result of the training. However her ingenuous description of the process by which she became VDC Chief suggests that she did not see the relevance of the curriculum messages about free and fair elections and the rule of law to her own personal situation.

BBM [Khum Clerk, Banan] 449 So far the women have not only attended the human rights course, but also learned in continuous training courses. The representatives of Adhoc Association taught the women the human rights so the women can understand their own rights. When there was a meeting, the women dared to ask questions to the person who took the lead in the meeting and asked many questions. They have brave mentality to protest with the authority in the meeting to make an announcement of that program. It means that they have curious spirits. The women can interpret and pose the questions. This is because they can be more aware of the rights of leaders and citizens.

BBM [Mekhum, Battambang] 305 I inform you honestly, a small number of women have dared to voice opinions and expressions in each meeting, but mostly men have raised their hands to stage complaints or to express opinions.

BBM [VDC Chief, female, Battambang] 591 In the last election I didn't stand for election. I was appointed to be a chief instead. My mother and uncle stood for the election and my mother was elected. My uncle was a chief who was elected by villagers. My mother was old and stopped and let me take the position instead. My uncle was a chief but he was so poor that he went to do his own work regardless of development then he resigned. So I came to study several times and I was appointed to be a chief. Before I attended I thought women had less rights than men. When I became educated I stopped being afraid of men. I dare to protest. According to the lessons I dare to say that we have the same rights as men's rights. I didn't dare to speak against men before. Because we are weaker than they are. After we studied we changed and dared to speak with men.

2. Banteay Meanchey

BMC [Deputy Mekhum, Monkul Borei] 759 By my observation, in the past, women did not dare to talk alot, but after the course and the teacher explains to them, we could raise a problem which was very complicated in our mind to be explained, and we dare to criticize someone who did something wrong. For example, the women working at the commune office and the VDC now pay much attention to the work and dare to talk and to indicate any unreasonable points.

BMC [VDC Chief, female, Monkul Borei] 844 They want women to give up ancient opinions, previously we practiced customs(narIQrcRgáanminCMu) they didn’t allow us to study. If we had knowledge, we could write a letter to a lover, the elderly said).

BMC [VDC Chief, Monkul Borei] 780 I think the women have changed a lot and the husbands dare not abuse the woman rights any more. In each meeting, there are women among my VDC members, and these women dare to speak, to discuss on every matter which concerns their rights.

3. Pursat

A large number of informants from this province offered comments and examples relating to gender balance and the improved awareness of women’s rights brought by the training. We cannot determine if this is due to conditions in the province or differences in the training offered in this province.

Several informants from Pursat also refer to the Khmer concept that a woman should be kept uneducated so that she will not be able to find a lover for herself. Presumably this would assure that the girl’s parents would preserve their prerogative to find an appropriate spouse for her. These informants seem aware of the social and cultural changes that will follow from the extension of rights to women in the process of achieving gender balance.

PUR [CDC Accountant, female,49, Kandieng] 30 In the earlier days we did not have women participating in Human Rights work. But nowadays after we had to study about Human Rights there is a balance between man and woman. Men also know about women's rights. Because before men only thought about themselves.

PUR [CDC Accountant, female,49, Kandieng] 31 After the women had studied about Good Governance they became brave women and they dared to file a proceeding against the committee. The committee decided to make other projects in the khum and they took one project for the first priority. But the women replied to the committee that we could not take this project because it will not respond to the people's decision. We have the right to make a legal action against someone. We had studied only four or five days, but we can understand that we really have rights and no one can abuse our rights.

PUR [CDC Accountant, female,49, Kandieng] 32 Formerly, the women's opinions were mocked by mekhum or other men. Now, because we knew that all the committee had studied Good Governance either at the khum level, or phum, when we are speaking in our committee, they never criticize us as before.

PUR [Chief of Parents’ Association, 57, Bakan] 105 The lesson teaches us not to be discriminatory. Whoever is willing to serve the work or settle the problem, we help our nation toward prosperity. When we are sensible, we have no quarrel. But some violate other people’s rights and don't respect the law. If we enforce the law and practice our own rights, in general, in the family, the spouses have to respect rights. Husbands have to be afraid of wives because women have two rights: Human Rights and Women’s Rights, while men have only one, Human Rights.

PUR [Chief of Parents’ Association, 57, Bakan] 124 In 1979 the women had a womens association. They were not so brave, they often sat at the corner of the meeting room and if the commune chief or the district governor or the village chief laid the plans on the table, they always agreed with it. But now if we are wrong or make mistakes, they take a chalk and walk to the blackboard to explain instead. Because they have the rights, too. They are brave now.

PUR [Former VDC Gender Officer, female, Phnom Kravanh] 129 The human rights and Good Governance are the most important, the human rights makes us have mutual understanding, women must not humiliate men and men must not look down on women.

PUR [Former VDC Gender Officer, female, Phnom Kravanh] 136 We have to encourage the women's opinions to make them dare to express ideas. If we are a leader of women, that leader must voice opinions in advance and the women can imitate their leader in whatever they carry out.

PUR [Mephum, VDC Chief, female, 44, Phnom Kravanh] 70 Now, we have rights to make a complaint because most men know that women have rights equal to men. It is a bad custom that made Khmer women ignorant until now. Mostly the women in the rural area are prohibited by their parents from studying because the parents are afraid that their daughter will write love messages to a man. The women who have knowledge are better than some women who have no knowledge. Because before she takes a man for husband, she could know clearly about that man's nature first. Through the message. If she can not write the message, she will speak directly to man, in this case a bad problem will happen.

PUR [Mephum, VDC Chief, Pagoda Committee, 50, Kandieng] 220 In the past, most of the women were illiterate, parents didn't let daughter learn and have knowledge. It was because parents feared that their daughters might have lovers so the parents had such ideas. For my opinion, I used to think like that. When I attended the course, I changed. At the present time, they build schools for our children to study in Phnom Penh and have places for our daughters to stay so the parents don't worry about daughters who are far away from the parents and about accommodations, now they pay much attention to women.

PUR [Pagoda Committee Chief, 62, Bakan] 55 Women have changed now. The reason why I say that is because in the past when we gathered to join a meeting or a discussion (before the course period) they never dared to express opinions because they didn't understand their rights yet.

PUR [VDC Chief, female, 47, Bakan] 5 We need women's opinions. In a balance between women and men we need to help each other for the work. If husband chops firewood, wife does the cooking. It is an explanation of Gender.

4. Siem Reap

SRP [Mekhum,56, Puok] 996 After attending the course, women are the same as men, they dare to raise their hands in the meetings because we explain the equal rights between men and women.

SRP [Mekhum,56, Puok] 997 Later on, they said that the labor force of women must be cheaper than the labor force of men. It is up to the boss, for instance, the contractor pays men more money than women so some of them complain about receiving less money than men. Women also asked, “why is our labor force cheaper than the labor force of men?” Now they dare to stage protests about their labor. In the past, they didn't dare to complain about the cost of their labor.

Topic 4. Impact of the training on management style and practices.

Under this topic the trainees’ remarks and observations fall under four main headings, 1) general impact of the training on leadership and on the distribution of roles and responsibilities; 2) the impact of the training on a trainee’s right to protest and criticize those of higher rank; 3) the impact of the training on consultation within government and 4) the impact of the training on consultation between government and citizens. As in earlier topics, we separate the Province and District Level Trainees from the Commune and Village Level Trainees. And within each of these categories we cite the trainees by province. There is some overlap, unavoidably, between these categories. But our aim is to present as clearly as possible the variety of views we collected in our interviews.

Sub-topic 4.1. Leadership, roles and responsibilities

A. Province and District Level Trainees.

The principle theme in these quotes about the impact of the training on the conduct of government business has to do with clarifying each person’s proper tasks and matching a person’s skills to his responsibilities. Most of the quotes concern the relations of government officials to one another. But a few trainees seem to bring citizens under the same management concept and to see them as also having their proper place and duties in a vast hierarchy of the State.

1. Battambang

The last quote in this set illustrates the theme of citizens drawn into “mainstream society” organized by concepts of management, good governance and development promoted in the CIHR training.

BBM [Deputy District Chief] 347 Good Governance has the task to intensify the officials’ abilities to take the responsibility for administrative sections and manage many duties of the district in managing administration, social work and economics. To intensify the human resources in the villages progressively, we have to make the citizens have more confidence in the local authority.

BBM [District Justice Department, Ek Phnom] 322-323 In the study of the Good Governance, it makes us progress in our work as the authority of the district. First we improve the administrative work and second we improve the behavior in the management work and also help in solving problems. It is a key that can help do all the work.

BBM [District Justice Department, Ek Phnom] 325 The matter of change after learning I see that the main points that I have considered is the administrative work. In the past, there were mistakes in violating the work duties and roles, but later, after learning many courses they have changed their behaviors by respecting each other’s role between leaders and between offices. Each expert has to work following his role and not violate each other’s rights.

BBM [District Justice Department, Ek Phnom] 327 After the explanation and bringing the meaning of the lessons to the villagers they are very happy. Most of them understand and know their roles and their rights as villagers who have rights to live in the mainstream society. In order to participate in constructing society.

2. Banteay Meanchey

BMC [District Chief] 606 All the staff in my office attended the course. Almost all of the commune staff and village staff attended the course and so did most of the members of the other units. All the units perform their duties because each unit has a separate work so they follow the principles of management, they always use teams for the work and use their different skills.

BMC [District Environment Office] 690-691 Our management structure of leadership is technically organized in accordance with skills, avoiding assigning the wrong positions and the wrong skills, in order to gain the best result. We have to gather or accept the lower ranking officials’ opinion. We have to take all opinions into consideration. I’m now not bad tempered, I do not commit violence and now I always consider hard before doing some thing. I try to maintain the dignity of others lower in my group.

BMC [District Environment Office] 693 When they are doubtful, they often ask me so I explain and advise them by illustrating the rule of the civil servants from the high ranking to the low ranking officers. Otherwise the leadership system of the human rights is quite accurate and progressive-the leadership follows the management principle and the Good Governance. All the works are carried out with the principle and examined and concluded.

BMC [Provincial Planning Department] 645 After I attended human rights course I put the knowledge into practice which is suitable with the construction of Good Governance such as leading, management, controlling. For instance the work in my department, I offer my staff some assignment and I observe and control and evaluate the work whether the work is fulfilled.

3. Pursat

The first quote in this set notes the institution of the inspector or monitor who roves in the bureaucracy to assure that subordinates are well led, managed and controlled according to the principles of Good Governance and Management. It is not clear if the idea of such a monitor is also part of the CIHR training. The impact of the training is clearly on how leaders should lead people, not on how people should control their leaders.

PUR [Deputy District Governor, 44] 83 Frankly in the past, our officials did everything with their old practice, but after the course I notice that our officials are very active in managing their work. They get good results step by step and get more progressive, not getting a confusing result as in the past. We assign our officials from the district office to do Good Governance in the name of the governor to supervise the work process. We manage the work and then send a representative called a monitor. The monitor can't make any decision, he just supervises the work process to see whether it goes with the proper plan or not. Then the monitor brings back a report and we grant the score 9 to 10.

PUR [Deputy District Governor, 44] 84 Our leaders are better at managing the work because they understand the principles of management. They understand the process of the work to be done. In the past, we had a low-speed method of management, but now we learn a new method of the management. We assign someone to perform that thing that he is skilled in and we monitor or manage the work carefully so that the work is done perfectly. It is a main target.

PUR [Deputy District Governor, 44] 99 We only mention the meaning of Good Governance concerning the controlling of the people. The main thing is that the people have to understand that our duty is leading and they have to know how to use their freedom to take part in the community and to become good citizens. We don't talk about in terms like the boss needs to do this and the assistant needs to do that.

PUR [Deputy District Governor] 252 We have concentrated on the leaders because they provide the directions and the people to carry out the work. If leaders are good, the people will follow the leaders. I see every day that the people don't object to the leaders. If the leaders have the awareness of law and people are not aware of law and make mistakes, the leaders will straighten the directions of people.

PUR [PRDC] 149 According to democracy, or decisions, it is much better for all leaders to study the course. A leader in a village serves to take the lead and he knows more about the work and makes the decision to carry out the work in order to make the people follow any project successfully.

4. Siem Reap

The importance of the training expressed by the second quote, from the Land Office official, is that the limitations on freedom, represented in the concept of Human Rights, is that no one will interfere in the business of others. But this limitation on interference with one another within the government context does not seem to translate into a reduction of interference between government and citizens in the views of our trainees.

SRP [Deputy District Chief] 949 I believe officials’ promulgation of the human rights to the people is not wide. So it was most important only for the higher ranking officials but their awareness is not very profound. They want to concentrate on the main lesson as leader's duties. The leaders must know how to take the lead to make the people to take part in our activities.

SRP [Provincial Land Title Department] 892-893 I used to work for many previous regimes and also for the communist regime in a management position. I heard them say "Human Rights" every where, but I'm still not precise about the meaning. When I attended I become aware that Human Rights is important and by the Human Rights course I can distinguish the difference between communist management and present management. For example, democracy means having freedom which is limited. We must not do whatever we want. Some people get confused. They think that they have freedom to do anything regardless the other’s freedom. If we clearly understand rights and freedom we will never interfere with the other's business.

SRP [Provincial Rural Development Department] 899 Sometimes officers are qualified only in technique but weak in relationship with local people and with colleagues. They do not show democracy, and do not listen to others. For me as a director I changed a lot. A director must be careful, listen to people who are of lower rank, share the work that we must discuss and choose some one who is capable with each kind of work.

B. Commune and Village Level Trainees.

The main theme voiced by lower level officials is that the training they received (probably from both CIHR and CARERE) helped them understand roles and responsibilities of every rank. The concept of human rights and mutual respect, apparently emphasized in the Management training, is reflected in an awareness of the rights of government leaders to lead and the rights of citizens to express their sentiments in regard to development.

1. Battambang

BBM [Deputy Mekhum,58, Banan] 425 It is quite important to the SEILA program if we understand Good Governance clearly, we use it for the development work and it also make the work springing up. The improvement is dependent on proper implementation. When the leader level performs properly, common people gain prosperity.

BBM [Mekhum, Banan] 395 After I trained in the Good Governance course I knew about our position that we could organize exactly on a goal. For example formerly someone who was responsible for economy issues could be commanded to prepare the army for war but now we do not do that, we know the roles of each.

b. Banteay Meanchey

BMC [Deputy Mekhum, Monkul Borei] 757 We did the work without the main principles. We didn’t know clearly how the roles of the chief and the village development commission to lead and contact the people and didn’t know how to explain to them the main principles used for developing the commune because we did not have the Good Governance yet. The course taught us how to lead and develop the work.

BMC [Mekhum, Serey Sisophon] 614 After I attended the Good Governance course, I think that the knowledge makes me have spirit and intelligence to take the lead, it is the most important assistance. When we experienced those lessons we become aware of our role in leadership. We can’t manage everything alone. Work must be divided into its parts, this is the task of leaders. Previously, we hadn’t studied the course of human rights, we often violated the rights of people because we depended on power.

BMC [Mekhum, Serey Sisophon] 615 After we attended the course, we knew more about rights and power. If we don’t know about our position and rights, our development program won’t be successful, as the principles of development consist of unity, negotiation and agreement. If we have no participation, development will not serve citizens in the locality. If we made a decision alone, it can’t be possible. We have to take the citizens’ voices officially. We must not rely only on our own opinions to attain goals.

BMC [VDC Chief, 63, Monkul Borei] 816 To study Human Rights is to respect rights because they have wider rights than mine. Why they have wider rights?. Because they are in local authority office that’s why we must respect local authority. My rights and their rights must be recognizable and suit each other when we have a project to build roads etc.

BMC [VDC Chief, female, Monkul Borei] 842 The village depends on the commune. The village and commune are parents. We can’t do anything independently.

c. Pursat

PUR [Mephum, VDC Chief, Pagoda Committee, 50, Kandieng] 209 The Good Governance study is relevant to the positions of authorities and village development committee chiefs to lead the people in the village properly and make the village prosperous.

PUR [VDC Chief, female, 47, Bakan] 10 The leader is more understanding than the people because he is a leader and a model and he does everything better than others. The people don't understand a lot and they are less-educated and they often obey their leader's idea. If there is a village chief who doesn't attend the course yet we should teach him because he is an important person.

d. Siem Reap

SRP [Mekhum, Saut Nikum] 974 Attending the Human Rights Training course, I got good knowledge of management, some duties for the civil servants in the framework of the Royal Government.

Sub-topic 4.2. Protest and Criticism within government and between citizens and government

The comments of officials at the upper levels on protesting against the actions of those of higher rank are rather sparse. A few quotes refer to the lessons on Human Rights and transparency to indicate how, in theory, they might protest against superiors. These upper level trainees do, however, appear to understand the training theme that stresses the rights of citizens to participate in development decisions and to protest decisions when they have grounds to do so.

A. Province and District Level Trainees.

1. Battambang

BBM [District Justice Department, Ek Phnom] 331 Transparency means that if we do any thing wrong or not proper, we dare to protest, to raise it up and struggle against the badness in order to rectify it. Therefore transparency has such important meaning.

BBM [Deputy District Chief] 388 In my understanding of management there is a right to demonstrate against the Royal Government, against any leader but we must make an application form to get the agreement of the authority. If we have a reasonable matter we really have rights to do so. The community must be precise, they must have forms, letters or registrations referring to their purpose and proper self correction. If it is otherwise it is not transparency, it may be seeking personal advantage or making turmoil, which is not allowed by local authority.

2. Banteay Meanchey

BMC [District Environment Office, female] 705 I don’t dare to protest against him because my post is lower than his. The position is that our property and family are poorer than his. We have rights too, but we can’t understand and broadly as the boss can. He has power and is our boss, if the law is concerned. And what we think is right, if we have no money, it becomes wrong.

BMC [District Environment Office, female] 714 The human rights tells that we have the right to make a protest, but the protest can be made according to the circumstances so I am still difficult. Although I have the right to do so, I can not do that because I am poor. Of course, I’m not brave because of this point. Frankly, I am violated. I have the right to reply to them and they know that I also understand the rights. Finally, they know that I can’t do anything and this is called “the rights abuse” because I can’t make any protest because of their money.

BMC [Provincial Agriculture Department] 687 Previously the officials occasionally went to villages and the officers hadn’t close relationship with the citizens. But now we have systems to make good relationship through information or news, so the gap can be much closer than before, especially now the citizen have the rights to express their expressions and stage protests. As we know when there was a confiscation of land and rice fields anywhere, they immediately staged protests. I think that the officials have better awareness of this matter.

3. Pursat

PUR [PRDC] 158 But now people dare to express opinions and object to leaders, if leaders fail to invite them to make the discussion. The people would say that the leaders implement the work improperly. The reasons that make the people dare to object to leaders is that they have the awareness that if they carried out any work just on the leader's commands that would be a repression of people's mentalities. Now the people know more of program of Good Governance, they are much aware of good tasks and positions that are their responsibilities, which are in accord with their rank. If we order them to implement any work in improperly, they will stage protests against us.

4. Siem Reap

SRP [Deputy District Chief] 909 The officials at the levels of the villages, communes and common people who attended the course understand a lot and are quite brave to show their expression after course of the SEILA program and the Good Governance. They also know their rights to voice expressions, to draft a project, and dare to make a protest. For instance, we set up a project in the village, women understand their rights to voice expression and to talk.

SRP [Deputy District Chief] 920 Now they are brave to contact each other. In the past people did not dare to do anything before leaders did. For example, a leader asked a villager first and the villager dared to reply back, but now they understand their rights so they dare to make a proposal or to protest what is wrong or to demand what they need. In the past, all the works needed to be approved by the village authority or the commune one, the people never dared to decide on the work because they were afraid of being blamed, but now the people have the rights to decide on the development work.

B. Commune and Village Level Trainees.

The lower level trainees we interviewed did not often refer to their enhanced capacity to protest against the wrongs and misdeeds of other officials.

1. Battambang

BBM [Mephum, Ek Phnom] 550 For the division of budget in the Seila program, in the meeting I dare to argue, to say more than the others since before I have learnt the Good Governance. Now I was clearer than before and that made me more courageous. So we have to think about the common interest and the partial interest, because in each commune there are 7 villages or 8 villages. They are as the parents of the villages. So they should not be biased. So, the contribution should be fair. It is not to give much to one village, because the village chief has high education, and less to another village whose it is village chief and its secretary have low education. I agreed if I see that they are right but I argue when they are wrong.

b. Pursat

PUR [VDC Chief, female, 47, Bakan] 18 In the past, we didn't know the amounts of the money. We never dared to make any protest.

PUR [VDC Chief, female, 47, Bakan] 3-4 As far as the Human Rights is concerned, we can not violate anyone's rights, even in speaking. We have the rights to every thing, but don't violate other people's rights. I dare to talk. Because we attended the course already. We have the rights before the law. We can make a protest against someone who is wrong. In the past we not dare to do that. We were afraid of our chiefs, but now if we want to do something in the village we are called to join a meeting and when a village chief or someone else has a mistake, we can correct him, we are no longer afraid. I can advise them when they have hit one another.

PUR [Pagoda Committee Chief, 62, Bakan] 43 People asked me what I learnt I said I learnt the Human Rights and Good Governance. The village chief did not attend the course. If he does something wrong I dare to make a protest.

Sub-topic 4.3. Consultation within government

A. Province and District Level Trainees.

The major thrust of the CIHR Management training is improved communication and democratic decision making within the public administration. It is also a principle aim of the CARERE/SEILA effort to encourage greater communication between lower levels and upper levels of government, in service to a bottom-up approach to development. These quotes bear out the success of the accumulated training and capacity building these trainees have received.

1. Battambang

Our one quote from Battambang on this subject refers explicitly to the SEILA context of consultation.

BBM [Deputy District Chief] 355 In general, after the arrangement of the SEILA program or such a Good Governance course, commune chiefs have ideas but village chiefs are members of village development, they dare to express opinions and make discussion about a particular matter in a project. They dare to give opinions much further than before as now they know about their duties as members of a social development program and they give ideas, and we analyze their ideas and give them our ideas back.

2. Banteay Meanchey

The wide-ranging quotes from this province indicate the impact of the training on an understanding of a democratic management style, in which government officials of different levels and citizens can exchange ideas freely. These trainees have been well enough informed to be able to articulate the shortcomings and the failures to put the training into practice, and they often seem to consider good management as an aspect of human rights.

BMC [District Chief] 625-626 After we attended the principles of management and Good Governance, we see that we carry out everything with agreement. Before making a decision on a particular work we seek each other’s approval. This is the result after the study. So it seems that each leader has changes. We do everything depending on democracy and every work is approved by the majority.

BMC [District Chief] 627 We have to know how to carry out the principles of planning and to solve and to discuss the matters. We must understand the matter of lower ranking levels and highest ranking level as villages and communes are important to carry out the work. Village chiefs directly implement every plan. Previously, we submitted planning to them to carry out the work and they just did the work. But now if we directly command them to carry out the work, they seem to express their opinions about the work. If any local authority wants efficiency, they must comply with the planning which is achieved by majority opinion.

BMC [District Women’s Affairs, male] 666 Personally, after having the course of the principle of Good Governance. I decrease my bad points about 40%. Before I was only a simple officer, after I attended the course of management I especially understood dictatorship which is not democracy. The department assembled and a meeting was held in order to raise opinions but this showed that in practice democracy was carried out only by half.

BMC [District Women’s Affairs, male] 668 Though the management, from bottom to the top, looks democratic, with coalition parties, the practice is not democratic. It doesn’t mean that some principles were put into practice and some not. According to the exterior situation and with pressure they can actually carry out their old principles.

BMC [PRDC, Women’s Affairs, female] 655 I concentrate on management and control. Democracy was not freely conducted before. After attending the course we understand much more democracy than before. We freely raise up opinions. We have enough rights to give advice and to conduct practical work and to make project. According to SEILA program in my province CARERE conducts the project from bottom to the top not from top to bottom.

BMC [PRDC, Women’s Affairs, female] 657 I know a man who was a director of a department, now promoted as higher rank in the province. He changed after the course. He let everyone else join management and control, having transparency, taking responsibility. His management and service are better than before.

BMC [PRDC, Women’s Affairs, female] 659 The training can affect leaders. It can change our behavior if we accept the ideas of lower staff then analyze the ideas. The lower ranking people are now courageous to join. They dare not to join before especially women and now they raise up their problems. They take part in decision making.

BMC [Provincial Agriculture Department] 688 I was never afraid of high ranking officers, what I implemented was in an accordance with my project. We could voice our opinion and give good ideas with no hesitation in the meetings. Today, leader always asks opinions from lower ranking officers or peers who have the rights to take part in the meetings with him. He usually accepts their good opinions.

BMC [Provincial Planning Department] 646 When we are honest the work is progressive. The progress of having rights to proclaim one’s ideas is improved. We do not order that you must do this, you must follow me. I allow them to say what is right what can’t be done. I need more ideas in order to improve the work.

BMC [Provincial Planning Department] 648 My director was the same as me before. He personally decided on the work. During Human Rights course we had a chat with him. “You violated Human Rights ” I said, “You should do this, don’t do that.” And when he understood, the staff in my department worked together and did not have controversy in the work. They agree to work morning to night if the work is an emergency. After the course, my director is more courageous than I. When he went to have a meeting in Phnom Penh he dared to speak to ministers. He is not scared because he is aware that everyone has rights to speak. It is not the same as before we dare not say anything in the Pol Pot regime. We dare to proclaim or to raise up opinions since Human Rights came.

BMC [Provincial Planning Department] 650 If Human Rights did not exist, development can’t be created. You must provide a chance to lower ranking people and allow them to raise up ideas which you can consider whether it is right or wrong. Let everyone express his ideas then we will find a conclusion. We accept the idea that is right and we practice the work in harmony with the idea.

3. Siem Reap

The trainees in this province were well informed of the virtues of non-violence and non-abuse of rights and a relaxation of authoritarian control at lower levels. But it is also clear that they recognize the failure of some colleagues to put the training into practice.

SRP [Deputy District Chief] 910 So we estimate the degree of habit correction as a result of the course is not so high, but it is getting better and better. Of course, these depend on the leaders. While the lower officials such as village chiefs, commune chiefs and common people were afraid of talking to people of higher positions, especially for women, they do not understand their rights or their duties in the community and when they understand the rights they dare to show expressions.

SRP [PRDC] 863-864 In the past, the higher level always ordered the lower levels to do something, but now the lower levels make proposals to the higher levels. Good Governance remains dependent on the CDC and they change their practices a lot after the course. The commune chiefs have decreased their influence on the conduct of everything. They dare not abuse people's rights. And CDC is a main goal for me because the SEILA program considers CDC as its owner. Today it is not so strict because the government just appeared from the election. But we could appoint the same commune chief, and they still misunderstand power and community works leading to confusion and sometimes they use armed force against the lower levels. We are trying to root out all these problems.

SRP [Provincial Land Title Department] 894 I allowed the staff to give opinions and to criticize whatever they want in every meeting because we can't be aware of our mistakes. So I also criticized my staff in order to correct them. You have the right to blame me if I am wrong and vice versa. I will write down on the note what is good point and then I will change. If they criticized incorrectly I will not accept.

SRP [Provincial Land Title Department] 895 Don't forget that unless the governor allows us to raise up an opinion we dare not to say in the meeting. Generally it is the governor who makes a speech and we only sit down and listen. If the meeting lasts a morning or one day, one or two departments can speak about their report.

SRP [Provincial Rural Development Department] 904 Yes, according to my practical observation they work mainly with commune and village because I request VDC to take responsible for voting and CDC takes responsiblity for contact with the Ministry of Interior. I believe that only VCD knows the real situation of the villagers, the CDC knows nothing. After finishing the course VDC goes back and does nothing, but CDC makes the decisions.

B. Commune and Village Level Trainees.

The trainees of the lower levels seemed comfortable talking about the improved conditions for consultation among colleagues. They seem to appreciate the better conditions for their work brought by the emphasis on participation rather than power.

1. Battambang

The contrast between the commune chiefs in two districts in this province shows the impact of CIHR training on these officials. These examples illustrate the importance of differences in personality and in the local authority structure for trainees who would attempt to put their training into practice.

BBM [Khum Clerk, Banan] 443 I attended the Good Governance for several days. I have had an awareness of the work of leadership and divided work between the right and the wrong until now. Although we implemented some successful and some failed work, still my spirit adheres to the Human Rights I studied. It makes me survey any work and I want to express my opinion, and I have to draw on morals to do any implementation.

BBM [Khum Clerk, Banan] 451-452 After the participation of the Good Governance course, I have observed that management between rank and rank has been much improved and there has been relations without objections about behavior and class.

BBM [Mephum, Battambang] 517 I have promulgated the rights to group chiefs during a particular program. We need the group chiefs to inform the citizens of the dike building and I want the group chiefs to mobilize the citizens in village. The citizens living in my village are divided in to 35 groups. I discussed with the group chiefs to gather the citizens to work. But we cannot object to the higher authority. When I meet the assistant to a commune chief, I don’t dare to speak in front of him. In the case that we can’t object to him because he has more knowledge than us. Yes, I really don’t oppose as I am lower than he is.

BBM [Mephum, Ek Phnom] 528 Before I learnt I had been afraid of speaking very much, but when I have already learnt the laws I don’t fear. When there is a meeting I usually speak and sometimes I speak first. While at the meeting if the district governor makes mistake, I get up and say that thing. I want to confirm that I dare to do so because I have learnt the Good Governance. Before it seemed to be dark for me. I was afraid of both commune chief and district governor, but now I think that this way: we are not different, we are all men. It is just the upper level and lower level.

2. Banteay Meanchey

This informant stresses the impact of CIHR training in helping lower level officials overcome their fear of speaking out before higher authorities.

BMC [Deputy Mekhum, Monkul Borei] 722 I was afraid of them before I attend the course of the human rights and the Good Governance, but after the course, I dare to protest any points which I think are not correct and to ask any points which I still wonder. The bigger ranking officers understand the course, so I dare to do so. For example, if there is lack of some points, I have the rights to make the request.

BMC [Deputy Mekhum, Monkul Borei] 724 The first is the rights to talk, settle and to make protest. He gives us the right to correct the missing points even if he is a chief, he still lacks. So he needs his staff or a meeting process to help complete the missing points or help correct the wrong points and he urges us to correct his mistakes.

3. Pursat

Again the impact of the training on these lower level trainees is to give them the daring needed to voice their views before higher ranking officials.

PUR [Mekhum, 60, Kandieng] 76 We did best to explain our staff to understand as well. We advised them to do something on time. The chief of the district have never committed anything bad. If they do something I do dare correct them. We use the principles of law to correct him. If he does something wrong we must help him to remind him what he did.

PUR [Mephum, VDC Chief, 53, Phnom Kravanh] 233 Yes, I have more courage than before. I never dared to make relations with district governors because they were higher-ranking officials but today district governors, commune chiefs and province governor have much better relations. A district governor promulgated the knowledge that he learned, I also invited commune chief and district governor to participate in the meetings.

PUR [Mephum, VDC Chief, Pagoda Committee, 50, Kandieng] 215 If we mention equal rights we don't object to people who are higher-ranking level or lower ranking officials. We have the rights to express the opinions but must not commit wrong. We dare to say what are rights.

PUR [VDC Chief, female, 47, Bakan] 17 Before we attended the course, we dare not express ideas a lot because we are afraid of them. After the course we understand and we are no longer afraid of anyone. If they do something wrong we dare to correct it so that we have balance between women and men.

4. Siem Reap

The commune official recognize the impact of the training on the improved interactions with higher officials. But the VDC informant suggests that her relations with commune officials has not improved. She indicates the gap between government officials and citizens, even those included in the semi-governmental development committee.

SRP [Deputy Mekhum, Banteay Srei] 966 I particularly mention a relationship between district and commune. It is better and remarkable and full of friendliness. The higher officials never abuse the lower officials’ rights.

SRP [Mekhum, 67, Banteay Srei] 1006 The district has promised that a high level officer, such as district authority, can't look down on me, although I worked for them. The commune officers clearly understand that if they do not accomplish the demanded work the district officers will also have not any reports to send to the higher level. When the commune level has accomplished their work then the district level could add to that. That means if the lower level officers accomplish their work, the higher level officers are also able to accomplish their work. But if the lower level officers don't accomplish it, the higher level officers also do not accomplish it. I said the truth that those higher officers don't dare to look down on me.

SRP [Mekhum,56, Puok] 988 For instance, I mention the district governor and the district development committee. When there is work to do, it is not like the past because now he doesn't take the ideas of higher ranking level. He gets the idea from commune leaders instead. If I am a commune chief I will receive the information from people. This is the difference between government and the SEILA program. For the SEILA program stems from lower to higher-ranking levels.

SRP [VDC Chief, Saut Nikum] 1016 It is difficult because there are a lot of uneducated people. So it is hard for me to run them. I'm not afraid in the CDC meeting but I never propose my suggestion. I just add some ideas to the topic discussing in order to make better. I never dare to correct the commune chief. It is no use citing that matter, because what he wants to do we can't stop. This is a reason why I always ignore the meeting. I dare not interrogate him about the money that was lost.

Sub-topic 4.4. Consultation between citizens and government

The major impact of the training on consultation reflected in the remarks of our upper level trainees underscores the fundamental lessons of the whole SEILA concept, which emphasizes citizen participation in development. Each of our informants makes the connection between the Good Governance messages of the CIHR training and the decentralization messages of the SEILA program.

A. Province and District Level Trainees.

1. Battambang

BBM [Deputy District Chief] 349 In our country the implementation has so far been achieved in an accordance with decentralization and it is now considered as the power-sharing through the field of economics, but we didn’t use it through out the administration yet. For example, every decision of local development and road and dike construction is based on the opinions and purposes of the citizens. If a village chief wants to raise a proposal to carry out something, he has to submit this proposal to the village development committee for action.

BBM [Deputy District Chief] 368 In the past, during the State of Cambodia, we did not consult with lower levels. We did anything on the plan from the high level authority. But now we receive plans from lower levels. They organize a project or plan. This is called “decentralization” in comparison to the past when it did not exist. For example, before if I were a district authority, I would have said, “You have to dig a canal and you have to dig here.” But now we have the idea of “decentralization”, the people themselves might require this or that. They raise up the problem, for instance, a road. The road in his village is very difficult to walk. Then they raise that problem to us and then we prepare a project here and it is called “participation.” We sum up the problems and hold a meeting at the district to discuss among the people. This is “decentralization”.

BBM [District Justice Department, Ek Phnom] 340 If the whole nation, all the people have the same transparency, then we can reach the liberal Democracy sufficiently. So we have to look after each other. It is similar to the Buddhism that has said, “ All the monks have to observe all the monks. Which monk commits wrong, which monks commit right.” Therefore, the government employees and the people have to understand the work of each other in order to look after each other.

2. Pursat

PUR [District Information Department, female, 44] 205 They respected the people’s opinion in terms of development because before deciding to make something they collect people to make the meeting with a view to choosing a first priority. If it were not decided by the people they dare not to make anything.

PUR [PRDC] 156 I want full democracy, if they permit us to carry out any work in accordance with the SEILA program that makes people have their own decisions properly and leaders only show the proper directions that the people need. We, coordinators, have to consider their work properly. It is important that I always say something that is relevant to the locality. Because I know that there was a lack of opinions previously in our locality. We think that the people obtained the full democracy because they can implement their development planning and it is better than to sit and order them to do this or that, because the people will say that these belong to organization and the people won't look after these things.

3. Siem Reap

SRP [District Chief] 923 They always think about democracy, they do not use the power to put pressure on other people. For instance, the SEILA program always abides by the decision of the participants. Before deciding on something, they gather their community to discuss. The discussion can take place owing to the unity. In the past, if we wanted to carry out a plan we needed to ask permission and are often subjected to the pressure from the higher authority, but after this course, they consult with each other. Finally they select the best opinion to implement a plan. In short, the Human Rights course or the SEILA program is quite good.

SRP [PRDC] 862 The Human Rights course we attended is quite similar to our SEILA Program : The first goal is to agree with a majority of the villagers decision making. In this case the relevant authority can not put pressure on the other rights. If the participants practice decentralization in accordance with our project, we still praise the villagers’ decision, especially the community's decision. And we manage the Good Governance in many ways by managing how to lead, how to control, how to compromise the works with in the community's task and we can not exaggerate any ideas. This is our method.

SRP [Provincial Environment Office] 877-78 Previously, there was not this advantage from development, but now it is very nice for the citizens to have the rights to question many ideas that previously they didn't dare to ask. In the past, higher ranking officials came to the locality, the citizens must bend to them, but in the present time, the citizens have the right to improve their localities, for instance, if you want to plant potatoes, you may.

B. Commune and Village Level Trainees.

The overlap between the CIHR training in Management and Good Governance and the CARERE training in participatory development are evident in most of the remarks made by the trainees.

1. Battambang

These informants are explicitly aware of the importance of citizen involvement in a democratic approach to development, and the need for easy access to government officials by citizens, which the training seems to have advanced.

BBM [Deputy Mekhum, Bavel] 487 If commune officials deliberately take no notice of the people, the citizens will go to district and province, they dare, I think that their courage is also good. It is the principle of the country consisting of democracy and the citizens have the right to meet with people’s deputy, it is a better thing. The matter of ill will always happens to civil servants. Ill will is considered as loving one and regarding another one with hate and partiality. For example, I, a commune chief have partiality, I like this village better than that village. When we make a decision or compromise, it seems to be partial to this village rather than that village. This is the partiality because of loving. But partiality due to hate is suppression on other people. The partiality because of being afraid that they are better. They are our leaders, if we say something, it will affect their families, and we are afraid that they will revenge themselves on us. A third kind of partiality concerns management because we didn’t examine the situation in place clearly so our decisions and compromises lead to much confusion.

BBM [Khum Clerk, Banan] 461 There has been a little difference since their studies of human rights and Good Governance. Previously, although the citizens had been a concern to the civil servants, the relation was not easy and required an appointment arranged at a proper place to have a meeting. But now the citizens want to make an appointment with the authority, they can meet any place. For example, the commune chief was riding up a motorbike, the citizens stopped him to ask questions in relation to their work.

BBM [Mekhum, Battambang] 301 The program of SEILA has so far been carried out in my commune. I once used my own opinions but we held the workshop on the rights of mutual understanding in the SEILA program. We wanted to construct roads or dikes, and we asked the citizens for their ideas or opinions on the projects. People said that this report must be really good, it serves thousands of hectare of rice fields because of the water supply, this is good idea, so we must respect citizens majority ideas.

BBM [Mekhum, Bavel] 467 When I joined a meeting, I always explained the work and the principles of democracy to the people to have the transparency and courage. We want the people to make constructive criticism and correct me to achieve people’s purposes. The principle of democracy doesn’t consist of shyness and fear of the anger of the authority. I informed them that I was also a commoner living with the citizens and that I only have the task given by the government to lead them but I don’t confirm that I am bigger or richer than they are so I must be a person living with the people and I don’t want them to have such confusion.

BBM [Mephum, Battambang] 516 I didn’t understand anything previously, I was afraid of expressing ideas. When I have more awareness of the work, I dare to do everything and instruct the citizens. I have tried to explain the human rights to the citizens.

2. Pursat

These trainees stress the importance of consulting people before moving ahead with development projects. The impact of the training is evident in the understanding of this participation as a matter of rights.

PUR [CDC Accountant, female,49, Kandieng] 33 We cited lots of projects such as road, wells or toilets in the meeting. Most people wanted a road because that road is very difficult for transporting. So, we show our unity by a sign and we are making everything with a view to satisfying the people's requirements. So khet level also adopted what the majority of the people wanted, without taking only the mekhum’s or mephum’s decision.

PUR [Pagoda Committee Chief, 62, Bakan] 42 Women and men have equal rights, no one can violate another. We have the right to talk in the meeting. Human Rights prohibits us from speaking rudely to each other because we understand mutual rights and mutual respect.

PUR [VDC Chief, female, 47, Bakan] 2 Before the course, I seemed to work in confusion, but after the course, I am clear about my work and the work of management. As for the house, when I understand Human Rights, I correct my manner for children and neighbors. It is different from the past. We can't violate people rights. Before we want to do something, we need to listen to their ideas and we always hold the democratic policy.

3. Siem Reap

The commune chief quoted here is a relatively enlightened official but he voices a common sentiment that the rights to participation derive from the government. This appears to be at variance with the CIHR curriculum discussion of rights that derive from the Constitution or from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The basis of rights of citizens is an area of civic education where further CIHR training should be focussed.

SRP [Deputy Mekhum, Banteay Srei] 968 The district governor has never created any trouble or difference to our commune. Anyway he is quite friendly, he never thinks that he is a boss so when a commune chief or myself as chum tub is not reluctant to contact him, he never provokes any problems in this district. As far as people are concerned, they do not dare to voice expression by 100% yet. Because they are afraid of wrong speaking and also they have low education so their expressions are not at 100%.

SRP [Mekhum,56, Puok] 987 When we sought information from citizens in 1997, they didn't dare to express their will and ideas. If any leader said ok, they would say ok, too. They said honestly. But at the present time, they dare to show a lot of their own will. We grant them rights with transparency. If there is misunderstanding or if the committee makes mistakes in its work, they can criticize it. It means that they dare to ask questions and emphasize a particular project.

Topic 5. Impact of the training on understanding Human Rights and Rule of Law

The data from our interviews falls into three groups on this topic. The first is the relation of Human Rights to Buddhism. The second is positive and negative aspects of Human Rights in conducting governance. The third is the tension between law and custom. It is noteworthy that the trainees from the Provincial and District levels , in general, have less to say about Human Rights than their colleagues from Commune and Village levels.

Sub-topic 5.1. Human Rights and Buddhism

A. Province and District Level Trainees.

We only have one informant from among the upper level trainees who drew attention to this connection. In contrast, it was a theme very often voiced by lower level trainees.

BBM [District Justice Department, Ek Phnom] 335 “Buddhism is the main religion for educating people in the nation. It makes people understand goodness in living”. Talking about the Buddhism, it is very important because the discipline of the law of Buddha educates people to be calm and encourages people not to be greedy, not to kill each other. It educates people to love each other, to know how to determine law and right, merit and sin and understand the qualities.

B. Commune and Village Level Trainees.

The lower level trainees appear much more likely than their upper level colleagues to see the relevance of the Human Rights training to the principles of Buddhism. This is probably a difference between rural and urban informants and the relative strength of Buddhist appeals in the village context. Our findings could also reflect a difference in the teaching directed at the two target audiences by CIHR trainers.

1. Battambang

BBM [Deputy Mekhum, Banan] 420 We cannot say that force makes people better and that habit makes people worse. We may consider Good Governance as a forced law if we don’t comply with the advice of Buddha and the Buddhism that serves as the habit. The Buddha said that people should do this as the good and shouldn’t do that as the bad, who commit good, they must obtain the good. It is up to their activities and they obtain the results through the activities.

BBM [Mekhum, Bavel] 477 These matters of improving governance are very difficult. Our ancestors said that habit is bigger that the law. For me, I have a method after attending the course. I remember that we want the citizens to abide by the law and abandon unreasonable habits but we can’t do this immediately and save their faces. If we don’t save their faces, they will insult us and consider us as Thmils. So we have to make them carry out the law without thinking in advance and attract them to be in accordance with the law and try to boost them to agree with the gradual abandonment of the bad habits. This matter must be integrated in the five basic principles of Buddha’s law. We can’t force them immediately, they will insult us and point fingers at our faces.

BBM [Mekhum, Ek Phnom] 498 The theory in the religion mentions that “Do the good deed, receive the good deed”. In what we have learnt. For example in the public forum, Buddhism for development, Good Governance, Human Rights and Violence in the Family, most of those courses always distribute booklets on the 5 basic principles of the law of Buddha and the books called “Preah Bat Thammik”. Those books are on the dharma which helps in development.

2. Pursat

PUR [Mekhum, 50, Kandieng] 181 Good Governance connects to religion too and dharma can make people do something correctly. Especially the five basic principle of Buddha and ten principle of Buddhist are the same as the principles of Good Governance so we can use the model of dharma in advising the people.

PUR [Mekhum, 60, Kandieng] 75 We cannot separate religion from the kingdom. We respect Buddhist religion if we give up Buddhist we have no development. So we must work with the both together then we can develop fast. Buddhist theories advise people to be brave and struggle with their lives. It prohibits us from killing a living creature on the earth. It advises us to make a living honestly and respect the rule. It does not force us to do something. Yes, it's the same, don't steal one's property, don't commit sexual sins, don't tell a lie, don't drink wine. If you respect the human rights you have to have the five principles.

PUR [Mephum, VDC Chief, Pagoda Committee, 50, Kandieng] 222 Because I understand the good and the sin, if we commit something bad, we will achieve bad thing. The bad thing is because of mind and behavior. Our mind commits the good and our gesture conducts the good. Our polite expressions are in accordance with the principle of Buddha, they are much friendly with us and no one hates us. We lead the people carry out the work successfully. I inform you actually, I have raised money for the Wat for every one year from the people living every where since I gave up the monkhood.

PUR [VDC Chief, female, 47, Bakan] 12 If we hold Sil Pram we are honest and Good Governance is also the same. If we don't worry about sin and merit, we are tricky and partial. If we hold Sil Pram, we are impartial we don't defame one's reputation, in short we reduce our bad-temper.

Sub-topic 5.2. Effects of Human Rights on Governance

A. Province and District Level Trainees.

Our upper level informants generally took a negative view toward the effects of the extension of Human Rights. This seems to be an area where people in high positions of authority feel that their power can be threatened. This is certainly a topic that needs to be reinforced in all future courses for upper level trainees.

1. Battambang

BBM [Provincial Women’s Affairs Department] 281 Human Rights is not new term but when we use it with the people it seems to be profound. Why do we say it is profound? Because the term “Rights” seems to menace them and make them frightened.

2. Banteay Meanchey

BMC [District Chief] 607 Supposing that the police arrest a criminal, in the past they didn’t consider Human Rights. If the thief was really wrong we punished him, but now we understand the Human Rights we no long do that. We settle that problem legally. The reason we do this is that we don’t want to get away from the law of Human Rights. In short, we obey the law right now.

BMC [Provincial Planning Department] 652 Human Rights have a bad influence. If we strongly respect Human Rights the thieves are protected by Human Rights. That is why the thieves think that if they are caught they will be freed by Human Rights, so they are not afraid of stealing. What I mentioned above is negative point.

3. Pursat

The district level official quoted below represents the kind of authority that is still basically committed to a controlled economy. He seems especially to feel the threat posed by Human Rights training. A clarification of the status of rights, and Human Rights in particular, in the law of Cambodia cannot be separated from a consideration of the Rule of Law, and this connection should be continually stressed in the CIHR training.

PUR [Deputy District Chief, 44] 90 In the past, the Human Rights was considered as rights, not as the law. So the teaching of the Human Rights doesn't consider the case that in a democracy people can also become anarchists. Because they considered that they had freedom but took an excess freedom, and it is considered as the law, because the National Assembly adopted the law of the Human Rights. But now our people are getting better and better.

PUR [Deputy District Chief, 44] 91-92 If we enforce the law they say we put pressure on them. If they want to do a business they say they can do it because they have a full rights. If they want to operate a handicraft, they say they can do it because they have the right to operate it, but the law is different. If they want to do a business they need to file an application to ask permission to make sure that the technicians or skillful experts acknowledge that they have the right to operate their business. They consider this process as a pressure. I try my best to explain them that matter. If we don't do that, the anarchic activity will appear because of the lack of the law on the business management. You have the freedom to do such a thing, everybody has freedom to do so, too, thousands of people also have freedom to do so. If the law does not control them, their business will not go smoothly.

4. Siem Reap

The theme of the treatment of suspects in police custody appears repeatedly in our informants’ remarks and must have been an aspect of the Human Rights training that prompted considerable debate.

SRP [Deputy District Chief] 951 For instance, felons or persons who commit the instability in the society. When our competent forces arrested them, the forces never hit them. It means that some of the competent forces and authorities are much aware of the law.

B. Commune and Village Level Trainees.

Among the Commune and Village level trainees we note a distinction made between positive and negative effects of Human Rights. The positive effects enhance mutual respect and gender equality and tolerant understanding. The negative effect mentioned stresses the protection of suspected criminals.

1. Perceived Positive Effects of Human Rights on Governance

a. Battambang

BBM [Deputy VDC Chief, Ek Phnom] 568 I think the matter of the Human Rights is very necessary, because in daily living we need to respect each other. On the other hand, the people or officers who have not studied the courses, thought that the Human Rights seems to be trivial. Sometimes, they do not understand it clearly, now. Previously, I thought Human Rights was the power of the human beings, but now I realize that it is not. It is to show regard each other and recognize the human value. In another easy way, the Human Rights is what the human beings need in their living and it is also the dignity of the human beings. As a result the Human Rights is valuable, because we know how to respect each other. We have to understand our rights our living and the human value, but some people think that those are not necessary. When we had learnt then we realized that "we have to respect each other".

BBM [Mephum, Ek Phnom] 548 In general in my village if we take notice of Human Rights, we see that the violence has been reduced, after we have spread out the information and after another organization called "Mental Organization" has educated the people.

b. Pursat

PUR [CDC Accountant, female,49, Kandieng] 34 After the course I dare to give advice, "in your name as an husband, you have no rights to hit your wife because she is an human like you". Sometime, I spread out in the meeting of people or the meeting of committee about the Human Rights. Like my neighboring house. He is a drunk man and he always hits his wife and children but after receiving my advice's he also changed and is helping his wife to make the rice field.

PUR [Mephum and VDC Chief, 66, Phnom Kravanh] 20 Human Rights is not using Rights to abuse someone else’s Rights because it is a mistake. Like a thief, we can not hit them, we only give some advice. On the other hand, women and men should not abuse each other rights. I prohibited them from putting a curse on each other because it wastes time and leads to big conflicts.

PUR [Pagoda Committee Chief, 62, Bakan] 59 We just give some advice to be brave to talk and to be friendly because nowadays we have the equal rights. Women and men have the equal rights. Human Rights is not for protecting the thief. The thieves are now being protected by other higher-ranking officials such as police or the commune-chiefs.

c. Siem Reap

SRP [Deputy Mekhum, Banteay Srei] 967 When the Human Rights officials came and taught at my village, I observed there are so many good points leading the people to understand each other, not having any trouble and not violating the rights. The Human Rights abuse usually occurs by speaking in a manner without responsibility for cruel words. But after the course, the cruel words rarely occur because they always consider hard before doing something or using rude words.

SRP [Mekhum, 67, Banteay Srei] 1002 The Human Rights I have learned are not different from the ancient human rights. The words of our ancestors always advise our new generation to love each other and to understand each other and to contact each other. Not to look down on each other. Don't evaluate the other is bad and only we are good. That is the advice of our ancestors. On the other hand, Human Rights are widely provided but they don't let us use any speech to oppress the other at all. If we do so, it means that we abuse some one else's rights, because we threatened them. So that means we violated them. If we talk about our ancestors, the Khmer tradition is very modest when we see the people know how to respect the old or the young, don't they? That is our tradition.

2. Perceived Negative effects of Human Rights on Governance

Aside from one informant in Battambang who perceives that politicians use Human Rights in their partisan appeals, most of our informants observe that Human Rights protects criminals. The basic concept of due process and the notion of a suspect being considered innocent until proven guilty presupposes a credible judicial system. Lacking confidence in the courts, these trainees clearly show a preference for quick informal justice.

a. Battambang

BBM [Deputy Mekhum, Bavel] 488 The human rights has not only good points but also bad points. Some used human rights to pressure others, this is a bad point. The human rights are very good if we use them properly. In the present time in my district, politicians who learnt human rights used it to pressure other parties.

BBM [Deputy VDC Chief, Ek Phnom] 571 A number of people think that "the Human Rights protects the thief and robbers" They said that, because when the thief or robber steals or robs, if there is no evidence he will be is released. So far, there were thieves or robbers who have stolen or robbed and were arrested and detained in the provincial detention room. Soon after that, they are freed.

BBM [Deputy VDC Chief, Ek Phnom] 590 For example, if we know that one is a robber why don't we hit him ? and why do we have to wait until we have evidence? We already know that he is about to rob, because we know that he comes in the wrong time and he is a stranger. We have to fight him because if we wait for help he will kill us and get our property. In this case the Human Rights has to let people understand that "the Human Rights does not protect the robbers". Mr. L. S., who is a trainer, also explained that "the Human Rights do not protect the robbers or thieves at all" and he confirmed that "the one who is guilty, is still guilty and one who is good is still good and thief is still thief".

BBM [Khum Clerk, Banan] 445 When I explained the rights to some people, they replied to my explanation that they didn’t know what rights were. When I mentioned rights, they said that the rights must be especially for the robbers and stealers. A person who is the owner of the property, can’t kill them or injure them or take a particular action to protect his own property and violate those robbers and stealers so this is the rights of the robbers and stealers. They asked me should I maintain the rights of robbers and stealers or facilitate them to rob and steal properties?

b. Pursat

PUR [Chief of Parents’ Association, 57, Bakan] 115 If I take the Human Rights in consideration, the Human Rights focuses on gangsters and criminals. If the Human Rights team catches the criminals and brings them to the court to sentence them, the team can't do anything wrong like abuse, so the team sends them to prison. They like it in prison because they feed them in prison and they are offered food and sweets 2 times a day. The Human Rights seems to take too much care of them. It is no good taking care of them.

PUR [Former VDC Gender Officer, female, Phnom Kravanh] 138 It is said that the human rights protects the thieves, that is not reasonable. If they arrest the thieves and send them to the human rights officials, they will release the thieves. According to the law, they don't torture the thieves but warn them once and twice and the thieves don't pay the attention to the warning. Let the people kill the thieves.

PUR [Mekhum, 50, Kandieng] 185 We know the thief but we cannot catch them. When we arrested them we didn't hurt them because we are afraid of violating human rights so the thieves appear more and more. Therefore human rights and law must work together.

c. Siem Reap

SRP [VDC Chief, Saut Nikum] 1033 The uneducated think that "the Human Rights is for thieves," while the educated think differently. My idea is quite different from the concept because a culprit also has his own rights even though he is a culprit. He also needs a safe place, we do not punish or torture him.

Sub-topic 5.3. Human Rights and Law

A. Province and District Level Trainees.

The general impression our informants convey is that they would have found more extensive training in law and conflict resolution useful in their work. Several trainees mentioned that the problems they face are complex an and that the CIHR treatment was too brief for them to gain the understanding of the law that they desired.

1. Battambang

BBM [Deputy District Chief] 352 We arranged a program in our district to make the dissemination of Good Governance to the citizens to have the awareness of the leaders’ principles that were laid down. We intensify the ability of the commune officials to lessen violations of citizens’ legal rights and the public and society proprietary rights. We try to make the citizens know about it and we facilitate village officials to take part in making the compromises with the citizens.

2. Banteay Meanchey

BMC [District Environment Office, female] 700 For me, I understand the work on dispute resolution and the law. Because the law can protect us from abuse. If I have a quarrel and I am hit, I still wondered about the law. When I learned it, I asked the lecturer to explain to me the law so now I understand how to file a complaint with a court without an offender’s presence.

3. Pursat

PUR [Deputy District Chief, 44] 93 We want them to give up some bad practices, but are can't take a measure at once, we need to take time to dismantle anarchic settlements along the road. As far as the law is concerned, their houses have to be dismantled. If we do like that, it is very serious. We gather them to inform that the local authority help them look for a new land so they will dismantle the houses by themselves. This squatter housing is a bad practice, which we try to eliminate. I still use that way to settle problems, I do not enforce the law yet. I try to enforce all the laws that emerge from Chaktomouk Center. I enforce them 100%.

PUR [Deputy District Chief] 245 I have observed that they and I haven't been much different. I learned the law a little bit and the study program was very short but we learned more of the rights which is extremely useful. I want to intensify the law training. I proposed that they should teach more of law because the people's problems consist of arguments, if we don't learn the law, we will face difficulties in solving their troubles.

B. Commune and Village Level Trainees.

A few trainees drew attention to aspects of common behavior that they thought should be brought under better control by use of the law. The relation of rights of citizens and law and habits or customs seems somewhat obscure to these informants. This issue could probably be treated in more depth in the CIHR training.

1. Battambang

BBM [Mekhum, Battambang] 308 Some habits such as bad habit or gambling habits should be corrected, but it is impossible. The proper laws and measures are the best way for the people to respect them. Gamblers are sentanced to months or years in prison. This is my opinion. It think the laws must be better than the habits.

BBM [Mekhum, Battambang] 294 The courses are relevant to management and human rights for the authorities in villages and communes. But our management faces difficulties because of the citizens’changes. Some of the citizens live anarchically because they have access to live in other areas, new districts or new provinces, and they haven’t told chiefs of villages or communes, so we don’t know the dates of their leaving. On the other hand, the authorities also confront difficulties in the citizens’ arguments over land or rice fields, family violence and civil law.

BBM [Mekhum, Battambang] 295 I would like to inform you that we were aware of law and good work of our leadership before we attend the course. Our tasks are human rights, rights and responsibilities. So it is important for me to play a role to lead the community and to intensify rights, to take responsibility for management, local authority, lakes, rice fields, rivers and the statistics of citizens, cattle, enterprises, vehicles and other things. It means that our leadership is true.

BBM For instance, we have the laws to take measures against people who try to catch fish using fishing rods and other instruments during spawning season in lakes, dikes or rivers. When they don’t pay attention to the law do we must use the law to ban them from fishing. They considered their activities as habits. They must not blame us as we implement the laws. We do everything legally and express our opinions to make them have awareness of the laws. If they still catch fish by using fish-catching traps, fishing net and fish electric- killing instruments, it means that they violate the laws so we have to arrest them with batteries. We are going to take complaints to court to sentence them legally. I think a person who doesn’t carry out the law, he can have a problem because he has yet to be aware of the law.

2. Pursat

PUR [VDC Chief, female, 47, Bakan] 3-4 If we no longer love each other we can separate each other we can't hit or punish anyone or regard anyone as a servant (slave). If parents hit children seriously I also scold them. We don't hit our children because they also have the rights as we do.

Topic 6. Impact of the Training on Conflict Resolution

The major sources of conflict mentioned by our informants are disputes over land and domestic disputes. Many trainees indicate that they have gained increased confidence in dealing with conflict by attending the course. Trainees from both levels indicate a strong preference for alternative dispute resolution rather than taking cases to court. This preference suggests an important topic for in-depth treatment in future CIHR courses.

A. Province and District Level Trainees.

For the upper level trainees the land problem centers on an apparent lack of clarity in the law about land ownership. Accordingly, these informants favor mediation and compromise solutions that avoid the courts.

1. Battambang

Several informants tried to explain why the law was really not effective as a mechanism for settling the kinds of disputes they confronted in their work.

BBM [Deputy District Chief] 378 If we talk about the limit of providing land in the district is only 5 hectares but if we provide 10 hectares or 100 hectares, it is wrong. In the province they have the right to provide land only 100 hectares. The Ministry has the right to provide land only 300 hectares. The Head of State has the right to give how many hectares, depending on the rank of a person in the government. Everyday the practice of this matter is not 100% good. For example someone asked for land about 50 hectares from him but he is only a commune level, but dares to sign an agreement for those people to use it. The plan is not provided to them at all just the concession land. In reality, it is not right because he has the right to provide only 5 hectares and more than that is the right of the higher level. Right now, some communes where they have a lot of land, they provide more, but when they are in trouble, they follow the law.

BBM [District Justice Department, Ek Phnom] 344 The important point is that in the land management in the present-day we haven’t presented the full rights to the people yet, which would be called the kmµsiT§pþac;mux (full right of possession, kmµsiT§ÉkCn (private property), Most of these full rights have not been issued yet. So all the land of the people, that is most of the land which they have, they only have the right to use and to control it, but property-possession plan has not been provided to all the people yet. On the other hand, in a village or each commune sometimes they just provide the bN½ÑsMKal;siT§ (possessing paper) that it is called “property-possessing plan”, to only 10 to 20 people.

BBM [Provincial Women’s Affairs Department] 266 When we say something it is not very effective to all of them, because people realize that our department is just an administrative body and it is the authorities who can really solve a problem, people like judges, the police or the military police.

2. Banteay Meanchey

Some informants indicated that in the area of family disputes, contrary to the situation with land disputes, they felt that legal processes were appropriate in providing a context in which mediation could take place.

BMC [District Chief] 609 For disputes in the village between neighbors or in a family we enforce the law to solve those problems. A person who lodges a complaint with us understands Human Rights. They also understand that they have the right to make a protest, but they follow the law so they need the higher authority to adjudicate their problems. In the past, we often compromised them and when they agreed with each other, they returned home, but the compromise is getting less and less right now.

BMC [District Chief] 610 If a land dispute affects the roads, the village or commune chief can settle it. We have the right to conciliate them and if they agree with each other, we are happy and we allow them to return home after that we write a report of the event to the court. But for a complicated dispute only the law and the court can define who is right and who is wrong. So the local authorities such as the districts, the communes and the villages just have the right or the capacity to compromise them for a little thing and a medium scale thing. But for the issuing of a verdict which says Mr A loses or Mr B wins, only a court can do this.

3. Pursat

In Pursat and Siem Reap the importance of conciliation was stressed as the proper solution to conflicts, rather than legal mechanisms.

PUR [Deputy District Chief, 44] 94 I think that there are many problems in my district. The 1^st problem is a land dispute. 2^nd problem is a spouse who asks for divorce. I notice that my commune chief solves that problem successfully, we seldom get a case report. Of course, they compromise the spouse to love each other again, while for the land dispute, they also unify the both rivals to agree with each other and to give a thumb print. Thank to the lessons of the course, they are able to solve all the problems.

4. Siem Reap

SRP [Deputy District Chief] 954 Today, the district governor's meeting was held to instruct commune authorities that they have the ability to solve tiny arguments and simple family quarrels in the civil code and make compromises. If these quarrels can't be settled, we will send district justice official so that he can invite them to make compromises.

SRP [Deputy District Chief] 963-964 For instance, we make no demand for the support of the compromises. We always have cakes, sweets, tea and little money to make the compromises with them to be more aware, as most of the arguments are women's quarrels and men often quarrel over wine drinking.

B. Commune and Village Level Trainees.

The universal view among lower level officials is that they have a right to conciliate and mediate settlements, but not to adjudicate disputes. A number of informants note the impact of the training on enhancing their confidence as mediators, especially in the area of family disputes and neighborhood quarrels.

The great importance of commune level officials as mediators suggests that a central theme for future CIHR training directed at the new Commune Council members should be alternative dispute resolution techniques (ADR).

1. Battambang

Informants note the impact of training in Good Governance and Human Rights and non-violence in strengthening their ability to resolve local disputes.

BBM [Mekhum, Ek Phnom] 490 For me, it seems to be more transparent than before. I dare to say more than before. Before studying Good Governance, when there was a land dispute, I had no idea how to solve problem, because my knowledge was low and I had never learnt the laws. Later when I have studied the Good Governance, I know what “brave” and “honest” is. And I dare argue for our advantages. I have never had those in my mind before.

BBM [Mekhum, Ek Phnom] 493 For example, the women’s development or women affairs group came to teach the people on “non-violence” in the family. In this commune this year it does happen a few times. Family disputes, and violence in the family have decreased. Now the main disputes that are really troublesome are land disputes. This problem occurs many times.

BBM [Mekhum, Ek Phnom] 499-500 In every land dispute it was not the right of the commune chief to adjudicate because the commune chief is not independent, he was appointed. The commune chief does not have right to decide who is the winner or the loser. The right of the commune chief is to mediate a dispute, but he has no right to judge that this person wins or loses. He has the right to ask them to come and to compromise them and to have them make a settlement contract among themselves and then to let them go back home. If they still have the problem once or twice more, then we write a complaint paper and send it to the court. Every complaint paper is kept in the commune office for about two weeks. If the matter is not solved or sent to the court in that time the people have the right to complain about us. So in this work I have never judged or made a decision to confiscate the land of any person or to determine that the land of this person who is the loser must be given to the winner. I just try to compromise them and have them put their thumb prints on a settlement contract and let them go back home.

BBM [Mephum, Ek Phnom] 530 Some times, I enter to the wine store and see the spouses are drinking and quarreling. Then I told them, “When you have finished drinking your wine, go to sleep and don’t use any violence on others. It is not good.” Those people listen to me and later they seem to reduce the violence much. I have talked to the poor people, because I have learnt that I should talk to anyone I have met when I think some trouble might occur.

2. Banteay Meanchey

The lessons in rule of law have also made an impact on how these trainees set about resolving conflicts in their areas.

BMC [Deputy Mekhum, Monkul Borei] 732 A personal problem can not be considered the state law. Even you have a quarrel, the law remains the law, not considered as personal problem. I often say some village chiefs have quarrels with villagers and when the people have a quarrel the village chiefs do not settle their problems. I invite the village chief to my office and advise that he has to solve the people’s disputes because we represent the local authority and we regard the people as our children.

BMC [Deputy Mekhum, Monkul Borei] 733 The commune authority doesn’t have the rights to solve the land dispute, just compromise them, while the court has the rights to do so. The local authority allows the disputants to prove their honesty. Sometimes the land dispute is caused by mutual violations so their adversaries also have witness.

BMC [Mekhum, Svay Chek] 747-748 The tradition is another law in the country, but we need to correct this practice. For example, the villagers like planting the fruit-tree as the land demarcation on both sides. And when the trees grow up with fruit sometimes the fruits fall down to another side. It often causes confusion or problem. And it is their custom. And now this custom still exists, but we are trying to correct their custom for planting the fruit-trees as the boundary. We should build a fence or put up posts. If they still want to plant, they have to plant the trees about 2m. or 2,5m. from the boundary. So that they shall have no quarrel or land dispute.

3. Pursat

Human Rights and the idea of mutual rights and mutual respect have made an impact on how these trainees approach their mediator role.

PUR [Chief of Parents’ Association, 57, Bakan] 102 I am an ordinary man, but work for the children and parents. I was selected to study the Good Governance in order to explain to other people. Now I am able to deal with the quarrels or other problems or alcohol drinking which often hurts others’ feelings or others’ rights. For the land disputes, sometimes they share a fence post or make up the overlapping fence because they have not considered mutual rights or they have not respected the law of the Royal Government. Such people are quite ambitions and their ambition often violates mutual rights and also causes disputes over the land. I often compromise them.

PUR [Mekhum, 50, Kandieng] 184 The authority tries to resolve these problems. If we cannot we send it to district justice to resolve. Commune leaders just have rights to reconcile, we have no rights to judge any matter.

PUR [Mephum and VDC Chief, 66, Phnom Kravanh] 24 As you knew before election there was only the Party. So, everything was in my hands, but now there are coalition parties. This month there were more than ten cases about land disputes. If I can not deal with them, I make reports to transfer the matter to the khum. After receiving my letter the khum dares to deal with it. If someone make a complaint directly to the khum, the khum cannot make settlement because they did not go to see me first.

PUR [Mephum and VDC Chief, 66, Phnom Kravanh] 25 When I make compromise, everybody listens to me. I say, “Don't increase small issues to become big because you will spend much money when you make a complaint to higher levels.”

PUR [Pagoda Committee Chief, 62, Bakan] 50 When people have little quarrels, the commune chief conciliates them quickly, not like in the past when he delayed for ten days or half a month, now he does his work immediately.

4. Siem Reap

Human Rights training has also helped trainees in this province in their conduct of conciliation of local disputes.

SRP [Mekhum, Saut Nikum] 976 So in the Human Rights process, we need to accept people's expression. For instance, for resolutions on land disputes, we take expressions from both sides and compromise them.

SRP [Mekhum,56, Puok] 993 We deal with the conflicts in agreement with human rights after attending the Human Rights course. In the past, I would like to tell you honestly, owing to the civil war in our country, we dealt with problems with our own opinion and we used threats on villagers. But later, we don't use threats because we need the elders and human rights to instruct people to understand the solution to quarrels with a proper ending. Especially in this commune, people rarely go to the court, I tell you honestly.

SRP [VDC Chief, Saut Nikum] 1032 If there is a family dispute in the village, I conciliate them, but I never go straight to their houses. When the quarrel is over I always invite them to my house or office then I advise them by reading all the articles on the Human Rights. This is my way in teaching.

Topic 7. Holding meetings without informing the authorities

Freedom of assembly is the cornerstone of pluralist, multi-party democracy. If local meetings of any kind can only be held with permission of local authorities the emergence of diverse, or contrary opinion among the citizenry is stifled. In the context of decentralization and the forthcoming Commune Council elections, the ability of independent groups to form and generate a list of candidates is severely hampered if their right to hold meetings is constrained by local authorities.

This is an area of rights that appears to be protected by the Cambodian Constitution. But trainees generally feel they must maintain authoritarian control of the populace in their jurisdiction. This is an important area of Good Governance toward which CIHR might well direct special training efforts in the future.

A. Province and District Level Trainees.

There is not much difference between upper and lower level trainees on this topic. There is near unanimous agreement that any meeting among citizens must be monitored and controlled by the local authority. Different informants do, however, offer different accounts for why this policy exists.

1. Battambang

Security is one reason often given for this concern about citizens’ meetings. One informant, the PRDC facilitator, realized that freedom of association was included in Human Rights, but observes that it is contrary to normal Cambodian administrative practices.

BBM [Deputy District Chief] 356 If we talk about the administrative management of local authority, first, we have to report to a leader before any meeting and report that you will conduct the mission in a particular village or commune or district. The first is the procedure of administration to enter the area of a local authority, the second is safety and security in that circumstance that is not ensured completely, but I believe that there are no problems in my district. It is the procedure for security management.

BBM [Deputy District Chief] 370 Usually, people might ask you, “Have you already asked permission from the commune leader or village chief ?” Otherwise, you can not ask the people to a meeting and do it immediately at all. For example you ask Mr. “Kor” to a meeting. He won’t attend your meeting unless he has an invitation paper from his village leader. We just need agreement of each authority, because we control from the top to the low level and this is just a manner or system for good work.

BBM [PRDC Facilitator] 318 If we mention Human Rights, it is possible to organize a meeting without asking the mephum, if people agree to come to the meeting. On the other hand, according to the administrative procedure we must have a report when we finish the meeting and send it to the commune to make they are aware of what matter we have talked about. If we talk about the law procedure from the mekhum’s side, I don’t know because it is administrative work.

BBM [Provincial Women’s Affairs Department] 278 In the community it is the role of the authority there. So whatever organization wants to see the people in their village, in their district, they must contact with the authority. This is the law. Otherwise, if we are strangers, if we call up the people for a meeting they won’t come. Moreover, we don’t know about the details, the preferences of the people. We do not know about it, only the authority knows it.

2. Banteay Meanchey

The district chief cited first is one of the few trainees we interviewed who indicated that it was natural for villagers to be able to meet and discuss their problems with one another, without seeking permission from the authorities. Other officials maintain that any gathering, even a wedding, had to be cleared by the local authority first.

BMC [District Chief] 636 People who live in the same village gather, so there is no problem about seeking permission from the authority. For instance, they have a particular problem and invite their neighbors to discuss a matter and sometimes the people hold ceremonies in village or communes so the elderly or citizens come together to select an old man they need. It is the opportunity for them to discuss. If they gather to commit offences, they will have problems. For instance if thieves act continuously in the village and a village chief has never taken action, the people pay attention to that matter and call for villagers to take part in a meeting and reach agreement to guard the village, but that village chief has no idea. Before the people make a decision to guard their village they inform the village chief of the security in the village and propose the village chief to assign the villagers to guard particular points in the village. Sometimes he said that this idea is good but some village chiefs don’t follow the villagers because it is not their orders, they don’t permit the villagers to do that. But it is time for a village chief to improve these matters.

BMC [District Environment Office, female] 718 Before anyone has a meeting we need to contact the mephum, we can’t abuse the local rights. We really have the right, but we use it according to the village or house we visit. We need to respect the house owner rights, the villagers and the manager of the village. This is called the mutual human rights respect.

BMC [District Environment Office] 694 It is impossible for any one to have a right to gather people in a meeting without informing the local authority. All must contact the local authority first and then they can convene the meeting so that the local authority could know the purpose of the meeting. And if they do not inform the local authority, they violate the local authority’s rights.

BMC [District Women’s Affairs, male] 671 No one has the rights to call villagers to join a meeting without telling district or provincial authority. For instance, we have a plan to go to a district we must submit the plan to the district chief or governor in order to let them know the purpose of the plan. So he will know the capacity of his people and that organization or NGO which disseminated the knowledge of Human Rights. This is the work on which we must cooperate. We can’t accomplish it alone.

BMC [Provincial Planning Department] 651 If any NGO comes to develop in a region, the NGO must inform mesrok and mekhum to make sure which village will be developed. So mesrok or mekhum will persuade people to work together on the development. Before we do something we must inform mephum. Even if we celebrate a wedding ceremony we must inform him.

BMC [Provincial Planning Department] 680 Sometimes the organization concerned with the program gets permission from provincial office then from district office. After that it starts to work. Some organizations do not do this. VDC was created to deal with this problem. So we don’t want to have many sub-committee in any village because of the problem of leaders. VDC not only helps SEILA, it helps the programs of all organizations.

3. Pursat

Some trainees realized that citizens had a right to assemble peacefully, but they appear to maintain that the local authority has a higher right to authorize a meeting or not. The “rights” of the local authority seem to include ordering people to attend meetings. This is exactly the opposite of the concept of the freedom of assembly.

PUR [Deputy District Chief, 44] 98 It is impossible for anyone to gather people in the commune without informing the local authority in advance. It is the work of the authority, they supervise the people. It is possible they don't allow anyone who is not known to do anything with their people. The implementation of Human Rights rests on the law of the local authority, so we need to ask permission from them first if they think it is right or good they allow us to do it. If we do something wrong with people such as talking about policy it may be creating a disturbance.

PUR [Deputy District Chief] 249 It is impossible in our country to have the right to mobilize people to attend a meeting without informing local authority because there are a lot of offenders, but we also don't ban their rights. So far, any one or human rights official has been willing to hold a training course, if he passes a framework that is allowed, it will be the law of our country. The law is not that wide so any one can cheat people out of money or properties. There have so far been many felons. Sometimes some people invited the villagers to excavate dams and to sign thumbprints but they forced villagers to enter their party instead. So we have to strengthen the village chief and must not let offenders come in to the localities. But if loyal people have relation with the local authorities, we will permit them to do their work because our country consist of many offenders, as I mentioned above. So far, they have informed at least the commune authority. They can make relations with higher or lower ranking level or commune authority. Supposing it is beyond the competence of village to be responsible, they report to ask for opinions from the commune authority. If they enter commune, commune will pave the way and order village to cooperate.

PUR [District Agriculture Department, 46] 191 If anyone from outside wants to develop anywhere they must connect with us. They cannot do something without cooperation at all or they can not work with only the chief of village they must connect with all. This is our Khmer habit.

PUR [District Information Department, female, 44] 204 They must to ask the permission from mekhum and mephum to meet the people directly. If there is a Khmer Organization that wants to call people for the meeting they must ask the permission from mekhum, mephum because mephum can collect the people to the meeting.

4. Siem Reap

According to these informants there is a system of monitoring the conduct of any meeting so that the local authority can pass this information to higher authorities. There is also mention that control is maintained on the yearly ceremonies at local pagodas, with the claim that this is the law in Cambodia.

SRP [Deputy District Chief] 958 If anyone wants to hold a non political meeting to implement a particular work in a village, he must reach the agreement with local authority at least a chief man. On the other hand, the village chief gives the permission to an individual to join a meeting and that individual must report to the commune chief to be more aware of what they need and do so the meetings of commune and district are held once a month. The commune chief has to come to the district to inform that this organization or that individual, who is a representative of the community, wants something or mobilizes the people to take part in a meeting.

SRP [District Chief] 927 NGOs have the special rights to contact the villagers, but NGOs want the villagers have more confidence on their safety or security so NGOs should first contact the local authority. For instance, the LICADO opened its office and invited villagers to attend its course, the people didn't pay mach attention if the LICADO didn't contact the local authority, but the LICADO collaborated with the local authority or asked the local community to inform the people to attend the course. By this way it is more effective.

SRP [Provincial Rural Development Department] 905 In my opinion if a meeting is concerned with politics it must be done in accordance with law. If it is concerned with the public it is not a problem. For example, villagers want to set up a ceremony, they come to meet without asking permission from the authority. A Kathen ceremony for a Wat is different, villagers must ask permission because it is the Royal Government law.

B. Commune and Village Level Trainees.

1. Battambang

The village chief in Ek Phnom is another of the rare exceptions who maintains that it is within a person’s rights to organize a meeting without permission. But he also suggests that it is a matter of mutual rights or courtesy to inform the local authority when a meeting is held. Nearly all other trainees hold that it is one of the local authority’s rights as a leader to be able to give or withhold permission for a meeting.

BBM [Deputy VDC Chief, Ek Phnom] 584-585 So far, to hold a meeting without permission from the authority was not possible. There have been already problems such as in the case of a group of granting loans. They lent money to villagers as a part of investment, but later on, we don't know the problem, maybe the villager did not do anything following their provisions. At first, they ran away from the place and soon after, they came back. The local authority did not acknowledge that organization, because when they had come, they did not inform the local authority. When they were in danger no one knew. They also could not interrogate my villagers or do anything else. Without informing the authority on the contrary if the village chief knows the matter in advance. When there is a problem, he helps, but if it is not known they should send a paper to the village chief in advance. Therefore we can solve it. If the village chief knows that, there is no need for the paper, he can help secretly.

BBM [Mephum, Banan] 562-563 Anyone must connect with leaders in village before they have relation with villagers because we are responsible for them. If they do not do this it will make us upset. For example, if there is any organization that wants to connect with villagers they must respect us as the leader. For example there was a community finance group. They invested in my village but they were unsuccessful because they never connected with us. The money they lent to the villagers sometimes they could not collect back from them, so they called us to help them. I said, "When you came here you did not need us so now how can I help you?"

BBM [Mephum, Ek Phnom] 532 Anyone has rights to hold a meeting, but don’t abuse the other people’s rights. For example, I am a village chief, you want to hold a meeting you come and ask me. I can let you do that, but if you don’t ask me you can do it by yourself that is your right.

2. Banteay Meanchey

The informants in this province maintain staunchly that the village and commune authorities are the gatekeepers to control access to their communities. They are especially thinking in terms of their key role in the SEILA context, which, in effect, has enhanced their control over the meetings of citizens. This in especially evident in the words of the VDC chief.

BMC [Deputy VDC Chief, female, Svay Chek] 809 Normally every organization must come to contact first with phum and khum. Because phum and khum are local authority and know where is the good and the bad in the community.

BMC [Mekhum, Serey Sisophon] 618 Today, non-government organizations are not like the period before the year 1993. Before the election, they didn’t need to relate to the chiefs of villages and communes. When they reached a particular place, they offered food there. But at the present time, they have their principles and contracts. If they want to do something or help the villagers, only I and village chief can sign a contract to permit them to help villagers.

BMC [Mekhum, Svay Chek] 753-754 In the past there were some organizations coming here to work. They connected with the village office directly without informing the commune office. It is not a problem for such thing because I informed all the village offices if there is any organization approaching and working in any village, a village chief has to observe the activity. If it is correct, we allow him to do the survey with our villagers or he wants to gather the people to join a meeting we have to give him the permission. But a village chief has to inform me in case he would cheat us because we experienced much cheating in the past. And I also informed that if he plans to help any village, let me know because some areas are unsafe.

BMC [VDC Chief, 63, Monkul Borei] 815 I don’t have right to assemble the villagers because they are village authority I am a temporary one.

BMC [VDC Chief, Monkul Borei] 784 First, the VDC has the role and obligation to conduct and pave the way for something that we want for the development in the village. For example mephum has the right to administer the whole village. Therefore, VDC before doing something has to inform the mephum in order to have mephum gather the villagers for the meeting.

BMC [VDC Chief, Monkul Borei] 828 It is an offence to Human Rights for someone to come to assemble the people without permission because in the commune there is a commune chief responsible for every work and a village chief in the village responsible for the village work. If anyone wants to develop something else, they need to contact the development committee first. For in past experience, before doing something, a commune chief meets with an organization first because the organization calls on him to inform him about what they are going to do. So, for example, the commune chief gathers the people to tell them about the required contribution and then the commune authority bears the responsibility for that and then he calls the village and the village chief to gather everything such as collecting the required contributions.

3. Pursat

There is virtual unanimity among these trainees that the gatekeeper role of local authority over public assembly is due to the authority’s rights, and to law and custom

PUR [CDC Accountant, female,49, Kandieng] 35 Anyone must ask permission from mekhum, then mephum if they decide to make any development in phum. We set a date for the meeting. We must obey the system of the authority's works.

PUR [Khum official, female, 51, Phnom Kravanh] 173 It is the power of mekhum, mephum to give permission to NGOs that want to make something in village. If they ask the permission from the local authorities, it makes it easy to connect to the villages.

PUR [Mekhum, 50, Kandieng] 183 If any organization that wants to collect the villagers without letting local authority know in advance if they do this, they are wrong. On the other hand if they want to contact with villagers, first they should contact us. First they should meet the chief of commune who knows well the locations. If they want to go anywhere we can help them to find it.

PUR [Mekhum, 60, Kandieng] 81 This is the law, they must connect with us before doing something in my territory. If they connect with us, we recognize them.

PUR [Mephum and VDC Chief, 66, Phnom Kravanh] 22 I became a mephum here in 1983 until now by people’s election. If NGOs or Khmer Organizations, or some one wants to make development here or wants to call people for meeting, they must ask the permission from mekhum and mephum before they start their activities It is the custom. NGOs, police, soldiers who want to do something in my village must ask permission from mesrok and mekhum first by having signed letters. Yes, because all plans come from srok to khum, phum and I continue to krom.

PUR [Mephum, VDC Chief, 53, Phnom Kravanh] 237 No one has the right to mobilize the people in the village to join a meeting without informing the village chief. In this case he doesn't respect the law. He must communicate with a commune chief if he wants to enter, it is the first problem, when he goes in to this village saying that there is a project to mobilize the citizens to join a meeting today. If any organization comes, they make the relation with the commune chief and ask for a place to hold a meeting on a day and the date is set.

PUR [Mephum, VDC Chief, female, 44, Phnom Kravanh] 69 If any NGOs come to develop in this khum, they have to deal with khum authority first. After that khum invites phum level to come to the meeting.

PUR [Mephum, VDC Chief, Pagoda Committee, 50, Kandieng] 217 Before anyone comes into my village, he must have a permission letter from the commune chief that informs me that he met with the commune chief and the chief of commune gave the permission, then I acknowledge him. If he does not have the permission and he wants to mobilize the people to join a meeting and propaganda, this could never happen.

PUR [Pagoda Committee Chief, 62, Bakan] 58 For example, if there is a meeting and I also join it but I don't discuss it first with the local authority, if I tell them about the meeting later, they will say they don't know about and don't recognize it, because they were not informed beforehand. When we set our feet into another’s territory we absolutely must inform them first, and ask them to all our meetings.

PUR [VDC Chief, female, 47, Bakan] 7 Any organizations need to contact the local authority first. In my opinion, it is the right of the local authority. It is a law. First they have to contact the local authority and then contact us. If there is a project to be done here they discuss if with the higher officials. And the commune chief informs us later.

4. Siem Reap

The commune leader in Puok district is one of the few trainees who maintained that the public had a right to hold meetings. He also seems aware of the change in governance style from earlier authoritarian modes to more tolerant democratic modes that the CIHR training in Good Governance and Management stresses.

The postal official in Puok is another exception among the trainees who perceives the connection between what she learned in the Human Rights training and the democratic process of assembling to form political parties. Most other trainees have not understood this crucial message of Human Rights and Good Governance, and this indicates an area to which CIHR training should devote attention.

SRP [Deputy Mekhum, Banteay Srei] 969-970 In general, it is necessary to inform the local authority about holding any meeting or starting other projects. If we don't inform them in advance it seems a loss to their leadership. A meeting can be held with participants and a leader, but if there is no leader it is ineffectual. For the past there were many organizations helping and working in this commune and they all contacted the local authority and then they convened a meeting.

SRP [Mekhum, 56, Puok] 989 It is the public’s rights to hold meetings. Other organizations besides SEILA also come here. Their investigations reached the commune, they also asked the opinion from commune leader. So far, no one has called a meeting themselves. For instance, they come to give provisions and also to ask which is the poorest village in this commune. The chief of commune told them to examine the village by themselves, this is the first problem. He asked for name lists of 13 villages from the chief of commune and asked for 15 or 20 people's names who are the poorest. We, commune chief, must write poor people's names for him. They came here to do their good work, they examined villages whether chief of commune managed the work correctly or not, or the chief of commune listed the names of relatives, friend and rich people, I thought of this. If they controlled the real names of poor people in a particular family with good management, they would do this work perfectly. If we tell them about bad thing, there must be a mistake, they won't carry out our project.

SRP [Mekhum,56, Puok] 990 No organization has come in to this commune with no relation with me. I don't know yet if they have the right to hold a meeting because when organizations came here, I acknowledged them and facilitated them to do their work. For instance, in the past our country underwent civil war, we used direct and harsh language. After learning the Human Rights course, we, the commune chief, must do our best to seek easier language for them to understand the reasons and we convince them in order to carry out this work successfully. We should not use the threats and intimidation on them. We must put an end to threats. The threats and the suppression of freedom of expression and protest are finished.

SRP [Mekhum, 67, Banteay Srei] 1009 Now, I publicly proclaim that the people can hold a meeting whenever, where ever they wish without my permission. I announced that if we want to develop within a family and we now want to convene a meeting with 10 families or more, I have a ready taught them about this. Now we hold a meeting in our community to develop it.

SRP [Mephum, 49, Banteay Srei] 1037-1038 Even the village or commune chiefs may not call a meeting without permission. But some other organizations occasionally do, and the organization need to ask for permission from the local authority in advance before holding a meeting, if they do not do so it is against the law. Even if someone has his or her relatives to visit, we need to inform the local authority.

SRP [Post Office, female, 45, Puok] 936 According to the Human Rights course, it seems that if someone wants to organize a meeting he has the right. And the people have the right to participate in the meetings and set up something. We saw the law of democracy on multi parties so we can establish a party with no prohibition.

SRP [School Vice Principal, female, Banteay Srei] 1051 The commune leader has the right to order the village leaders and the village leaders will assemble people to work. No one else can hold a meeting unless they have permission from village or commune leader, first. Although that organization has good ideas, if it doesn't know where village leader or commune leader are they can not do anything at all. After learning that, when we do any work, we don't make our own decision. We usually assemble and ask whether it is right or wrong. This is an example of the work that we organize by ourselves, we always ask in a group of our colleagues. And if there is a project from high level, then it is not difficult, we just do that project. If we want to organize a new project we have to call up a meeting and ask everybody's opinion.

Topic 8. Trainee reactions and recommendations

There are four main areas of recommendations voiced by the trainees we interviewed. First is more training for high authorities and especially for armed forces. Second is an extension of the training to citizens. Third is the use of simpler language for the course. Fourth is a complaint that the week-long course was too brief.

A. More training for higher authorities

1. Battambang

BBM [Deputy Mekhum, Ek Phnom] 513 For me, an extra course should be provided to leaders because if leaders are clear about laws many villagers will join in development. If leaders are not honest, are not aware of Human Rights, and do not respect each other, villagers won’t join, so whatever leaders say is meaningless.

2. Banteay Meanchey

BMC [PRDC, Women’s Affairs, female] 663 I think the Human Rights course should be provided more to leaders with high power, though they already studied. The change is not yet evident to people who badly need their rights acknowledged. I want high ranking leaders with weapons and body guards to study the course. Common people are afraid of people carrying guns.

BMC [PRDC, Women’s Affairs, female] 664 But I wanted leader from province level, governor, director and vice-director, all together, to study the course. They didn’t attend all together.

BMC [Deputy VDC Chief, female, Svay Chek] 810 I think gun carriers must attend the course because I am afraid of their committing violations when they are drunk.

3. Pursat

PUR [Deputy District Governor] 251 If commune, village chiefs and chum tub don't have the awareness, how they can lead the people? So we want higher ranking levels to attend the courses in advance. So far the program was given to the highest ranking officials, and ministers.

4. Siem Reap

SRP [District Chief] 928-929 The provincial level recommended to teach them at their grades. Sometime the course is limited to the district level, sometimes to the commune level. This is a strategy for teaching. If we mixed up the higher level and the lower level, it would be a problem. First no one would dare to express opinion during the meeting or discussion process. For instance, the provincial governor and I as well as commune chiefs and village chiefs are in the meeting, the lower officials dare not express any ideas. So I needed to arrange them at the same grades and I needed an approval from the province.

B. More training for citizens

1. Battambang

BBM [District Justice Department, Ek Phnom] 328 The only measure we have is to give more education to the people and the officers who do not understand those matters. We have to pick up the principles and teach them in order to make the people enlarge their understanding by themselves. So education is most important.

BBM [Khum Clerk, Banan] 450 For me, I think we should promulgate further human rights to the people to make it easy to attract the prosperous development in society. So the curiosity of the people is the most importance in the locality.

BBM [Mephum, Banan] 559 In my opinion, I want the commune leaders to go and observe their villages especially the women. As you know in general women always visit their neighbors and gossip. That's why I want women learn and understand well about human rights. If we think about children. Good children are due to their good parents. Fathers never looked after children, but mothers look after children a lot. If women understand human rights they can transmit the ideas to their children. But we didn't reach that yet.

BBM [Mephum, Battambang] 523 It is better for the citizens to be allowed to take part in the Human Rights and Good Governance courses, according to my opinion. They can know our work. If we do something with mistakes they can make constructive criticism.

BBM [Mephum, Ek Phnom] 545 For good people who have good behavior and have learnt the Good Governance lessons, they make themselves better. But for the people who have had greedy and jealous ideas, they are still not good. So, according to my opinion, the courses of Good Governance should be taught to all the people such as aacaa who are the people respected by the people, because at the time of a ceremony he can propagate those ideas to the people. So far, the persons who have joined these courses have been appointed following their connections to parties or relatives.

2. Banteay Meanchey

BMC [District Environment Office, female] 709 Human rights have so far not been promulgated to the local people yet. So a number of people do not understand that what they did was misconduct, but they claimed they were right. Those kinds of people often cause trouble because they don’t know the human rights. The human rights should be taught more widely. The leadership level is important. The leadership level, especially the civil servants and the law enforcers should understand human rights. Then I want Human Rights to be promulgated to the localities. It is like only the rich families process radio and televisions, while the poor families have no radio or TV. So the poor may not hear the human rights broadcasts.

BMC [Provincial Planning Department] 679 The elders are mindful of people in the community. So the course must be transmitted to the old in order to get more advantage. Because of their experience, the conduct of the old is a good example to be followed and to get advantage. The villagers don’t want to have problems in the village. If the problems happen, they will use their good experience to deal with the problems.

BMC [VDC Chief, 63, Monkul Borei] 813 We should have professors or any organization come to give lectures to villagers who are not aware of Human Rights, but they want to study.

BMC [VDC Chief, female, Monkul Borei] 855 If we have failed to allow the citizens to take part in any courses, it can have a bad effect. But the higher ranking officials should inform the citizens to be more aware of Good Governance. If the people don’t know what we want to do, it is impossible to raise money from the citizens, and it can have a bad effect. This is because we attended the course. Before we want to do something we have to call for the people to participate in a meeting in the locality. We must know what we need, what we lack and what we must do so that we can raise budget to take part in a particular work.

3. Pursat

PUR [Deputy District Governor] 244 I insistently proposed that they should hold short-term courses for village levels as the Good Governance is more significant to educate the citizens, in general. First, the courses were granted to higher-ranking level and the citizens followed us. So they conducted the education from higher ranking level to lower-ranking level.

PUR [Deputy District Governor] 256 So far, higher ranking officials have been given the priority to select the participants. The training courses are not opened impartially, supposing that they come to teach the Human Rights courses and they choose this or that level. First, they selected deputy district and district governors and province governors to attend the Good Governance course, then they told us that they would appoint aacaa, pagoda committees, monks, teachers and old people to take part in a mixed course. Supposing this village consists of many troubles, we have to select these villagers for training. We select villages with difficulties because we want them to solve those problems.

PUR [Mephum, VDC Chief, 53, Phnom Kravanh] 238 They should instruct the people as they don't know enough about Human Rights. The leaders have some awareness, some of them were absent during the meetings so we lacked participants to join the meeting. For my idea, I want them to train the people to be much aware and have equal knowledge with the leaders.

C. Make the course more understandable

1. Battambang

BBM [Provincial Women’s Affairs Department] 280 Yes, what is important is the trainers or the propagators have to be very careful in their teaching. We have to understand clearly the situations of the area before propagating or running a course. We have to know what does the majority like and need. To mean directly about tradition, custom, religion we have to use their vernacular that it is called ordinary spoken language. We have to know that. If go to teach and we copy completely from a methodology without knowing the particular situation of that area, the preference of the people and the kind of authority or NGO’s there, then it is not effective. Even though we do it many times, it is not effective.

2. Banteay Meanchey

BMC [PRDC, Women’s Affairs, female] 661-662 I kept the printed lessons I learned when I attended a course on Good Governance. But it is impossible for the local people to understand the terms in my lessons, but it is possible for province level and district level because they are better educated. As we know villagers, the village and commune development committees have low education, that’s why I try to make the terms easy to understand. Law terms are very difficult. Pali words and Sanskrit terms are also difficult.

BMC [VDC Chief, Monkul Borei] 783 I don’t know how to rectify it because there are two kinds of trainees. Some people who have very low education could not understand. Some others a little bit higher knowledge, they could understand it, because it has Pali vocabulary or other foreign terms. Therefore it is very difficult. It is still a very important subject to learn, even though there are Pali and some foreign terms that we could not understand.

3. Siem Reap

SRP [PRDC] 866 There are some terms causing much trouble such as "Decentralization," it is not understood yet. It is understood that Decentralization is a power sharing, but how does it work in practice is not understood yet, but the main purpose is how to understand the work process.

SRP [Provincial Environment Office] 877-878 I think that they should make changes of many kinds such as the choice of administrators to teach the course. We propose that teachers should not use the difficult terms, they use the very simple words that the citizens speak every day. Human Rights teachers had better not use the cultural terms, Pali and Sanskrit languages.

D. Lengthen the course

1. Battambang

BBM [Mephum, Banan] 565 Lessons are very good but teaching is not very good, this depends on the teachers who try their best or not. All the lessons are very good but there is very short time and they didn't teach widely and clearly. Other problems are good leaders. For me, I cannot follow the lesson and cannot carry it out at all.

BBM [Deputy Mekhum,58, Banan] 423 Sometimes there are problems for me because my course was too short a time. I can not remember all the lessons and if we want to remember clearly, we need to study time and again at our office by reading the books. Unfortunately, the learning is not often done we have some trouble with the work, the state service and the family condition because the commune office has no pay for the staff, and the pay is too low and we are not paid in 3 or 4 months. So it can’t sustain the low condition. Therefore the learning and the understanding of Good Governance are still in a low speed.

2. Banteay Meanchey

BMC [District Women’s Affairs, male] 665 I have studied Good Governance. The time was too short for the course which contained many lessons so the quality I got was a little. The lecturers elaborately explained but I am not clever enough to understand. After the course is finished I read some books, some documents with my notes I can understand more.

3. Siem Reap

SRP [Post Office, female, 45, Puok] 943 I know a person who has slight knowledge doing the home work during the course, he or she could not understand the lesson at all. It was very short time for the teacher to teach participants Human Rights, so the teacher could not explain the detailed meanings of difficult terms, and some participants couldn't receive a very short-termed course.

E. Create Local Good Governance Libraries

A number of trainees spoke of the curriculum materials they had been given during the course and the value of these materials for study after the training. One trainee made the very appropriate suggestion that a Human Rights and Good Governance library should be placed in each commune and district office so that trainees could refer to the texts and use them in their promulgations with colleagues and citizens. This is an effort that could well be linked to a nationwide effort to build capacity in the new Commune Councils.

Conclusions

The most striking conclusion we draw from these interviews is that on one level the CIHR training is providing lessons of Good Governance and Management and introducing practical knowledge and skills to mostly public officials. But on another level this training is confronting and ameliorating the pervasive climate of fear within which public officials have been working.

The training course is a shared activity, widely known to be taking place at all levels of government. Both the explicit lessons of Human Rights and Democracy and the knowledge that these lessons are being addressed in general to government officials seems to be having the effect of reducing the levels of hostile arrogance and violence that were evidently endemic in hierarchical relations in earlier regimes. Thus our interviewees report a decrease in angry language between higher and lower ranking persons and an increase in freedom to raise ideas from lower ranking to higher ranking persons.

Overall the message of the CIHR Management training in regard to democratic decision making among officials echoes the fundamental CARERE theme of participatory development in which citizens engage with local authority on local projects for community betterment. This overlap in training of officials between CIHR and CARERE makes it difficult to discern the precise contribution CIHR training has made. However, many informants refer to a Good Governance course and the principles that were discussed during that training. It is clear that the experience of the CIHR training has made a difference in the way trainees voice their awareness of Human Rights, Good Governance in connection with Buddhism, and, more generally, the morality dimension of governance.

The improvement in consultation and democratic decision making among officials, and between men and women, was often spoken of as a matter of Human Rights. This concept, as discussed in the CIHR training, includes mutual respect, gender sensitivity and non-violence. The relationship of Human Rights to the establishment of a culture of Rule of Law is a theme that could be reinforced in the CIHR training, as improvements evolve in the Cambodian judicial system.

Conflict resolution is mentioned as a key function in the governance duties (as distinct from the development duties) of local authorities. Many trainees note the relevance of the experience of CIHR training in Good Governance and Management in enhancing their confidence to serve as mediators in compromise settlements between citizens. This is an important area where the current CIHR module could be greatly expanded into a separate course on Alternative Dispute Resolution skills and techniques appropriate to the Cambodian context. This is especially important in view of the duties that may be mandated to the elected Commune Councils in the future.

The attitude of the authorities toward citizens’ rights to assemble without official permission is an aspect of Good Governance that deserves serious attention. It will be an important development for civil society in Cambodia when independent associations in village and commune are able to emerge. It is such associations, completely out of the control of local officials, which will be essential if lists of independent candidates are to be generated to contend in meaningful, free and fair elections at the commune level.

Many trainees recommend that the CIHR should extended its training of officials to a broader civic education of the grassroots electorate. But in this case, a central challenge would be to overcome the tendency of local authorities to perceive themselves as having the right, as local leaders, to serve as gatekeepers to control any assembly or mobilization of citizens in their jurisdiction.

ANNEX

Methods, Sampling and Tables of Data on Respondents

1. Survey Instrument Development

We analyze the responses to this part of the questionnaire in Section A to ascertain the impact of the training on knowledge and the retention of curriculum materials by the trainees. The analysis includes comparisons with an untrained control group and comparisons within the trained group along several dimensions.

We also included a number of questions that were not derived directly from the CIHR curriculum but which were related to the themes and principles of the curriculum areas. These questions provide additional insights into the attitudes of the trainees towards matters of authority, control, management and democracy. The responses to these questions are naturally not included in our analysis of the trainees’ knowledge of the curriculum materials. We analyze these responses separately in Section B with a view to identifying areas of understanding within the broad categories of Management and Good Governance where training might usefully be focussed in the future.

In addition to questions related to the themes of the training, whether derived from the CIHR curriculum or not, we also included some questions about the duties of government officials working in the SEILA context. These questions derive from our research experience on governance in SEILA provinces. This survey is not intended as an evaluation of SEILA nor did we wish to stray too far from the CIHR training. But it was necessary to pose these questions in order to explore the trainees’ understanding of the relevance of the themes and objectives of the CIHR training to the actual duties of these officials as administrators of a rural development program. We designed these questions to juxtapose the management and good governance messages of the training with the objective of CARERE2 to further a participatory environment for development, the aim of which is to empower the rural population to become fully participating members in the development process. We analyze the responses to these questions separately in Section C with a view to illustrating the kind of needs assessment that might make such Good Governance training more relevant to the specific challenges presented by this target audience.

2. Sampling

At the village level in the SEILA provinces, our sampling procedure was based on the participant lists that CIHR listed under Commune Training. These lists included village heads and other officials working in SEILA at the commune and village level. We also had a list of the “Private Sector Leaders” (that is civil society persons). This list included trainees who were VDC members, teachers, farmers and leaders associated with the pagoda. The CIHR Private Sector Leaders lists included a very small proportion of trainees, about 7% of the total number of trainees. Accordingly, it was rare that a Private Sector trainee could be located in communes that we had randomly selected for inclusion in the sample of SEILA trainees. The result is a low representation of Private Sector trainees in our sample.

The civil society trainees who happened to live in a commune that we were surveying, who were easiest to locate during our visit, were the monks and aacaa at the Wat. A significant bias is thus introduced in the selection process for this category. In the analysis below it should be borne in mind that these respondents, whom we list as the “People” category in the list of levels of SEILA, are probably not representative of the Private Sector trainees. The fact that our respondents from the Wat were older and better educated than many village or commune officials may help account for the unexpectedly high scores of this “People” group in some knowledge areas.

CIHR grouped commune level and village level officials in the same training sessions and so these officials are mixed on the same participant lists. We separated the commune level and village level names on the lists and randomly selected respondents from each group. The reason for this separation procedure was to achieve greater precision of assessment of the impact of the training at the lowest levels of SEILA authority. We felt that at these lowest levels of SEILA the problems of applying the principles of good governance to the actualities of development implementation should be examined most closely.

The Terms of Reference called for a control group of untrained persons working at various levels in provincial government with which the SEILA trainees could be compared. We chose Kampong Thom as the control province. It is contiguous to Siem Reap and has a decentralized development structure involving local authority, although designed along somewhat different lines than the SEILA program. The Kampong Thom officials at the province level had received CIHR training under TAF support. But district, commune and village level officials had not received CIHR training. Accordingly, the provincial level responses from Kampong Thom were excluded from the control group for purposes of the analysis below.

It must be said that the control group was not generated on a strictly random basis. Obviously we did not have participant lists to use as a basis for selecting a sample. The respondents in Kampong Thom were volunteers who agreed to cooperate with the survey once they had heard the objectives of our study. The disadvantage of such a procedure is that a self-selected group is not likely to be representative of the control province officials as a whole. The bias inherent in a self-selected group in a survey that tests knowledge is likely to inflate the control group scores. People who are confident of their knowledge will more readily agree to a test than those not confident. Moreover, due to budgetary limitations, CARERE specifically asked us to reduce our research time in the non-SEILA province, which resulted in a reduction of our planned control group sample size. For purposes of the analysis below the control group N=81. This sample size may not be large enough to offset the bias in a self-selected group.

These considerations concerning the control group led us to focus much of our analysis on differences within the SEILA trainee group, for the insights that could be gained about the impact of the CIHR training.

3. Administration of the Survey

One of the unavoidable problems of administering a survey to government officials, especially at higher levels, is that access to the selected trainees to be sampled is controlled by a high-ranking official. For example, it was usual in a provincial governor’s office that our team would approach the selected trainees through the Chief of Cabinet of the Governor. This individual is apparently not a powerful figure in some cases, because the designated trainee would occasionally say to the Chief of Cabinet “Do the survey by yourself, I do not have time for it” or some other such remark. Our researchers would then either have to follow up to coax the designated trainee to cooperate with the survey, explaining that he or she had been selected randomly from the lists and that we needed his or her responses to assure an accurate representation of the trainee population. There were cases in which our team was unable to overcome the refusal of the designated trainee to participate in the survey, so a substitute was sought. This procedure of accepting self-selected substitutes probably tended to introduce a slight bias toward higher scores of the same kind that we noted for the control group.

Our access to the lower levels of the SEILA structure to administer the survey was generally through the PRDC and its Secretariat. We became aware that the level of cooperation between PRDC and Srok varied considerably. This variation affected our success in reaching the quota of trainees at each level in order for the sample to approximate the proportion of trainees from each level in each province. For example, in Bantei Meanchey the PRDC extended rather little cooperation to our survey effort. The consequence was that mesrok were not informed of our impending visit and even less were khum level officials notified of our planned visit. The result is that this province is undersampled, in comparison to the proportion of trainees the province contributed to the total trainee population. By contrast, the PRDC of Siem Reap was extremely cooperative in helping our team reach mesrok and to get his help in administration of the survey. This resulted in an oversampling of this province in comparison to the proportion of trainees the province contributed to the total trainee population.

At the district level our team was usually able to meet with the District Chief and seek his help in contacting district officials who were selected in our sample. The mesrok in general seems to wield considerable authority because when he sent out a call for district level trainees to present themselves for the survey, many more officials appeared than the designated sample. This accounts for an oversampling at the srok level in comparison to the proportion of srok level official trained by CIHR.

These details of administration of the survey to the sample are summarized in the following tables.

4. Sample Characteristics

Table a. Sample size

These tables show a comparison of the actual distribution of trainees by level and province in SEILA and the distribution of the sample we achieved.

Sample	Sample Size	% of Population
SEILA trainees	N= 355	16.3%
Control	N= 81

SEILA trainees by level	Population	Sample
Province	11%	13.5%
District	27%	40.6%
Commune/Village (aggregated)	55%	41.7%
Commune (disaggregated in our sample)		26.8%
Village (disaggregated in our sample)		14.9%
People	7%	4.2%

SEILA trainees by province	Population	Sample
Bantei Meanchey	37.5%	17.5%
Battambang	25%	35.8%
Pursat	25%	13.5%
Siem Reap	12.5%	33.2%

5. Background Information on Respondents

The following tables compare the SEILA sample and Control sample for various background factors. The SEILA sample is also examined to reveal differences by level and province

Table b. Gender

Population	Men	Women
SEILA CIHR trainees	88.5%	11.5%

Sample	Men	Women
SEILA trainees	85.1%	14.1%
Control	87.7%	12.3%

SEILA sample by level	Men	Women
Province	75%	25%
District	79.9%	19.4%
Commune	92.6%	7.4%
Village	96.2%	3.8%
People	88.9%	11.1%


SEILA sample by province
Bantei Meanchey	87.1%	11.3%
Battambang	89.0%	10.2%
Pursat	85.4%	14.6%
Siem Reap	79.7%	19.5%

Table c. Age

Sample	Mean age
SEILA trainees	45.5yrs
Control	45.1

SEILA sample by level	Mean age
Province	42.9
District	42.4
Commune	47.1
Village	50.8
People	61

SEILA sample by province
Bantei Meanchey	47.2
Battambang	47.1
Pursat	44.9
Siem Reap	43.2

Table d. Educational Level

Sample	Primary	Secondary	Higher	Mean
SEILA trainees	35.4%	64.1%	0.6%	7.18yrs
Control	23.5%	76.5%	0	7.59yrs

SEILA sample by level	Primary	Secondary	Higher	Mean
Province %within SEILA level	38.6%	59.1%	2.3%	7.9yrs
%within Educational level	14.0%	12.0%	50%
District %within SEILA level	36.4%	62.9%	0.7%	7.3yrs
%within Educational level	42.1%	40.7%	50%
Commune %within SEILA level	36.6%	63.4%	0	6.7yrs
%within Educational level	28.1%	27.3%
Village %within SEILA level	28.3%	71.7%	0	7.3yrs
%within Educational level	12.4%	17.6%
People %within SEILA level	44.4%	55.6%	0	6.0yrs
%within Educational level	3.3%	2.3%

SEILA sample by province
Bantei Meanchey	42.4%	57.6%	0	7.3yrs
Battambang	28.9%	70.2%	0.8%	7.4yrs
Pursat	42.6%	55.3%	2.1%	6.8yrs
Siem Reap	35.6%	64.4%	0	7.0yrs

Table f. Years with Government

Sample	Mean
SEILA trainees	15.9yrs
Control	16.0

SEILA sample by level	Mean
Province	17.8yrs
District	15.3
Commune	16.6
Village	14.8
People	--

SEILA sample by province
Bantei Meanchey	17.3
Battambang	15.4
Pursat	15.6
Siem Reap	15.7

Table g. Year joined Government Service

Sample	Pre 1979	1979	1980-84	1985-89	1990-94	1995=97
SEILA (%)	2.7	31.0	33.3	16.3	7.9	7.1
Control (%)	2.2	32.1	35.7	19.7	6.1	4.9

SEILA by level (%)	Pre 1979	1979	1980-84	1985-89	1990-94	1995=97
Province	12.6	27.1	35.3	10.5	8.4	6.3
District	0.7	29.9	31.3	23.0	7.7	7.7
Commune	1.1	40.0	40.0	9.6	7.4	2.1
Village	1.9	26.4	30.1	17.1	11.4	13.5

SEILA by province
BMC	11.2	29.0	35.6	14.5	3.2	4.8
BBM	0	28.3	33.8	15.8	10.9	7.0
PUR	0	50.0	18.8	12.6	6.3	12.6
SRP	1.6	27.1	37.2	19.4	7.5	5.8

English Version of the Questionnaire Instrument

The Survey Instrument is provided below. The numbers in the far right column are the Variable numbers in our SPSS data set. Some of the notes in the text of the report refer to these numbers.

The two unshaded columns of percent responses are from the SEILA trainees for each variable or question asked or option offered. The two shaded columns of percent responses are from the control group. These are the frequencies on which our analyses are based.

The questions that are shaded were derived directly from the CIHR curriculum and are included in the analyses of performance of SEILA trainees and control group in Section A of the report.

The unshaded questions are non-curriculum questions or options that were used in the analyses in Section B and Section C of the report.

Day Month Year

Survey I.D.

3	Researcher	5	Province
4	Coder	6	District
		7	Commune
		8	Village

Text Box: CAS Evaluation Study of the CIHR
Good Governance and Good Management Programs
for
SEILA Capacity Building.

Supported by
UNDP/CARERE

The CAS is conducting a survey of trainees chosen at random, who participated in CIHR programs recently. This survey is intended to help identify the effectiveness of the training by asking some questions based on the curriculum, which was aimed at SEILA Participants.

CIHR has conducted their training programs with the co-sponsorship of the Ministry of Interior and support from UNDP/CARERE.

Please answer all the questions, whether you know the answer from the CIHR course or from radio or TV or from some other course or training you may have taken. But if you cannot answer a question, leave the answer box blank or mark the box “Do not know” and continue to the next question. We are especially interested in your comments in answer to the last questions on any change you have noticed in development practice that may be a result of the training.

We appreciate your taking the time to complete this survey, as it will help CIHR improve its educational service in Cambodia and it will help UNDP/CARERE improve its development and capacity building activities with its partners in SEILA.

	BACKGROUND DATA
		M	F		M	F
1	Gender						9

2	Age						10

3	Level of education completed?						11

4	How many years of vocational, technical or professional training?						12

5	At what level in Seila do you serve?						339
	Provincial level
	District level
	Commune level
	Village level
	Civil Society

6	How many years have you worked in government service?						13

7	What year did you enter government service?						14

8	How much land do you own?						15

9	How many months has it been since you took the CIHR course?						16

	Besides the CIHR course you attended, how many other courses, seminars, training sessions have you taken on human rights, good governance, elections?	0 À	³1 Á		0 À	³1 Á	17

	If one or more, who organized the programs you attended?
	NGO	À		Á			18
	Government	À		Á			19
	Party	À		Á			20
	International Organization	À		Á			21

[SEILA] [CONTROL] [Var]

A	SEILA Program
1-	To whom does the SEILA Program belong?	Y	N	Y	N
a	CARERE.	68.3	31.7	59.3	40.7	22
b	UNDP.	65.2	34.8	66.7	33.3	23
c	Authorities of the Provincial Government	49.6	50.4	64.1	35.9	24
d	Ministry of Rural Development.	62.9	37.1	74.7	25.3	25
e	Cambodian Institute of Human Rights.	51.3	48.7	46.2	53.8	26
f	The villagers of target communities	74.9	25.1	76.3	23.8	27

2-	What is the SEILA Program?	Y	N	Y	N
a	It is a program that contributes to the long-term development planning of the Government.	97.7	2.3	92.3	7.7	28
b	It is a Human Rights and Management training program.	78.8	21.2	70	30	29
c	It is a decentralized program of development planning and financing that emphasizes local capacity building.	93.9	6.1	82.4	17.6	30
d	It is a program to empower villagers by putting development decisions in the hands of those affected by the decisions.	94.8	5.2	91.3	8.8	31

3-	What are the main objectives of the SEILA Program?	Y	N	Y	N
a	Decentralized planning and UNDP financial support	92.1	7.9	87.3	12.7	32
b	Improving rural infrastructure.	93.4	6.6	93.8	6.3	33
c	Participatory planning and local contributions.	87.4	12.6	87.3	12.7	34
d	Setting up PRDC, DDC, CDC, VDC.	96.0	4.0	88.9	11.1	35
e	Education and training in Human Rights, Good Governance and Management	87.0	13.0	80	20	36
f.	Consolidate the power of local authorities.	57.1	42.9	63	37	37
g.	Increase the power of villagers.	67.6	32.4	68.4	31.6	38

4-	What are the main Seila principles?	Y	N	Y	N
a	Dialogue	98.1	0.9	93.8	6.2	39
b	Follow orders	32.8	67.2	57.1	42.9	40
c	Transparency	98.6	1.4	79.2	20.8	41
d	Agreement	99.4	0.6	95	5	42
e	Respect/Obedience	94.2	5.8	83.5	16.5	43

5-	In the SEILA target communes, according to prevailing practices of development management, who must give permission before villagers can hold a meeting about development?	Y	N	Y	N
a	Mekhum	79.6	20.4	93.8	6.2	44
b	Mephum	77.2	22.8	90	10	45
c	Mehaa	37.3	62.7	67.6	32.4	46
d	Mekrom	59.3	40.7	82.5	17.5	47
e	VDC chief	90.7	9.3	94.9	5.1	48
f	CDC deputy chief	85.8	14.2	66.7	33.3	49
g	Monk	40.7	59.3	58	42	50
h	Police	23.9	76.1	46.3	53.8	51
I	No one	5.4	94.6	3.7	96.3	52
g	Other…	14.7	85.3	14.1	85.9	53
k	Do not know	4.3	95.7	8.8	91.3	54

6-	In Seila target villages, according to prevailing practices of good governance and development management, what local authorities may request money contributions from villagers for development?	Y	N	Y	N
a	Mekhum	56	44	69.1	30.9	55
b	Mephum	60.6	39.4	74.1	25.1	56
c	Mehaa	26.9	73.1	50	50	57
d	Mekrom	49.3	50.7	61.5	38.5	58
e	VDC chief	85.1	14.9	85	15	59
F	CDC deputy chief	69.4	30.6	58.8	41.3	60
G	Monk	42.7	57.3	55.6	44.4	61
H	Police	15.0	85.0	27.5	72.5	62
I	No one	7.8	92.2	10	90	63
g	Other…	11.7	88.3	10.1	89.9	64
k	Do not know	5.6	94.4	8.9	91.1	65

7	In SEILA target villages, who is authorized to request labor contribution from villagers for development projects?	Y	N	Y	N
a	Mekhum	80.8	19.2	87.7	12.3	66
b	Mephum	84.1	15.9	91.4	8.6	67
c	Mehaa	47.4	52.6	68.9	31.1	68
d	Mekrom	74.8	25.2	83.8	16.3	69
e	VDC chief	86.3	13.7	88.6	11.4	70
f	CDC deputy chief	74.3	25.7	69.1	30.9	71
g	Monk	47.3	52.7	55.6	44.4	72
h	Police	20.8	79.2	36.3	63.8	73
I	No one	2.3	97.7	6.2	93.8	74
g	Other…	10.7	89.3	12.5	87.5	75
k	Do not know	2.5	97.5	8.6	91.4	76

8	In the SEILA target villages, cah tum do not understand development and so should not be involved in the VDC and CDC.					77
a	True	27.7		60.5
b	False	69.4		30.9
c	Do not know	2.9		8.6

9-	In SEILA target areas, who is authorized to approve the seizure of villagers' land for development?	Y	N	Y	N
a	Mekhum	46.5	53.5	55.1	44.9	78
b	Mephum	40.1	59.9	53.2	46.8	79
c	Mehaa	15	8.5	30.6	69.4	80
d	Mekrom	26.9	73.1	42.1	57.9	81
e	VDC chief	36.2	63.8	5.2	48	82
f	CDC deputy chief	35.4	64.6	33.8	66.2	83
g	Monk	13.4	86.6	26.9	73.1	84
h	Police	10.2	89.8	20.5	79.5	85
I	No one	34.4	65.6	36.7	63.3	86
g	Other…	5.7	94.3	5.1	94.9	87
k	Do not know	8.7	91.3	12.3	87.7	88

10-	According to the governance practices in SEILA target areas, who must authorize legally registered Cambodian NGOs to conduct development activities in commune or village?	Y	N	Y	N
a	Governor	89	11	96.3	3.8	89
b	PRDC	90.6	9.4	83.5	16.5	90
c	Mesrok	81.2	18.8	86.3	13.8	91
d	Mekhum	79	21	86.3	13.8	929
e	Mephum	71.6	28.4	80.2	19.8	93
f	Mehaa	33.8	65.9	52	48	94
g	Mekrom	51.5	48.5	65	35	95
h	Mekun	30.4	69.6	35.8	64.2	96
I	VDC chief	70.5	29.5	67.1	32.9	97
j	CDC deputy chief	69.1	30.9	48.8	51.3	98
k	Police	22	78	37.5	62.5	99
l	Militia	20.4	79.6	30.9	69.1	100
m	Ministry of Interior	46.2	53.8	61.5	38.5	101
n	Ministry of Rural Development	72.4	27.6	85.9	14.1	102
o	Ministry of Culture	28.6	71.4	43.8	56.3	103
p	No one	6.6	93.4	7.4	92.6	104
q	Other	6.9	93.1	8.9	91.1	105
r	Do not know	4.8	95.2	7.6	92.4	106

11-	In SEILA target villages, according to good governance practice, local authorities are permitted to restrict the activities of human rights NGOs and IOs, if those activities interfere with development					107
a	True	37.7		47.5
b	False	57.4		40
c	Do not know	4.9		12.5

12-	In the SEILA target villages, according to good governance practice, it is important that candidates for VDC elections be selected by :	Y	N	Y	N
a	PRDC	54.5	45.5	60.3	37.9	108
b	PFT	54.4	45.6	57.9	42.1	109
c	Mekhum	59.3	40.7	63.8	36.3	110
d	Mephum	58.2	41.8	63	37	111
e	Mehaa	27.9	72.1	44.9	55.1	112
f	Mekrom	45.8	54.2	54.4	45.6	113
g	CARERE	38.4	61.6	54.3	45.7	114
h	Villagers	89.3	10.7	82.4	17.6	115

13-	According to good governance practice within SEILA target areas, if an unqualified person is elected to VDC, who is authorized to reject him/her and replace the elected person with a qualified substitute?	Y	N	Y	N
a	Governor	35.6	64.4	64.9	35.1	116
b	PRDC	51.3	48.7	62.3	37.7	117
c	Mesrok	41	59	62.8	37.2	118
d	Mekhum	49.9	50.1	65.4	34.6	119
e	Mephum	44.9	55.1	61.5	38.5	120
f	Mehaa	18.4	81.6	43.4	56.4	121
g	Mekrom	28.8	71.2	52.6	47.4	122
h	Mekun	15.7	84.3	36.8	63.2	123
i	VDC chief	62	38	74.7	25.3	124
j	CDC deputy chief	61.5	38.5	44.9	55.1	125
k	Police	8.8	91.2	28.2	71.8	126
l	Militia	8.5	91.5	36.9	73.1	127
m	CARERE	30.1	69.9	51.3	48.7	128
n	Abbot	17.2	82.8	41.6	58.4	129
o	No one	20.3	79.7	15.4	84.6	130
p	Other	10.7	89.3	7.9	92.1	131
q	Do not know	7.4	92.6	10.1	89.9	132

14-	According to development management practice in SEILA target villages, the funding CDC obtains from SEILA must be discussed openly and fully with whom?	Y	N	Y	N
a	CDC	95.5	4.5	63.2	36.8	133
b	VDC	95.9	4.1	94.8	5.2	134
c	Monks	53.2	46.8	60.3	39.7	135
d	NGOs	45	55	62.7	37.3	136
e	Villagers	85.1	14.9	82.1	17.9	137
f	Contractors	56.2	43.8	65.4	34.6	138
g	Rice Millers	32.3	67.7	36.4	63.6	139
h	Department of Planning	49.2	50.8	58.7	41.3	140
i	No one	6.4	93.6	3.9	96.1	141
j	Other	12.5	87.5	10.5	89.5	142
k	Do not know	8.6	91.4	11.4	88.6	143

15-	According to the SEILA approach to good governance and management of development, decentralization means moving the decision-making	Y	N	Y	N
a	From Ministries in Phnom Penh to the PRDC in the provincial capital	61.5	38.5	71.4	28.6	144
b	From the PRDC in the provincial capital to the CDC in commune	71	29	79.5	20.5	145
c	From the CDC in commune to the VDC in the village	72.8	27.2	79.5	20.5	146
d	From the VDC to the villagers who vote in democratic elections	84.6	15.4	87.2	12.8	147
h	None of the above is true	17.6	82	13	87	148
I	Do not know	8.5	91.5	10.3	89.7	149

16-	According to the SEILA approach to good governance and management of development, a participatory approach to development means :	Y	N	Y	N
a	Increasing the participation of government officials in the SEILA program	92.1	7.9	92.6	7.4	150
b	Increasing the participation of NGOs in the SEILA program	88.4	11.6	93.8	6.2	151
c	Raising money and labor from villagers	49.9	50.1	28.8	71.3	152
d	Empowering villagers to make decisions about their own development	93.9	6.1	93.8	6.2	153
e	Increasing the participation of monks and Aacaa in development	86.7	13.3	85.2	14.8	154
f	All of the above	67	33	63.8	36.3	155
g	None of the above	13.9	86.1	16.5	83.5	156
h	Do not know	7.2	92.8	8.9	91.1	157

17-	According to the SEILA approach, good management in development means :	Y	N	Y	N
a	More consultation between lower government officials and higher government officials in making development decisions	82.7	17.3	88.9	11.1	158
b	More consultation between villagers and government officials in making development decisions	95.9	4.1	97.5	2.5	159
c	Do not know	8.1	91.9	10	90	160

18-	According to the SEILA approach, good governance in development means :	Y	N	Y	N
a	Giving decision making power to the government officials who, because of their training, understand development	72.5	27.5	74.1	25.9	161
b	Giving decision making power to the villagers, who by their vote, decide what development they want	94.3	5.7	97.5	2.5	162
c	Do not know	7.8	92.2	6.6	93.4	163

B	Principles of Management	Y	N	Y	N
1-	What is good planning?
a	Planning and implementing a plan on the basis of Buddhist principles.	67.2	32.8	61.7	38.3	164
b	Planning that is clear and that can be implemented	96.8	3.2	92.6	7.4	165
c	Planning according to an understanding of goals and principles of SEILA.	92.9	7.1	91.4	8.6	166
d	Planning according to the personal views and decisions of the leader	3.2	96.8	11.1	88.9	167
e	Planning that incorporates the ideas, decisions and voluntary participation of the community affected by the planing.	93.7	6.3	93.8	6.2	168

2-	Which are traits of a good manager?	Y	N	Y	N
a	Understanding problems and being confident	96.6	3.4	93.8	6.2	169
b	Keeping isolated from others	5	95	7.4	92.6	170
c	Being just and tolerant of others	95.7	4.3	97.5	2.5	171
d	Being a key person to assist colleagues	95.7	4.3	93.8	6.3	172
e	Giving orders rather than setting a good example	10.2	89.5	8.6	91.4	173
f	Respecting others	98	2	93.8	6.2	174
g	Assuring that subordinates are well paid	80.3	19.7	76.5	23.5	175
h	Choosing loyal subordinates	49.6	50.4	45.7	54.3	176

3-	What are qualities of a good leader?
a	High knowledge	97.4	2.6	92.6	7.4	177
b	Initiative ideas and intelligence	96.9	3.1	97.5	2.5	178
c	Delegates small problems to subordinates	61.1	38.9	67.5	32.5	179
d	Follows orders of superiors without question	3.7	96.3	9.9	90.1	180
e	Able to make himself and his followers rich	44.9	55.1	41.3	58.8	181
f	Good connections to high officials in the party	46.1	53.9	47.5	52.5	182

C-	GOOD GOVERNANCE
1-	What are the chief benefits of Good Governance?	Y	N	Y	N
a	The people are satisfied	97.7	2.3	97.5	2.5	183
b	The leader personally enjoys a lot of benefits	8.3	91.7	6.3	92.5	184
c	The country has security	95.7	4.3	93.8	6.3	1855
d	The people do not dare criticize their leaders	17.8	82.2	23.5	76.5	186
e	The leader will be reelected	96.5	3.5	92.5	7.5	187

2-	What does Good Governance include?	Y	N	Y	N
a	Taking effective responsibility	99.7	0.3	93.8	6.2	188
b	Leadership according to one's personal views	3.5	96.5	8.6	91.4	189
c	Leadership using methods suitable to the circumstances	94.3	5.7	91.4	8.6	190
d	Leadership according to a political party's line	24.9	75.1	34.2	65.8	191

3-	Are the following examples of Good or Bad Governance?	Good	Bad	Good	Bad
a	A leader serves the public faithfully	97.7	2.3	92.6	7.4	192
b	A leader does his work according to the order and line of the political party	10.4	89.6	23.5	76.5	193
c	A leader holds discussions with the people	94.7	5.1	95.1	4.9	194
d	A leader makes all big and small decision by himself	2.6	97.4	3.7	96.3	195
e	A leader keeps his work secret because it is government business	24.9	75.1	27.8	72.2	196

D-	MORAL GOVERNANCE
1-	What are the characteristics of a good leader?	Y	N	Y	N
a	Highly developed appetites and passions	4.4	95.6	7.4	92.6	197
b	Objectivity and optimism	87.5	12.5	87.7	12.3	198
c	Pride and pretension	6.4	93.6	1.2	98.8	199
d	Responsible for his own actions and not critical of others	81.8	18.2	81.3	18.8	200

2-	Which personal characteristics are important to the SEILA approach to development leadership?	Y	N	Y	N
a	Understanding decentralization	98	2	90	10	201
b	Right thought	98.9	1.1	95.1	4.9	202
c	Compassion	98.3	1.7	93.8	6.2	203
d	Understanding development	98.6	1.4	92.6	7.4	204
e	Sympathetic joy	98.9	1.1	96.3	3.7	205
f	Right effort	98.6	1.4	93.8	6.2	206
g	Impartiality	100	0	97.5	2.5	207

3-	Which are habits of highly effective SEILA leaders?
a	Being proactive	99.2	0.8	100	0	208
b	Beginning without the end in mind	44.6	55.4	48.7	51.3	209
c	Seeking understanding, rather than to be understood	94.9	5.1	93.8	6.2	210
d	Not thinking always about winning	62.5	37.5	67.5	32.5	211
e	Aiming for synergy	75.8	24.2	69.6	30.4	212

E-	HUMAN RIGHTS AND BUDDHISM
1-	What are the basic human rights?	Y	N	Y	N
a	The rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happinesss	99.4	0.6	97.5	2.5	213
b	The rights to liberty, equality and fraternity	98.9	1.1	96.3	3.7	214
c	The rights to food, shelter and clothing	98.9	1.1	96.3	3.7	215
d	The rights to participatory development	98.3	1.7	97.5	2.5	216
e	The rights specified in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights	87.5	12.5	87.3	12.7	217

2-	What are the responsibilities of government officials in regard to human rights?	Y	N	Y	N
a	To accept payment for favorable treatment	12.3	87.7	2.5	97.5	218
b	To assure equality before the law.	98.9	1.1	97.5	2.5	219
c	To intimidate people to gain personal advantage.	1.7	98.3	1.2	98.8	220
d	To be fully accountable for actions.	99.4	0.6	95.1	4.9	221
e	To respect the provisions of international conventions on human rights which Cambodia has signed.	98	2	98.8	1.2	222

3-	What is the relation of human rights and Buddhism?	Y	N	Y	N
a	They both call for an increase in impartiality	99.2	0.8	98.8	1.2	223
b	They both help people protect themselves and others against suffering and hate.	98	2	95.1	4.9	224
c	They both advise vulnerable groups not to protest against injustice and impunity.	23.9	76.1	21.3	78.8	225
d	They both encourage right thinking, right speaking, right effort and right action.	95.8	4.2	95	5	226
e	They both permit greater privileges for favored groups.	7.2	92.8	7.4	92.6	227

4-	What are examples of human rights violations?	Y	N	Y	N
a	Putting down peaceful political demonstrators violently.	77.6	22.4	81.5	18.5	228
b	The punishment of victims of domestic violence.	76.1	23.9	80.2	19.8	229
c	Suppression of freedom of the press.	78.1	21.9	82.7	17.3	230
d	Restrictions on foreign religions in Cambodia.	76.2	23.8	79	21	231
e	Prohibition of non-violent strikes by garment factory workers.	76.2	23.8	79	21	232
f	Taking land away from ethnic groups in the forest for development and investment purposes	70.7	29.3	77.2	22.8	233
g	Taking land away from Khmer villagers by force	69.5	30.5	70.4	29.6	234

F-	Democracy and Elections
1-	What is democracy?
a	Government by one person.	4.9	95.1	7.4	92.6	235
b	Government by one party.	8.6	91.4	7.4	92.6	236
c	Government by citizens.	98.3	1.7	90.1	9.9	237

2-	What are the consequences of democracy?	Y	N	Y	N
a	Improved economic development and decrease in corruption.	98	2	95.1	4.9	238
b	Frequent demonstrations and strikes.	40.5	59.5	42.3	57.7	239
c	Increased security in the country.	96	4	88.9	11.1	240
d	Increased power of monarchy.	10.2	89.8	11.1	88.9	241
e	Improved government decision-making.	69.4	30.6	66.3	33.8	242

3-	Are these characteristic of democracy or dictatorship?	Demo-cracy	Dictator-ship		Dictator-ship
a	Participation of the people in decision-making.	96.9	3.1	95.1	4.9	243
b	The leader decides every thing by himself.	4.6	95.4	6.2	93.8	244
c	All rights and freedoms in the constitution are respected.	98.6	1.4	96.3	3.7	245
d	There is a multi-party system.	91.4	8.6	93.8	6.2	246
e	There are no free and fair elections.	8.6	91.7	6.2	93.8	247
f	Human rights are not respected.	3.4	96.6	6.2	93.8	248
g	Law exists but the people have few rights.	8.0	92.0	6.3	93.8	249
h	Government officials, army, police are neutral and impartial.	93.4	6.6	90.1	9.9	250
i	Armed forces may commit any offence but are free from prosecution	11.6	88.4	13.9	86.1	251
j	High government officials are above the law	21.8	78.2	21	79	252

4	Some characteristics of democracy in development are:	Y	N	Y	N
a	People have some basic rights from birth.	94.8	5.2	93.8	6.2	253
b	People must provide useful services to the government.	71.5	28.5	72.5	27.5	254
c	Majority voice has priority but should respect minority voice.	75.9	24.1	67.9	32.1	255
d	There is no need for people to be involved in development management because it is the government's work.	10.1	89.9	6.3	93.8	256

5	What are characteristic of free and fair elections?	Y	N	Y	N
a	The election must follow the timetable written in the constitution and law.	99.4	0.6	95.1	4.9	257
b	The secrecy of ballot papers is maintained.	94.1	5.9	93.8	6.2	258
c	Only rich and powerful people have the rights to establish a political party.	20.7	79.3	25.9	74.1	259
d	There are mechanisms to guarantee security during the election campaign and during balloting.	94.9	5.1	95	5	260
e	There is an independent, neutral and impartial committee to manage the election and service complaints of irregularities.	97.4	2.6	92.5	7.5	261
f	Violence can be used against opponents during the election campaign and during balloting.	10.9	89.1	11.3	88.8	262
g	The government and political parties accept the result of the election.	94.9	5.1	86.4	13.6	263
h	Candidates and parties can use money and gifts to influence voting.	3.8	96.2	7.4	92.6	264
I	The ballots are not secret.	11	89	18.5	81.5	265

G-	The constitution and rule of law
1-	What is the constitution?	Y	N	Y	N
a	It is the supreme law of the government, state and nation.	95.5	4.5	90.1	9.9	266
b	It is the law that must be respected by common people but not by the elite.	15.2	84.8	13.6	86.4	267
c	.It is a peace agreement enabling Cambodia to obtain international development assistance.	76.7	23.3	70.4	29.6	268
d	Is the law that can be changed by the victorious political party.	14.2	85.8	21.3	78.8	269
e	Is the law that clarifies and limits the relations between people and government.	86.3	13.7	79	21	270

3-	The constitution can be revised or amended by:	Y	N	Y	N
a	The King	42.1	57.9	46.9	53.1	271
b	The Prime Minister and the President of the National Assembly.	43.1	56.9	49.4	50.6	272
c	A law adopted by: 2/3 of all Parliament members.	94.3	5.7	89.9	10.1	273
d	The constitutional council.	66.9	33.2	66.7	33.3	274

4-	What state has the rule of law?	Y	N	Y	N
a	A state with laws, a respect for laws, and fair application of the laws.	97.7	2.3	91.3	8.8	275
b	A state with a judicial structure under National Assembly.	59.8	40.2	54.4	45.6	276
c	A state where the rulers are above the law.	12.3	87.7	17.5	82.5	277
d	A state with an economic system controlled by the government.	75.3	24.7	74.4	25.6	278
e	A state with an independent justice system.	9.2	8	91.3	8.8	279

5-	What are the main principles of the rule of law?	Y	N	Y	N
a	All people, the government officials and soldiers are under the laws, except the King.	54.9	45.1	65.8	34.2	280
b	Police officials are responsible for enforcing and respecting laws.	87.1	12.9	85.2	14.8	281
c	Judges are appointed by the political party that won in the election.	25.6	74.4	28.4	71.6	282
d	Judges are independent.	87.1	12.9	81.3	188	283
e	Everyone is equal before the law.	96.3	3.7	92.6	7.4	284
f.	Payments to judges can obtain a favorable verdict	24.5	75.5	28.4	71.6	285

H-	Peaceful conflict resolution
1-	What are the main sources of conflict in Cambodia?	Y	N	Y	N
a	Conflict between political parties	82.5	17.5	74.1	25.9	286
b	Military conflict with civilians over land	70.7	29.3	64.6	35.4	287
c	Government conflict with opponents	68.6	31.4	57.5	42.5	288
d	Domestic conflict	38.9	61.1	32.1	67.9	289
e	Conflict between Camp Khmer and In-country Khmer	26.3	73.7	26.3	73.8	290
f	Conflict between Government and Khmer Rouge	62.7	37.3	66.7	33.3	291
g	Conflict between national level and provincial level authority	26.8	73.2	20	80	292
h	Conflict between Government and Investors	34.2	65.8	36.7	63.3	293
i	Conflict between Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Interior	29.1	70.9	27.2	72.8	294
j	Conflict between Khmer and Vietnamese	48.5	51.5	48.8	51.3	295
l	Conflict between rich and poor	35.8	64.2	24.7	75.3	296
m	Conflict between villagers and townspeople	28.1	71.9	26.3	73.8	297

2-	What are the measures to prevent the conflict concerning land and property?	Y	N	Y	N
a	The local authorities have in hand clear land records to solve disputes.	98	2	95	5	298
b	The claims must be resolved by paying officials.	19.7	80.3	28.8	71.3	299
c	To have complete land tenure laws widely understood by the people.	98.6	1.4	96.3	3.8	300
d	All sides to the conflict must respect the local authority's decision.	44.8	55.2	54.4	45.6	301
e	Local authorities have to cooperate with the cadastral office to clarify the title to each property.	97.1	2.9	95	5	302
f	The army can seize any property to end conflict	13.7	86.3	12.5	87.5	303

3-	Effective conflict resolution must take into consideration :	Y	N	Y	N
a	Policy of the government and ruling party.	47.7	52.3	62	38	304
b	Individual rights under the law.	88.6	11.4	87.5	12.5	305
c	Laws and the Constitution.	98.6	1.4	98.8	1.2	306
d	Negotiation and mediation.	98	2	96.3	3.7	307

I-	Gender awareness
1-	What is the objective of gender training?	Y	N	Y	N
a	To change society peacefully.	94.8	5.2	88.6	11.4	308
b	To distinguish clearly between men’s work and women’s work.	60.3	39.7	72.5	27.5	309
c	To improve the development of men and women equally.	98.9	1.1	98.8	1.3	310
d	To distribute benefits and rank according to gender.	46.7	53.3	52.6	47.4	311

2-	Why do women have to be involved in development?			Y	N	Y	N
a	Women are the poorest, majority and more vulnerable in society.			90.8	9.2	88.6	11.4		312
b	Women are mothers of the world.			97.2	2.8	100	0		313
c	Women's labor salary is not sufficient.			86.5	13.5	86.1	139		314
d	Minister of the Ministry of Woman Affairs is woman.			79.1	20.9	76.5	23.5		315
e	Woman's ideas are not usually considered a priority and may be overlooked unless special attention is paid to them.			35.9	64.1	41.3	58.8		316

3-	Which of the following is a special women’s right?			Y	N	Y	N
a	Rights to receive the same payment as man for the same work.			98	2	98.8	1.2		317
b	Pregnant woman may not be punished with death.			95.7	4.3	93.8	6.2		318
c	Women are responsible for taking care of children because husbands are busy supporting the family.			54.3	45.7	56.8	43.2		319
d	Women can have work-leave after giving birth.			97.7	2.3	97.5	2.5		320
e	Women can do only some work because other work is only for men.			51.1	48.9	54.3	45.7		321

4-	Which are key factors in classifying work and rank?			Y	N	Y	N
a	Traditional concepts about gender.			32.6	67.4	35.8	64.2		322
b	The capacity and work experiences of the individual.			92.9	7.1	91.4	8.6		323
c	Length of time working for the political party.			33.4	66.6	43.2	56.8		324
d	No discrimination between women and men.			81.8	18.2	73.4	26.6		325
e	Men must be given preference			29.3	70.7	32.5	67.5		326

J-
1
	Never	Some time	Often	Always		Always
	4	54	36.6	5.4		10

2	Do you listen now to any radio or TV broadcasts relating to:			Y	N	Y		N
a.	Good governance.			86.7	13.3	87.2		12.8
b.	Human rights.			96.5	3.5	93.3		3.8
c.	Election.			89.9	10.1	92.4		7.6
d.	Development.			95.1	4.9	94.9		5.1
e.	News.			97.4	2.6	97.5		2.5

K	EFFECTIVENESS OF COURSES
1	Do you think the CIHR training you received made you more effective in you work as an official or leader		YÀ		NÁ	333
2	If yes, can you give an example of how you used something you learned from the course or from the exercises in your work as an official or leader?
						334
3	Do you know any other official who took the CIHR course?	YÀ		NÁ		335

4	If yes, can you give an example to show how the course had an effect on how that person does his/her work as an official or leader?
						336

8	Based on your understanding of the CIHR course, can you give an example you have seen of leadership based on principle of good governance, or a democratic approach, or impartiality and neutrality of government officials in regard to development?
						337
9	Based on your understanding of the CIHR course, can you an example you have seen of leadership based on principle of bad governance or a dictatorial approach, or partiality and favoritism in regard to development?
						338

[1] See William Collins, et al. Final Report: Baseline Survey of Voter Knowledge and Awareness, CAS Occasional Paper (June 1998).

See also William Collins, Grassroots Civil Society in Cambodia, CAS Discussion Paper (June 1998)

See also William Collins, Dynamics of Dispute Resolution and Administration of Justice for Cambodian Villagers, (Feb.1997)

[2] See William Collins, Survey Evaluation of Good Governance and Election Education Programs Conducted by the Cambodian Institute of Human Rights with the support of The Asia Foundation, CAS Report (July 1999).

[3] See William Collins, The UNDP/CARERE Local Planning Process: Reinforcing Civil Society. Case Studies from Battambang. CAS Report (May 1999).

[4] We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. (July 4, 1776)

[5] William Collins, The UNDP/CARERE Local Planning Process: Reinforcing Civil Society. Case Studies from Battambang. CAS Report (May 1999).

Executive Summary

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

A. Background to the Training

B. Background to the Evaluation

C. Methodology

1. Survey Instrument Development

2. Sampling

3. Administration of the Survey

FINDINGS PART ONE: Quantitative Assessment of the Training

A. Performance in Curriculum Areas

1. Comparison of High Scores Achieved

Table 1. Comparison of High Scores [Performance at or above 90% correct]

Table 2. Comparison of High Score Performance by Level in SEILA

Table 3. Comparison of High Score Performance by Province in SEILA

2. Comparison of Mean Scores in Curriculum Areas

a. Impact of CIHR Training on SEILA as a Whole

Table 4. SEILA and Control Mean Scores Compared

Bar Charts 1. Curriculum Area Mean Scores

b. Impact of CIHR Training by Level in SEILA

Table 5. Mean Scores Within SEILA Compared by Level.

Recommendations:

Bar Charts 2. Mean Scores by Level in SEILA

c. Impact of CIHR Training by SEILA Province

Table 6. Mean Scores Within SEILA Compared by Province

Recommendations:

Bar Charts 3. Mean Scores by Province

B. Performance on non-curriculum questions in the knowledge areas

1. Management

Recommendation:

2. Good Governance

3. Human Rights and Buddhism

Recommendation:

4. Democracy and Elections

Recommendation:

5. Constitution and Rule of Law

a. What is the Constitution?

Recommendation:

b. How can the Constitution be Revised or Amended?

Recommendation:

c. What are the Characteristics of a State under the Rule of Law?

C. Performance on Non-Curriculum Questions relating Governance to Development

1. Freedom of Public Assembly

Recommendation:

2. Legal and Illegal Exaction by Government Officials

Recommendation:

3. The Role of Civil Society in a Democracy.

Recommendation:

4. Democracy and Elections

Recommendation:

Recommendation:

FINDINGS PART TWO: Qualitative Assessments of the Training

Introduction

Topic 1. Changes in one’s own attitude and behavior attributed to the training.

Topic Two. Changes in the attitude and behavior of colleagues attributed to the training.

a. Positive changes in colleagues

b. Little or no change in colleagues.

Topic 3. Changes in women’s attitudes and behavior due to the training.

Topic 4. Impact of the training on management style and practices.

Sub-topic 4.1. Leadership, roles and responsibilities

Sub-topic 4.2. Protest and Criticism within government and between citizens and government

Sub-topic 4.3. Consultation within government

Sub-topic 4.4. Consultation between citizens and government

Topic 5. Impact of the training on understanding Human Rights and Rule of Law

Sub-topic 5.1. Human Rights and Buddhism

Sub-topic 5.2. Effects of Human Rights on Governance

a. Battambang

b. Pursat

c. Siem Reap

a. Battambang

b. Pursat

c. Siem Reap

Sub-topic 5.3. Human Rights and Law

Topic 6. Impact of the Training on Conflict Resolution

Topic 7. Holding meetings without informing the authorities

Topic 8. Trainee reactions and recommendations

Conclusions

ANNEX

Methods, Sampling and Tables of Data on Respondents

1. Survey Instrument Development