Gender and Development

Cambodia

Loan 1862 – CAM: Northwest Rural Development Project, 2001

After nearly 3 decades of armed conflict, northwestern Cambodia is one of the poorest regions of the country. As a result of the high rate of male deaths and disabilities, women have become the backbone of agriculture. Many rural inhabitants receive little or no schooling and there is a high level of illiteracy, particularly among women. Fifty-nine (59%) of the children aged 5-14 years attend school. About 50% of existing school facilities in villages need repair. Existing health centers lack staff, equipment, and drugs. More than 96% of all households lack toilets. The main sources of water are unprotected hand-dug wells (46%) and rivers, ponds, and streams (41%). Road infrastructure is poor where most villages are inaccessible during the rainy season and some are cut off for several months a year. Lack of access to markets, infrastructure, economic services and limited access to schools and basic health care services result in frequent food shortages and illnesses leading to indebtedness and the loss of farm assets.

ADB’s Northwest Rural Development Project supports the Government’s efforts to reduce poverty emphasizing the direct participation of villagers by

• using local-level planning and the existing village development plans, while thoroughly rechecking the priority needs of the poor and women
• building village development councils’ (VDCs) and commune, district, and province authorities’ understanding of participatory development and empowerment.

Objectives and Scope

The Northwest Rural Development Project was approved on 27 November 2001, for $27.2 million. The overall objective of the Project is to support the Government’s effort to reduce poverty through accelerated rural development by establishing physical transport and social infrastructure, improving socio-economic conditions, and enhancing rural livelihoods in northwestern Cambodia. Project activities are focused in the 4 provinces of Battambang, Banteay Meanchey, Oddar Meanchey and Siem Reap; and target 50 communes in 14 districts where more than 1200 villages are located. The Project has 3 components:

1. Rural Infrastructure Development extend the rural road network and establish social infrastructure in the districts building schools, health facilities, and markets. The method for identifying and prioritizing the larger-scale rural infrastructure investments is called IRAP (integrated rural accessibility planning) which is a participatory planning tool applied at the district level and adopted by Ministry of Rural Development.



2. Capacity Building enhance the capacity of both private and public sectors associated with the planning, design, construction, maintenance, and ongoing monitoring of project activities.



3. Rural Livelihood Enhancement involve and empower the beneficiaries, establish small-scale infrastructure at the village level (i.e. water supply and sanitation, rice drying and storage facilities, community buildings) and establish savings and credit initiatives in the villages and communes. Contracted NGOs will implement community development initiatives. The project will not provide a separate line of credit, but will support NGOs to strengthen existing savings and credit groups using group guarantees, create new groups, and facilitate beneficiaries’ access to the formal financial system.

Framework for Gender and Development Activities

The high loss of the male population during the war has significantly reduced male labor force in agriculture. As the majority of the working age population and primary income earners in many households, women have undertaken activities and assumed roles traditionally held by men. However, women’s role in decision making at the village, commune, district or higher levels remains weak and needs strengthening. Even if women members make up 30% of the VDCs, they do not articulate their needs and concerns. Poor and very poor women cannot afford to attend meetings due to their time constraints in managing household responsibilities and earning a livelihood. In the household, women are in charge of the family’s income; but this is a burden in those households where scarce resources have to be managed. Female heads of households in the project area are about 14%.

Gender-Inclusive Design

To ensure women’s participation in and benefits from the project, a Gender Action Plan (GAP) was prepared during loan design. ADB’s rapid gender assessment and the project review conducted in 2004 recommended that the Project gender strategy/plan be reviewed and refined through a consultative workshop with the implementing groups. Hence, a workshop was organized to raise awareness on why specific gender provisions were necessary and how these provisions would improve project implementation and the achievement of the Project’s poverty reduction goal. Project staff and contracted NGOs worked in groups under the guidance of the ADB Cambodia and Nepal Gender Specialists to integrate gender provisions into the project framework, to develop gender sensitive indicators and to draft a revised GAP outlining specific interventions under each project component. A summary of the revised GAP is presented below:

1. Rural Infrastructure
• Gender orientation sessions will be conducted for all contractors, IRAP staff, VDC, village chiefs, commune councils, district and provincial Project staff. Cooperation with provincial and district Departments of Women’s Affairs should be sought for gender trainers.
• Contractors agreements (labor-based appropriate technology-LBAT) will include:
  • 50% of female workers, of which 15-20% are from women-supported households
  • equal pay for men and women for work of equal value in the labor intensive construction works
• NGOs will disseminate LBAT requirements and inform women of job opportunities in construction.
• More participation of female workers will be sought out in the construction of schools, health centers and markets (40% of workers in some areas; NGOs to monitor the implementation).
• Maintenance committees of schools, health centers and markets will have 40% women members and are provided with training on roles and responsibilities and communication and leadership skills.
• Specific awareness campaigns will be conducted for men and women on joint registration and land titling.
• Changes will be made in the supervision, monitoring and evaluation procedural manual in relation to gender-disaggregated data collection and ways of improving poor people’s and women’s participation.


2. Capacity Building
• Provincial and District Departments of Women’s Affairs staff will be involved as facilitators for gender orientation sessions.
• Gender orientation will be provided in technical training sessions such as participatory techniques and work methodologies, data analysis techniques and resource inventory survey methodologies for provincial and district Project staff to respond to community identified development initiatives.
• Training will be provided for district facilitators to undertake village and commune level meetings.
• Training will be offered to local contractors in bidding procedures and project implementation, to ensure 50% women’s participation in LBAT.
• NGOs will organize leadership and communications skills training for female members of village development committees of other community-based organizations and female commune councilors.


3. Rural Livelihood Improvement
• Separate consultations will be held with men and women in local planning processes in villages and communes.
• Women’s groups will be organized to develop livelihood enhancement projects.
• Savings and credit groups for women will be established.
• NGO contracts will be reviewed to include activities such as: ensuring management and maintenance committee to have 30% women and receive training; conducting gender training for all village chiefs, VDCs, commune councils and community-based organizations; requiring gender-disaggregated data in all NGO reports; organizing women-only groups for local planning processes; providing literacy classes for women and men; conducting awareness campaigns for women and men in joint land registration and titling; and recruiting female commune facilitators.

Guidance on Gender and Development Activities

The Project will provide 4 community development specialists in each province to support project implementation and to ensure participatory approaches are used to involve the poor and the very poor. Two of the community development specialists will be women and all 4 will be gender-sensitive and have specific qualifications for gender analysis and gender-sensitive approaches in community development. The Project Management Unit has endorsed the revised GAP and agreed to recruit a local gender consultant to cooperate with the 4 community development specialists for monitoring the GAP implementation. The ADB Cambodia Gender Specialist will support the project gender consultant and the Project Management Unit in monitoring the implementation of the revised GAP through loan review missions and other requests for direct assistance.