EU/PAT II 2021-2022: Parliamentary Centre for Asia, PCAsia, Cambodia

Examples of results from 2021 1. Parliamentary staff has increased capacity to provide support to parliamentarians to input draft legislation. PCAsia supports Cambodian parliamentary staff to provide national parliamentarians with knowledge on legislative issues on the agenda through reasearch products. 8 research products were deliverd by PCAsia's researchers. 15 parliamentary staff were trained on legal analysis and legislative drafting. 16 parliamentary staff were trained on parliamentary committee work and 6 were engaged in best practices exchange on parliamentary responsibilities. 11 parliamentary staff were trained on support for ASEP 11 (Cambodia was hosting the ASEP 11 - the 11th meeting of the Asia-Europe parliamentary partnership). There were also 6 parliamentary staff trained in parliamentary research techniques, and 3 were trained as trainers (ToT) for subjects related to parliamentary research. The remaining activities that were not possible to carry out have been postponed due to restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic or they have started to be carried out but are not ready and therefore moved to next year for finalization. 2. Parliamentary staff has improved capacity to provide support to parliamentarians to implement their representation function. PCAsia supports parliamentarians and parliamentary staff to conduct public consultations on issues related to research products. 1 such public consultation has been held under PCAsia's quality control. Also one activity of the Cambodian Women's Caucases and WAIPA has been supported. The activity on improved digital communcation with citizens through e-Parliament has not been started but postponed to 2022. Staff of the Senate has travelled to attend training for e-Parliament. There have been less requests than planned received by the Budget Research Department, BRD, of the Senate due to Covid-19 restrictions and that many parliamentarians have worked from home. 3. Parliamentary staff has improved capacity to provide support to parliamentarians to fulfill their oversight role, in particular at the local level. Parliamentary staff in Cambodia have increased their analytical capacity to support the oversight role of the Parliament on the state budget during the year through 12 staff that were trained on budget analysis, 9 trainees were mentored and coached on budget analysis from the BRD of the Secretariat of the Senate. BRD also produced 40 budget analysis research products under the mentoring and coaching of PCAsia's trainers. 76 parliamentarians (twice as many as targeted) increased their capacity to assess public policies through training on "Autonomy of Parliamentary Assemblies". 4. The AIPA Secretariat (ASEAN Inter-parliamentary Assembly) uses PCAsia's services and engages in peer learning and exchanges. There were no activities under this component in 2021 that concerned the Cambodian parliamentarians nor parliamentary staff. Such activities have been postponed to 2022 when travel restrictions may be further relaxed. 5. PCAsia is recognized as a valued partner as a capacity strengthening centre in legislative and democratic development support in the region and internationally. PIC was closed at the end of March 2021 and its operations and the majority of its staff were successfully transferred to PCAsia that started its activities from 1 April 2021. Agreements for funding of PCAsia was signed with SDC, Sida PP, and an extension was signed with Sida Bkk. Landesa was also a new partner that signed a financing agreement with PCAsia. Below are examples of some results under each component: 1) providing input to draft legislation; It is expected that the number of research documents produced by research services, the proportion of PCAsia research trainees who report increased capacity to provide legislative research analysis, and an increased number of legislative dialogues between parliamentary Commissions and external stakeholders supported by legislative research services will lead to providing input to draft legislation. - 36 (target 36 but no gender division for national results) Cambodian parliamentary staff participated in training on legislative drafting techniques. - 18 (target 20) staff took part in the diplomacy training. - 170 (target 91)) parliamentarians and parliamentary staff took part in a seminar on mediation and negotiation skills. - 10 (target 13) parliamentary staff went through the 3 months training programme in parliamentary research techniques 2) Parliamentary staff has improved capacity to provide support to parliamentarians to implement their representation function;. - 7 (7) Cambodian Women Parliamentary Caucus (CWPC) Girl2Leader workshops were carried out in various Provinces in Cambodia, and work with WAIPA to provide technical support for a workshop in August 2022. Workshop carried out for WAIPA to provide insights into their resolution topics that would go onto be adopted as AIPA resolutions at the AIPA General Assembly in November 2022. Topics were 1) gender equality and women empowerment for sustainable, inclusive and resilient COVID-19 recovery, and 2) promoting the role of women parliamentarians in advancing the women , peace and security agenda. - 99 (including 29 women and in the end 9 of the total did not complete the programme) parliamentary staff participated in parliamentary communication training. - a mobile application has been designed by PCAsia for effective communication with constituents through the use of digital tools and hands-on-training curricula has been developed = E-governance - PCAsia has developed a new website for Southeast Asia Dialogue. 3) Parliamentary staff has improved capacity to provide support to parliamentarians to fulfil their oversight role, in particular at the local level; -32 (24) parliamentary staff joined the FACT 2 training, with extra attention given to gender budgeting and climate change budgeting. It also included two study missions in 2022 where some of the participants travelled to Philippines and Indonesia to visit its houses of representatives. - staff of BRD participated in refresher trainings and supplementary trainings. - an increased number of products have been produced by BRD in 2022 (52) compared to 2021 (42) and less input was asked from PCAsia staff to review and edit the products (24 out of 34 factsheets). 4) for ASEAN parliaments to use the services of PCAsia and engage in peer learning and exchanges (which part only will be financed by Sida Phnom Penh when there is Cambodian participation); and - 2 specialised trainings in carried out in 2022 in support of AIPA for the Cambodian national AIPA Secretariat and the Jakarta-based AIPA Secretariat staff. PCAsia and the AIPA secretariat also went on a joint mission to France and Belgium to build their relations and explore further collaboration with one another and with international partners. Meetings included French Senate, NA, APF, EC and European Parliament, and EWMI etc. - research publications and support: 3 environment and climate change fact sheets, background paper on proactive parliaments for peace, stability and share prosperity: Asian perspective and implications for Europe, supporting research on accountable COVID-19 responses, and oversight and quality control for 24 factsheets for FACT phase 1 (BRD). 5) Capacity building of PCAsia - PCAsia carried out two independent consultations in 2022 for capacity building. One concerned and independent M&E consultation to help PCAsia to collect better feedback to enable evaluation of impact of its interventions more effectively. The other was the consultancy to develop a Sustainability Development Strategy for PCAsia. The strategy has presented a mapping of the possible funding sources for PCAsia based on priority and likely timescale for securing the funding and how PCAsia should organize itself to efficiently secure a sustainable funding base. One conclusion from this mapping is that international sources of funding must continue to be prioritized in the short-medium term, with domestic sources of funding becoming more and more important in the longer-term. The strategy also notes the potential of PCAsia to engage with development partners by playing a bridging role between them and parliaments, particularly in providing access to decision-makers and legislative mechanisms. - HRBA assignment carried out with the assistance of Sida's helpdesk to advice on PCAsia's project document for mainstreaming HRBA. The result was a mainstreamed document and with increased attention to gender issues as part of HRBA. Financial report PCAsia has reported that Sida/EU has contributed with USD 1 256 910:22 for the total period 1 April 2021 - 31 December 2022. The division between the years is USD 692 401:20 (2021) compared to expenses in the amount of USD 441 980:92 leaves a balance of USD 250 420:28 which is carried over to 2022. Summarising the balance from 2021 with the funds received in 2022 which are USD 562 243:12 and the interest amounting to USD 2 265:90 (for 2021 and 2022) the total amount for the period becomes USD 1 256 910:22 as reported in PCAsia's final narrative and financial report. The interest amount has been approved by Sida for utilization up to end of 2022. Funds received from Sida/EU 2021: USD 692,401.20 (compared with Sida PLANIT SEK 6,132,740) - Expenses 2021: USD 441,980.92 Balance 2021: USD 250,420.28 Opening balance from 2021: USD 250,420.28 Funds 2022 from Sida/EU: USD 562,243.12 (compared with Sida PLANIT SEK 5,653,000) Interest 2021-2022: USD 2,265.90 TOTAL expenses 2022: USD 814,929.30 TOTAL expenses 2021 USD 441,980.92 In addition to the expenses by PCAsia of SEK 6,132,740 SEK 5,653,000 = 11,785,740 Sida procured the services of an audit company on its framework agreements to carry out a renewed organizational assessment of PCAsia in 2021. The cost for the assessment was charged the component 13708 funded by Sida/EU and thereby the total contribution and utilization of the funding was SEK 11,785,740 SEK 113,260 = 11,899,000. The agreement between Sida and PCAsia for funding was SEK 11,900,000. The missing SEK 1 disbursed is due to rounding of decimals. Audits have been carried out for 2021 and 2022 where the recommendations from the first audit was followed up in 2022 and noted as implemented. The findings in 2022 were the following and are noted more in detail in Sida's Statement of audit 2022, - interest on time deposits were not properly recognised in the correct accounting period. The auditors recommended that this has to be done in a timely manner. The total interest received from these deposits at the end of 2022 was USD 8,639. PCAsia management response was that they have seen the time deposits as challenging to record correctly as withdrawing before maturity date incurres a penalty/lower rate and correct interest can only be reached at the end of the fixed-term time for the deposit. However, from now on PCAsia expresses that they will record the amount of interest earned from the bank at the maturity of each fixed-term deposit even if they have not cahsed it in their current account. This was in accordance also with the advice from the current auditors. - PCAsia has not reported any exchange rate gains or losses in the financial report. There is also no information about this in the audit report. Sida will follow up on this with PCAsia in the annual meeting 31 May 2023. Other follow up issues with regard to the financial report that will be followed up in the annual meeting are: - Sida made a remark to the ToRs that PCAsia needs to also inform the auditors about the organizational assessment carried out by E and Y earlier in 2022 and the need of the new auditors to follow up on any outstanding recommendations as it says "Measures taken by the organization to address weaknesses identified in previous audits shall also be presented in the Management Letter". - With regard to Sida/EU funding it is the final year whereby 4 b) of the ISRS 4400 shall be included: Inspect and confirm the unspent fund balance (including exchange gains) in the financial report and confirm the amount that shall be repaid to Sida. According to Morisonkak's report on actual findings (p 3) it says that 4 b) "is not applicable". - As this is the last year of the Sida/EU funding, there is to be information provided about any equipment with procurement cost of more than EUR 5,000. Sida has not received this information from PCAsia nor from the audit report. Sida need to follow up if there are such equipment and who they will tranferred to and receive copy of such proof.

The overall purpose of the intervention is "to improve the performance of the target Parliaments - Cambodia, Lao PDR, and Myanmar - by helping to strengthen the capacity of parliamentary staff, and by increasing the intensity of technical exchanges and experience-sharing among their regional peers". Sida Phnom Penh jointly with the EU under the PAT II programme will restrict the funding to services to the Cambodian parliament. In order to achieve this purpose over time, the project has five main components: 1) providing input to draft legislation; 2) implementing their representation function; 3) fulfulling their oversight role particularly at the local level; 4) for ASEAN parliaments to use the services of PCAsia and engage in peer learning and exchanges (which part only will be financed by Sida Phnom Penh when there is Cambodian participation); and 5) build the capacity of PCAsia as a capacity strengthening institute in legislative and democratic development support in the region and internationally. Throughout all activities PCAsia promotes core values such as integrity, neutrality, objectivity and non-partisan behaviour. The immediate, direct beneficiaries of PCAsia's activities will be the Parliamentarians and parliamentary staff in Cambodia. The research staff of the parliament will be better equipped to conduct research, analyse and prepare research products requested by parliamentarians and the various parliamentary commissions. Consequently, parliamentarians will have objective and technically based research papers at their disposal to base their decision-making on. In a longer perspective the intervention also aspire to benefit Cambodian citizens in general as a legislature able to pass laws based on better facts and with an improved outreach capacity eventually will create more efficient and a professional Parliament in closer contact with its constituents.