Project Description

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

 

Statement and Significance of the Problem

            Governance is about the processes by which public policy decisions are made and implemented. It is the result of interactions, relationships and networks between the different sectors including government, public sector, private sector, and civil society. Also, it involves decisions, negotiation, and different power relations between stakeholders to determine who gets what, when and how (Harp, 2008). The relationships between government and different sectors of society determine how things are done, and how services are provided. Governance is therefore much  more than government or ‘good government’ but shapes the way a service or set of services are planned, managed and regulated within a set of political social and economic systems.

In the last decade, the concept of “democratic local governance” in Cambodia has become an integral part of local development approaches, and “has provided a basic rationale for donors’ support to decentralization reforms and local governments’ capacity building” (UNDP, 2008). The very concept of ‘good governance’ at local levels denotes quality, effectiveness and efficiency of local administration and public service delivery; the quality of local public policy and decision-making procedures, their inclusiveness, their transparency, and their accountability; and the manner in which power and authority are exercised at the local level.

As the matter of fact, in February 2002, Cambodia took its major step forward towards political decentralization by organizing “the election of 1,621commune councils” (Mansfield & Macleod, 2004). These councils represent the beginning of the Royal Government’s Decentralization Reform. Subsequence efforts to ensure that the commune officials are able to discharge their duties have been a major undertaking. Civil society organizations play an important role in building democratic local governance by fostering dynamic interaction, building capacity and promoting good governance practices.

As public sector departments are striving to become more citizen-oriented and more accountable, to provide better services at reduced costs, and to build public confidence, many are trying to find ways to do more for the citizen. Many methods and tools have been developed to help public organizations do this (EU, 2003). For example, the administration reform in 2002 promoted decentralization in the local government in order to develop a sense of democracy and to deliver services effectively and also to reduce poverty to the local residents. Even public generally satisfies with the service delivered and poverty reduction acts of the commune, still the majority declares that they have experienced little or no improvement in their standard of living (Mansfield & Macleod, 2004). Therefore, the study of local government’s effectiveness is very vital “to evaluate and improve the performance of an organization to be more effective so that it may better serves its customers, employees, managers, and other stakeholders” (Johnson, 2007).

At the same time of promoting the idea of decentralization in the local government, “a number of agencies work directly and indirectly to build the capacity of commune officials by supporting and improving the capacity of local non-government organizations (NGOs) to work with the councils. This includes grant-making agencies that now require their partners to work directly with commune councils as part of their partnership criteria. This strategy may be particularly effective as some small to medium local NGOs, with a permanent presence at the District level, appear to have developed excellent working relations with the councils” (Mansfield & Macleod, 2004). Finally, a number of organizations build capacity of councils and NGOs through the provision of workshops and training courses on topics related to local governance and decentralization. Distribution of newsletters and sharing of training curricula are yet other activities that partners are implementing as part of their support of commune councils.

On the other hand, “commune councils with no NGO support experience difficulty mobilizing public participation and raising contributions. Most villagers are not aware of the commune councils’ work and do not understand decentralization concepts” (Mansfield, 2004). Even there is a partnership between communes and the NGOs towards the penetration of decentralization. Mansfield further mentions that the majority of local residents have experienced little or no improvement in their standard of living since the councils were established. Nevertheless, commune officials are aware of the discontent of villagers and frustrated by their inability to respond due to lack of resources and limited skill capacity. It is not clear how rising unmet public expectations may impact the performance of the councilors. However, it is important that councilors and their constituents understand the causes of poverty and the extent to which councilors can realistically address poverty issues.

Another significant reason that effectiveness measurement of the local government needs to be evaluated is because in Mansfield and Macleod research about commune and society in Cambodia (2004) stated that most of the councilors reported that they do not understand their roles and responsibilities. What is more, the working styles and level of performance are generally comparable to the pre-commune election period. Also, the commune meetings are held irregularly, and most council chiefs are newly-elected and generally listen to the first or second deputies who are from the Cambodian People’s Party (the power-holding party). In general, the deputies are party leaders who were former commune chiefs. Commune councilors lack initiative and are not knowledgeable about decentralization. They tend to wait for orders from the District and/or party leaders. They feel that they have no authority and no decision making powers and must obtain permission from higher levels.

Related to this, in order for the research to be logical and rich in content, the model of balanced scorecard is adopted to test for the level of effectiveness of the communes in Chamkarmorn District, Phnom Penh, Cambodia. According to Kaplan and Norton ( as cited in Wisniewski & Olasffson, 2004) , they explained how the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) can be applied to public-sector organizations as an example this model is used to evaluate the effectiveness of the performance of the city of Charlotte in North Carolina. Therefore, this kind of model is very appropriate for the public organization’s effectiveness measurement. Since for a government agency, financial measures are not the most relevant indicators of whether the organization is delivering on the rationale for its existence. Instead, public-sector organizations need to measure how effective and efficient of resource management in order to meet the needs of their constituencies. Therefore, there are four dimensions that the researcher need to test on which are learning and growth, resource management, internal process, and local citizen perspective.

The results of this research will be beneficial to the central and local government to comprehend how effective the performance of the commune official in Chamkarmorn District, Phnom Penh, Cambodia which can enable to set some new policies and tasks for implementation to better the performance of the local government.

 

Objectives of the Research

The main purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of the commune officials in Chamkarmorn District, Phnom Penh, Cambodia in the year of research 2012-2013. Specifically, it attempts to answer the following objectives:

1. To study the effectiveness of the commune officials in Chomkarmorn District, Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
   • To study the local citizen’s perceptions over the effectiveness of commune officials in Chomkarmorn District, Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
   • To study the commune official perceptions over the effectiveness of commune officials in Chomkarmorn District.
2. To study the continuous relationships between each of the effectiveness measurement dimensions.

 

Research questions

The main problem of this study is the effectiveness of the commune official in Chamkarmon District, Phnom Penh, Cambodia in the year of research 2012-2013. Specifically, it attempts to answer the following questions:

1. What is the effectiveness of the commune officials in Chomkamorn District, Phnom Penh, Cambodia?
   • What are the local citizen’s perceptions over the effectiveness of the commune officials in Chomkarmon District, Phnom Penh, Cambodia?
   • What are the commune official’s and partnership organization staff’s perceptions over the effectiveness of the commune officials in Chomkarmorn District, Phnom Penh, Cambodia?
2. How are the effectiveness measurement dimensions related?

 

Hypothesis of the research

• Hypothesis 2.1: There is a positive relationship between learning and growth perspective and resource management perspective.
• Hypothesis 2.2: There is a positive relationship between resource management perspective and internal process perspective.
• Hypothesis 2.3: There is a positive relationship between internal process perspective and stakeholder perspective.

 

Scope of the research   

The Concepts                                                            

There are several methods that can be used to study the effectiveness of the commune officials in Chomkarmorn District, Phnom Penh, Cambodia. However, the exploratory research is employed, and it aims at understanding the level of the effectiveness  of the commune officials in Chamkarmorn District, Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

 

Variables

The main elements which are used to study the effectiveness of the commune officials in Chamkarmorn District, Phnom Penh, Cambodia are the 4 dimensions of the adopted effectiveness measurement tool – Balanced Scorecard. They are including:

1. Learning and Growth Perspective
2. Resource Management Perspective
3. Internal Process Perspective
4. Local Citizen perspective

 

The Research Area  

This study is limited to the effectiveness of performance of all of the 12 commune officials in Chomkarmorn District, Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The District consists of 12 communes including Tonle Bassac, Boeng Keng Kang I, Boeng Keng Kong II, Boeng Keng Kong III, Oulampik, Toul Svay Prey I, Toul Svay Prey II, Tumnob Tuek, Toul Tumpung II, Toul Tumpung I, Boeng Trabek, Phsar Daeum Thkov.  Within Chamkarmorn District, there are 22,087 permanent households, 100 commune officials and a number of partnership organizations who are working within this territory. And these three groups will be selected as the respondents in this research.  Also, this research will cover on the satisfaction of the local residents, the perception of commune officials, and the partnership organizations over the effectiveness of the commune in Chormkarmorn District, Cambodia.

Data gathering employed the questionnaire which the researcher admits has the limitation of bias. Hence, mixed research is adopted by supplementing the questionnaire with interview of the several selected sampled for the richer and more justify content of the study.

The study focuses attention only on the effectiveness of the commune officials in Chamkarmorn District, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and is confined to the period of 2012-2013.  The findings of the study would therefore, be true only for the communes in Chomkarmorn District and for the given period of time, although these could be used as basis for similar studies that would be conducted at communes in different districts of the country.

 

 The Duration                                                                       

This research will be done in, and the data is collected from local residents living in communes in Chamkarmorn District, Phnom Penh, Cambodia. In order to successfully conduct this research, the time is compulsorily required. Therefore, this research plans to last for eleven months starting from April, 1^st 2012 until February, 28^th 2013.

 

Operational Definition

Commune: refers to the third level of administrative divisions in Cambodia ordering from provincial/ city level, district level and commune level. Within this research the commune refers to the twelve communes in Chamkarmorn District, Phnom Penh, Cambodia. They are Tonle Bassac, Boeng Keng Kang I,

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