Welcome to NCDD, Cambodia D&D

Introduction
The Rural Investment and Local Governance Project (RILGP) was originally financed by an International Development Association (IDA) Credit of approx. US $ 22 million. This covered the period of 2003 – 2006 and included 14 provinces. Building upon the successes of the original RILGP the project was extended through an IDA Additional Financing Grant of US $ 36,250,000, extending the project up to December 2010 and to cover all provinces.                                                                      .

Objective
to assist rural development and poverty reduction efforts through supporting provision of priority public goods and infrastructure at the commune level, as well as promoting good local governance through support of decentralized and deconcentrated participatory local governance systems at the commune and provincial levels.
Target areas 23 provinces, in all 1545 communes.
Period: September 2003 to 31 December 2010.

Strategy
Support to the Commune/Sangkat Fund (C/S Fund) by providing, in all, some $ 49 million in financial support for projects selected, planned and executed, on an annual basis, by Councils in over 1545 Communes.
Support to capital expenditures for provincial office buildings, office furnishing, equipment, vehicles and motorcycles, mostly for use in the provinces. In all this comes to $ 2.2 million.
Support for workshops and consultant services (in all some US $ 6.1 million) for studies related to C/S Fund implementation and to the wider field of decentralization and deconcentration reforms.  This results in a steadily growing range of reports, manuals, evaluations and guidelines. The formulation of the National Program for Sub-National Development, which will develop the outlines for a ten year program, is also financed from the IDA Grant.

Key Components
RILGP support plays an important role in strengthening the capabilities at Commune and Provincial level to design, manage and contract small infra-structure projects and in developing the systems to ensure that environmental and social risks (especially with regard to Highland People) and in connection with land acquisition are properly identified and dealt with. The project also plays a crucial role in increasing accountability for the use of funds at sub-national level, a.o. by its support to Provincial and National Accountability Working Groups

Implementation Arrangements
From inception up to the end of 2006, RILGP was implemented under the Seila Program. The mandate of Seila Task Force ended on 31 December 2006 and in January 2007 responsibilities for its residual activities including for the management of the C/S Fund and RILGP were transferred to the National Committee for Management of Decentralization and Deconcentration Reform (NCDD).  NCDD also assumed the responsibilities for the RGC's policy development and implementation regarding decentralization and deconcentration reform which were transferred from the National Committee to Support Commune/Sangkat (NCSC) and from the Inter-Ministerial Committee to Draft the Organic Law to NCDD.  The Department of General Administration of the Ministry of Interior serves as the Secretariat of the NCDD and an NCDD Program Support Team (NCDD/PST) was established to manage the operational implementation of the C/S Fund and RILGP, among others.
At sub-national level, implementation arrangements are under the mandate of the ExComs (Executive Committee of the Provincial Rural Development Committee) Technical assistance at the national and provincial level has until now been provided by PSDD advisors under agreement with the PSDD Development Partners (UNDP, SIDA and DfID) and this will, in present planning, continue to be provided by the PSDD project until the end of 2009.  In addition to this arrangement, RILGP has some national and international advisors of its own.

Future Arrangements:
In early 2009, a design mission will be fielded by the World Bank to formulate RILGP Phase 2 which is expected to continue support to the CS Fund and CS Councils while adding a new component of support to the Districts. This new phase may start Mid 2010.