Summary of Key Meetings and Representation  Early Sept 1999

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1     MoEYS/Donor Consultative Meeting, September 3 1999

The meeting was attended by around 35 MoEYS and funding agency officials, chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Education H.E. Tol Lah and Secretaries of State H.E. Im Sethy and Pok Than. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the proposed approach and process for the education policy review process, discuss lessons learnt on policy led assistance elsewhere and discuss the way forward with MoEYS/Donor partnerships.

The main outcome of the meeting was broad consensus to take matters forward. It was agreed that an Initial Task Force will be established to prepare technical proposals for the next consultation on September 22. It was agreed that separate donor and MoEYS briefing sessions on sector wide approaches would be organised with assistance from UNICEF and the SEIP TA.

2     MoEYS Initial Task Force Meeting, September 9 1999

The meeting was attended by 14 MoEYS senior technical officers and advisers, chaired by H.E. Pok Than. The purpose of the meeting was to examine the next steps in planning the policy review process. The meeting agreed that the key requirements were to prepare an indicative management structure for the process, examine ways of incorporating Education Congress findings into the policy process and ways of linking the education policy development exercise to the high level government/donor working groups, including administrative, fiscal and social sector reform.

A number of advisors, including World Bank and ADB supported TA were asked to assist in drafting proposals for presentation at the next consultative meeting planned for September 22.

3     EDUCAM Briefing Meeting, September 10 1999

The meeting was attended by around 30 representatives from mainly NGO’s. The purpose of the meeting was for the SEIPTA to present the broad structure and process of a sector wide approach and to highlight possible NGO areas of involvement in the process. The main outcome of the meeting was increased awareness of the SWA process and some of the key success factors associated with SWA. The meeting raised the possibility of an NGO policy/strategy paper as a contribution to the process and aggregating lessons learnt from extensive NGO project experiences.

The EDUCAM steering committee is likely to discuss the issues raised for NGO involvement at their next meeting in late September/early October.

4     Funding Agency Briefing Meeting, September 13 1999

The meeting was attended by 25 – 30 representatives from donor agencies and MoEYS/other Ministry technical advisers including CDC. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss experiences of SWA to education elsewhere and assess the conduciveness of the policy environment in Cambodia. Representatives raised a number of key issues including the leadership and technical capacity within government, the maturity of the donor community for such an approach and possible phasing and sequencing of the proposed policy review.

The meeting was chaired by the Representative UNICEF who is also Chair, Social Sector Working Group. It was agreed that the meeting would feed back some of its deliberations to Government/MoEYS.

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