Advocacy Project Background

CIDSE Cambodia has been actively engaged in advocacy work since the 1980s, focusing on issues such as ending Cambodia’s isolation, land mines, human rights, and environmental protection. The organization established the Development Education and Advocacy (DEA) Unit in 1994 to address these key concerns. CIDSE Cambodia distributed advocacy responsibilities throughout the organization after a restructuring in 1997 but maintained its commitment to advocacy. In 2003, they formed the CIDSE Advocacy Support Group (ASG) to address community needs and connect them with relevant networks and campaigns. During the strategic planning period of 2003-2005, CIDSE Cambodia collaborated with other organizations to advocate for land, forestry, gender, decentralization, and good governance.

CIDSE Cambodia employs various advocacy strategies, including capacity building, networking, supporting initiatives, issuing joint statements, and organizing campaigns and discussions. In 2006, the Development Education and Advocacy (DEA) unit was re-established to continue the organization’s advocacy role. The unit focuses on development education on gender, decentralization, and local governance, as well as advocacy on land-related issues and logging. They worked collaboratively with Integrated Community Development (ICD), Partner Department (PD), NGOs, and media to promote the rights of target beneficiaries and partners.

Based on the DPA strategic plan for 2017-2021, the DEA unit merged with PD to form The Partnership and Advocacy Programme (PAP), which includes the Partnership Project (PP) and Advocacy Project. The PP provides funding and capacity building support to NGOs and agricultural cooperatives and the Advocacy Project strengthened development education on gender and advocate for issues related to land, logging, and the social and environmental impacts of the extractive industry (EI).

Currently, DPA continues to employ the strategies that focus on advocacy that is evidence-based foster relationships with national & regional networks on NRM, Climate Change, and Agriculture, build linkages with relevant regional and international mechanisms, work in collaboration with the emerging EIGF CSO alliance, strengthen the provincial EISEI working groups and improve DPA representation at the provincial NRM networks (collective joint actions where appropriate) and increased focus on the policy dialogue on agriculture-related policies and programs including value chain, marketing, agricultural inputs, policies for agriculture loans, and mitigating climate change/Green House Gas emissions.