Food Security and Community-based Recovery Support to Flood-affected Communities in Cambodia (SRELFOOD 2)

Project “Food Security and Community-based Recovery Support to Flood-affected Communities in Cambodia (SRELFOOD 2)”

1.Background

The National Committee for Sub Nation al Democratic Development Secretariat (NCDDS) and World Food Programme (WFP) have a long-standing relationship focused on strengthening sub­ national and commune council capacities and local development in Cambodia. In 2013- 14, NCDDS was part of the steering committee for piloting the Productive Assets and Livelihood Support Program (PALS) supported by WFP with the aim of promoting livelihoods and providing regular employment opportunities for food insecure and vulnerable households through labor-intensive works, creating or rehabilitating community assets. Through a participatory process with the commune councils, communities selected assets that contributed to higher agricultural productivity, increased access to markets and social infrastructure, and improved resilience to climate-related hazards.

In 20 16-20 17, NCDDS, with cooperation and financial support from WFP, developed a guidance book let on the integration of socially inclusive climate change adaptation (CCA) approaches into the Commune/Sangkat (C/S) planning guidelines, with 5,000 copies printed and distributed to all 25 provincial capitals. The booklet was also mainstreamed in the 20 17 C/S Development Planning and Investment Programming Guidelines as well as the revised CI S Project Implementation Manual (PIM).

In 20 19, WFP launched a new five-year Country Strategic Plan (CSP) with a focus on contributing to achieving SDG 2 “Zero Hunger” and SDG  17 “Parinerships” in Cambodia. The CSP ‘s Strategic Objective 2 (S02) aims to support poor and vulnerable communities in Cambodia to be more resilient to shocks and stresses in the food system whilst strengthening the capacity of national and sub-national institutions to mitigate shocks/risks, including disaster risk reduction and climate change impacts on local food systems, in line with the Royal Government of Cambodia’s long-term strategy of poverty reduction.            WFP and NCDDS will work in partnership over the period of the CSP (five years) to achieve these goals to support stronger and resilient food systems, with a focus on sub-national capacity strengthening through a strategic partnership agreement signed in 2019. Through the strategic partnership agreement between WFP and NCDDS, in 2020-2021, WFP provided financial and technical support for the project “Enhanced Commune capacity to develop and implement food security, nutrition and climate-smart Commune plans in support of resilient local food systems”. The project aims to provide training to provincial, district and commune officials on integrating climate change adaptation into commune development plans (COP) and commune investment programme (CIP), and to support commune investment projects in 3 communes, one in each of the following province s: Kampong Thorn, Siem Reap and Kampong Chhnang. The project was completed at the end of June 2021.

2.Summary of the project

3.Project Objective

The main goal to be achieved through this project is to strengthen capacities of national, provincial, district and commune officials on commune development planning and investment processes.

To meet the above objective, the project will implement a set of measures that span across four key outputs as following:

Output 1:  Sub National, Commune Councilors and commune Planning and Budgeting Committee members receive awareness training on DRR and CCA in order to integrate them in the commune development plan (CDP) and commune investment programme (CIP).

Output 2: Commune Investment Programme (CIP) reviewed and updated for implementation.

Output 3: Community recovery enhanced through the rehabilitation and construction of infrastructure.

Output 4: Supporting NCDDS to meet accreditation condition to the Green Climate Fund (GCF).

4.Project Results

Key results expected to be delivered by the project include:

• One master training/stakeholder workshop conducted.
• 16 awareness raising sessions on ORR and CCA through the commune investment programme (CIP) cycle conducted.
• 400 members of commune councils, commune budget committees, and SNAs staff received training on ORR and CCA and are supported to apply these concepts into their plans.
• 48km small-scale infrastructure and facilities in 16 selected communes identified and rehabilitated/constructed within the framework of the updated CIP 202 1-2022 to support recovery after the floods, as well as mitigate disaster risk.
• 36,000 inhabitants (direct and indirect beneficiary) in the target areas benefit from the rehabilitated/constructed infrastructure in order to resume and improve their livelihoods.
• 2nd semi-annual assessment conducted and submitted to GCF Secretariat.

5.Project Implementation Areas

SRELFOOD2 project is implementing in 16 targeted communes of 4 provinces as following: