Monthly Archives: March 2017

“You are ugly, but I still eat you.”

Organic vegetables from the Khmer Organic Cooperative.

Organic vegetables from the Khmer Organic Cooperative.

15 March 2017

Organic products are in higher demand in Cambodia although they do not look as nice as the chemical coated produces.

According to a shop assistant at Khmer Organic Cooperative (KOC) in Phnom Penh, about 50 to 60 customers visit the shop to buy the organic products on a daily basis. Besides, four to 10 customers call to order the products per day, especially the leafy vegetables, said Ms. Seng Sophea, 23, the KOC shop assistant.x                      

“Japanese bitter gourd and purple maize are most popular. Customers also ask for organic carrots, cucumber, onions and passion fruit, but they are under supply,” she said.

Visitors to the KOC include Khmers and foreigners. Usually, the Khmer customers come to buy fresh vegetable and fruit while the foreign customers shop for organic ingredients such as pepper and sugar palm, according to Ms. Sophea.

Ms. Seng Sophea, the Khmer Organic Cooperative shop assistant

Ms. Seng Sophea, the Khmer Organic Cooperative shop assistant

Ms. Sophea (right) on her duty and project staff of Improvement of Livelihood and Food Security of Landless and Land-Poor Households.

Ms. Sophea (right) on her duty and project staff of Improvement of Livelihood and Food Security of Landless and Land-Poor Households.

More than 100 types of products including fruit tree, leafy vegetables, tubers and other processed products and ingredients are offered at the shop. The major sources for the fresh produces come from KOC farms and contracted farmers.

Ms. Sophea said the KOC customers love the organic products because of its taste and benefits to health.

“Customers say it is tastier and they feel safe when eating,” said the shop assistant. However, the customers complain about the price which is two to three times higher than the general market.

Currently, there are two KOC shops in Cambodia, one in the suburb Chruoy Changva and the other in the central city of Phnom Penh.

KOC is a sister of Eco-Agri Co. Ltd (EAC) which is a joint initiative of GIZ Cambodia through ASEAN Sustainable Agrifood Systems (ASEAN SAS) project. EAC is the agricultural input supplier. It sells seeds, local produced Biocontrol Agents and bio-fertilizer. And, soon it will import biological pest control solutions from ASEAN Member States to Cambodia.

At present, KOC buys agricultural produces from farmer groups who are connected through EAC.

This story is based solely on an interview with Ms. Seng Sophea, the Khmer Organic Cooperative shop assistant. It is part of an activity in a workshop ‘Impact Story Writing and Basic Photography’ for project staff of Improvement of Livelihood and Food Security of Landless and Land-Poor Households, ASEAN Sustainable Agrifood Systems (ASEAN SAS), and their partner, Khmer Organic Cooperative. The workshop was conducted in Phnom Penh, Cambodia from 14-17 February 2017 and attended by 14 attendees. ASEAN SAS Communication Officer provided the training.

The story and its photos are the outcome of the workshop.

By Chhet Socheata, Keat Pengkun, Khann Kanha, and Sok Lina, Improvement of Livelihood and Food Security of Landless and Land-Poor Households and Rojana Manowalailao, ASEAN Sustainable Agrifood Systems.

The shop assistant is being interviewed by project staff of Improvement of Livelihood and Food Security of Landless and Land-Poor Households.

The shop assistant is being interviewed by project staff of Improvement of Livelihood and Food Security of Landless and Land-Poor Households.

Group picture after a training.

Group picture after a training.

Improvement of Livelihood and Food Security of Landless and Land-Poor Households project staff taking photo with Ms. Seng Sophea, the shop assistant (second from the front) on the interview day.

Improvement of Livelihood and Food Security of Landless and Land-Poor Households project staff taking photo with Ms. Seng Sophea, the shop assistant (second from the front) on the interview day.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx                      

new-facebook-like-button

RED III Data Management Process

115 March 2017

The Regional Economic Development Program III (RED III) is a Cambodian rural development program funded by Germany (BMZ) and Switzerland (SDC) and implemented with technical assistance by Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). The third phase of the program is scheduled to last from September 2014 to December 2017. It succeeds the GIZ-supported Regional Economic Development Program – Green Belt that was implemented in the province of Siem Reap from October 2007 until August 2014. More>>>

RED III Data Management Process

15 March 2017

The Regional Economic Development Program III (RED III) is a Cambodian rural development program funded by Germany (BMZ) and Switzerland (SDC) and implemented with technical assistance by Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). The third phase of the program is scheduled to last from September 2014 to December 2017. It succeeds the GIZ-supported Regional Economic Development Program – Green Belt that was implemented in the province of Siem Reap from October 2007 until August 2014.

The program aims to support the poor, rural population – especially women – in using new, sustainable business and employment opportunities to increase their income and reduce poverty. Since January 2015, RED III is active in three provinces: Siem Reap, Banteay Meanchey and Oddar Meanchey. The program promotes four fields of activities (components) (1) Local government action for inclusive growth, (2) Stakeholder cooperation for local economic development, (3) Sustainable services and business links for increased competitiveness of local products and (4) Knowledge partnership with national level stakeholders.

As part of the RED III demand-oriented approach, the program implements a great number of human resource development (HRD) measures for partner staff members especially those from government institutions. Capacity development (CD) measures for target groups (TG) are being jointly implemented by RED technical advisors, government partners, and other partners such as private companies and contracted organizations (e.g. NGOs).

 

Data Collection

To manage and evaluate partner staff (HRD) and target group capacity development (TG-CD) data of all RED components and provinces, the program has designed and introduced a simple monitoring system. The monitoring data are being regularly collected, except for outcome and impact data which are occasionally captured through survey assessments. The regular monitoring data includes the data on trainings, workshops, meetings combined with trainings, study tours, and field day events, and so on. GIZ RED III technical staff members or partners in the provinces and districts collect the data by using a participants’ registration form (attendance list) as shown in pictures 1.1 and 1.2. Then, they submit the list of participants to RED III offices in their respective province. Later, the administrative officers use the attendance list to generate a report per event as shown in picture 2.1 and 2.2 (normally use hard copy) before entering them into Excel data files (HRD & TG-CD data files).

 

Picture 1.1: Attendance List for Partner Staff HRD Event

1

 

 

xxxx

Picture 1.2: Attendance List for TG-CD Event

2

The HRD data for staff are enumerated in person-days for each person who has participated in a particular HRD event. The TG-CD data are enumerated as the number of participants as well as person-days per kind of target group which participated in an event. The data are disaggregated by gender, poverty (ID Poor) and vulnerability (Former ID poor) status as illustrated in pictures 2.1 and 2.2. Each event may be addressed to several target groups, for example the group of farmers, traders/collectors, village authorities, commune councils, district councils, etc.

 

Picture 2.1: Report on HRD for Staff Event

3

 

 

 

 

 

 

xxxxx

Picture 2.2: Report on TG CD Event

4

 

 

 

 

xxxxx

Data Entry

After summarizing the data from the attendance lists, the administrative staff inputs the data into an Excel data file. The HRD data for staff and the TG-CD data for target groups are entered in the same data file but into separate data sheets; this is done by component / province as shown in pictures 3.1 and 3.2.

xxxxx

Picture 3.1: Part of RED HRD for Staff Data File – Example for Siem Reap, Component 1A   

5

 

xxxxx

 Picture 3.2: Part of RED TG CD Data File – Example for Oddar Meanchey, Component 2

6

The administrative assistants also enter data from attendance lists and TG-CD summary reports into the beneficiary data files. This comprises data on individual participants (name, address, contact number, etc.) as well as the event (type of event, duration, location of event, etc.) as shown in picture 4.

xxxxx

Picture 4: Part of RED III Beneficiary Data File – Example for Banteay Meanchey, Component 2

7

 

xxxxx

Data Processing and Reporting

From HRD and TG-CD data files, the RED M&E technical expert produces the respective summary reports on HRD measures for partner staff and TG-CD measures as illustrated in pictures 5.1 and 5.2.  In addition, data of the beneficiary data files are also being processed for other reporting purposes.

xxxxx

Picture 5.1: RED III HRD for Staff Summary Report – Example Data for January – December 2016

7b

 

xxxxx

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx                               

Picture 5.2: RED III TG CD Summary Report – Example Data for January – December 2016

8

 So far, the beneficiary data files have been indispensable as:

  1. They allow the program to know the outreach in terms of persons (avoiding double counting when a person joined two or more events) and households. Individual and household outreach can easily be documented at any required level: project activity, village, commune and district level. This is also used for the visualization of activities on maps as shown in picture 6.
  2. They allow the program to easily generate a list of outreach villages, communes and districts in order to capture facts and figures on spatial coverage of the program as shown in picture 7.
  3. They provide a basis for discussion with local authorities (that can be at commune and district level) about areas that are so far under-served or under-represented in events organized by the program.
  4. They provide a basis for random selection of beneficiaries for evaluation studies.
  5. As a small side benefit: they are the source of contact numbers of particular individuals since phone numbers are recorded.

xxxxx

Picture 6: Map of agricultural training activities – Example for Banteay Meanchey

10

 

 

xxxxx

Picture 7: Part of RED III Monitoring Outreach – Example from Banteay Meanchey


10
All processed and visualized data (HRD & TG-CD data, maps, facts, figures) plus the data from occasional impact assessment surveys are the basis for mid-year and annual reports.

xxxxx

Conclusion

The RED III data management is a relatively resource-intensive, but conceptually simple and robust process. In terms of software, it mainly needs the Microsoft Office Program Excel and for map visualization a public domain GIS such as Q-GIS. It requires data collection, entering and validating data as well as reporting in a systemic manner. Technically, all people involved in the process are to be familiarized with the formats and file structures which is a task for the project’s M&E expert who needs to have advanced knowledge in Excel, data and map processing. One of the major advantages of applying Excel for managing the data is that it has flexible tools for visualization to which data sets can easily be customized and reports generated.

For further information, please contact:

Dr Wolfram Jaeckel, RED III Program Leader | ,  Or

Mr Samrach Ten, RED III Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation Advisor |

new-facebook-like-button

Two finalists of “A Time to Remember – Songwriting Contest” performed in Siem Reap

1

07 March 2017

On February 24th winner Phoch Sreyrath and finalist Sidet Shophady of the – Civil Peace Service Program of Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH  supported – song contest were on stage at the “Chubmet festival” in Siem Reap, to present two remembrance Songs, created as from young artists to the surviving generation of Khmer Rouge. More >>>

Two finalists of “A Time to Remember – Songwriting Contest” performed in Siem Reap

107 March 2017

On February 24th winner Phoch Sreyrath and finalist Sidet Shophady of the – Civil Peace Service Program of Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH  supported – song contest were on stage at the “Chubmet festival” in Siem Reap, to present two remembrance Songs, created as from young artists to the surviving generation of Khmer Rouge.

The Song Contest and final concert celebrated in December 2016 in Phnom Penh had attracted 400 young and old mixed audience (https://www.facebook.com/Remembrance2016/?fref=ts). The project is part of the dealing with the past and peace education program of the Youth Resource Development Program (YRDP), one of the Civil Peace Service partner organizations in Cambodia.

The social media campaign flanked contest has attracted thousands of youth to reflect on Khmer Rouge History and opened up the opportunity to participate in Cambodia’s process of reconciliation, by writing and composing songs of remembrance to the surviving generation. The project applies at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) to become a reparation in Case 002/02. 2

An important element of the project is to promote remembrance songs nationwide and across Cambodian borders. For this, the concert has been live broadcasted on radio, the songs have been studio recorded and the winner is now on tour. After Siem Reap in February the next tour stop will be Myanmar, where Sreyrath will perform her song to a young audience.

The recorded songs will be distributed and further promoted to be part of events, educational programs to inspire youth to seek for integrational dialogue, reflecting on the past and advocating among generations to take active part in Cambodia’s process of reconciliation.

new-facebook-like-button

Follow Us!

All activities are implemented by GIZ on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).