Preliminary meeting on engaging civil society organizations in the Voluntary National Review (VNR) process

28 February 2019
Civil society / Sustainable Development Goals
Voluntary National Review (VNR)

Countries worldwide are encouraged to prepare the so-called Voluntary National Review (VNR), which are country-led and country-driven, as they facilitate the follow up of the implementation progress and the effectiveness of the actions and targets adopted to achieve the SDGs. After proving to be a successful initiative to share experiences and accelerate the implementation of the 2030 UN Agenda, the Royal Government of Cambodia is joining efforts with a number of stakeholders in order to publish in 2019 its first VNR. This national review, which is already in the phase of gathering and processing data and information, will be published in June and presented in July at the United Nations High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) in New York City under the auspices of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

Resulting from the kick-off meeting on the preparation of the VNR that the Ministry of Planning (MoP) organized in collaboration with the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) and the United Nations Country Team in Cambodia on January 31st, the Cooperation Committee for Cambodia (CCC) and NGOs Forum on Cambodia (NGOF) called a preliminary meeting with local and international Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) on February 7th to determine their roles in the writing process of the VNR.

Mr. Ry Sovanna from the Cooperation Committee of Cambodia (CCC) presenting the roadmap for CSOs to contribute with their inputs to the Ministry of Planning for the writing of the Voluntary National Review (VNR).

During the CSO meeting, the Open Development Cambodia (ODC) team had the chance to review the outcomes from the previous meeting and further discuss how CSOs will contribute to the VNR. Given CSOs’ key role in implementing the SDGs, they have first-hand information and are committed to providing technical inputs for the writing of the VNR. For that purpose, CSOs agreed to write a report on the SDG assigned to them which will include a monitoring analysis of the performance of the respective goal, recommendations for further implementation as well as challenges and achievements. Reports will be submitted to the Sector Technical Working Group and the MoP by February the 20th. Once reviewed, the MoP will organize a meeting to present its assessment and to announce the inputs that will be finally incorporated in the VNR.

ODC team is participating in the meeting on engaging civil society organizations in the Voluntary National Review (VNR) process.

Regarding the writing process of such reports, the Cooperation Committee for Cambodia (CCC) presented the methodology it will adopt to collect the data. Field work, regional and consultative workshops will provide paramount inputs to gather relevant information.

Participants mentioned that the main challenges faced will be time constraints and the lack of official Cambodian SDGs (CSDGs) indicators to assess the progress, which will require the use of the global SDGs until the country-specific ones are published. Participants will enhance close collaboration between their organizations in order to support each other and homogenize the reports.

As ODC compiles data on a wide range of relevant topics related to the SDGs, our team will provide information and data to the different organizations, as well as technical support and assistance in terms of data sharing. ODC is highly committed to the advancement of the 2030 UN Agenda and for this purpose, we also have a collaboration agreement with the MoP to enhance public awareness and facilitate the monitoring of the CSDGs through an online open data platform.