The first district website to have its domain officially registered and served for promoting budget transparency
Located at Banteay Meanchey province, Ou Chruv district lies in the west of the province and is also one of the nine districts of the province. Bordering with Thailand makes Ou Chruv a border crossing point that is home to one of the busy districts. For the information about the district, as stated by the Ou Chruv district governor Mr. Ly Sovannarith, Ou Chruv district had created its own website but it was almost inactive due to financial constraint and the limitation of technical capacity handling the website because of the unavailability of sufficient training on website’s management.
In practice regarding budget information of the district, every year the district council conducts the information sharing and consultation forum two times and the district residents are invited to join this public event. The purpose is to share and provide the budget information against the development project implementation in the district which people can get informed on the status of their district development. For example, how the budget of the district is spent on the development projects and budget requirement as the means to show transparency and openness to the citizens.
Transparency in budget management is very crucial for inclusive development. Meanwhile, the disclosure of the budget at the district level plays an important role in stimulating public debate and participation around the policy’s choice and priority. In this regard, creating space for public access to the budget information is of vital importance allowing citizens to express their preference related to community needs and development which contributes to the effective use of national resources and improve their livelihood. Transparency of the district budget is even more important when responsibilities and resources of the national administration have gradually been transferred to the districts.
With a clear understanding of this importance, Open Development Cambodia (ODC) and STAR Kampuchea (SK) were convinced that it is necessary to make information and data specifically on district funds and budget planning available and accessible to the community. With this, ODC and its SK have joined forces together and collaborated with the district administration to undertake a project called “Using open data to support budget transparency at district level”.
In this project, ODC team provided support to the district administration in developing new website with district administration’s consultation and worked together with SK team to create an official Facebook page. For roughly 4 months after the kick-off meeting on project implementation on 21st July 2020, the official website and Facebook of Ou Chruv were successfully launched in November 2020. This launching has proven to be the solution for the district administration regarding the lack of financial support and technical capability to manage the website. In addition, ODC also produced a website user manual for district officer to handle the website, while training on website management is expected to take place when COVID-19 situation is better.
Ou Chruv district website has just gotten approval from the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications on its extension “.gov.kh” on 9th March 2021, with its full website can be accessed via www.ouchrovbmc.gov.kh
With the new website, the district administration now can use it to display information on budget and other district activities to the public. In this sense, the Ou Chruv district website has become an important tool in disseminating information that can engage more citizens and thus stimulating more participation and promoting dialogue on budget as citizens can easily and openly access information on the website. This will gradually drive more transparency on budget and citizens can hold the local government accountable to development that affects their livelihood. From this, public service delivery is also expected to be enhanced. Ou Chruv district governor believed that
“The establishment of district website is very important for relevant stakeholders and especially citizens as it promotes social accountability via open information on roles and responsibilities of the local government proving public services to the citizens. The district website also promotes transparency on the budget where citizens can get information on budget management related to budget planning and the expenditure for the development projects in the district.”
It is also worth noting that Ou Chruv district website has just gotten approval from the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications on its extension “.gov.kh” on 9th March 2021, with its full website can be accessed via www.ouchrovbmc.gov.kh. This makes Ou Chruv become the first district in Cambodia to have its own website officially registered and gained Cambodia’s government website extension. In the effort to request the extension and expectation for the establishment of the website, Mr. Houen Chanthorn Chief of Ou Chruv District Administration explained that
“With consultation among the district councils and provincial governor, we agree to make it [district’s website] the same as the government by having ‘.gov.kh’ as the extension. We also expect that this website will serve as the main channel in disseminating official information of the district’s works to the public in a timely manner after the Facebook page while noting the current trend of providing public service through the internet across the ministries in Cambodia.”
On top of this, Executive Director at Star Kampuchea Ms. Chet Charya similarly put that
“I am glad that the Ou Chruv district administration has the long-term vision by registering its website to have an official domain “www.ouchrovbmc.gov.kh”. This platform is very important in the future in disclosing information and achievements as well as receiving the feedback from the citizens in terms of service delivery.”
With her active involvement in this project, Ms. Ourn Vimoil, a Program and Partnership Officer of ODC expressed that
“I have been witnessing the development of the website since the beginning of the project. It’s my pleasure to learn that the Ou Chrov district administrative website was successfully registered under the government domain name, and this website was the first official district website approved by the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications. This website will serve the purposes of the district administration in information dissemination to complement the traditional practices.”
With support from ODC and SK team, the launch of district website has left a big milestone for Ou Chruv administration in using Information and Communications Technology (ICT), particularly website in promoting budget transparency at the district level and improving public service delivery as well as disseminating its development activities to the public. As a result, Ou Chruv can stand as a role model for other districts in establishing the official website as the means to harness the growth of ICT in promoting budget transparency and good governance. The future is way upward with the government has been trying to promote digital government. For instance, the Cambodian government in 2016 proposed the ICT Development Plan which aims to push all state’s institutions to have their own website, among others.
This project is funded by Swedish Program for ICT in Developing Regions (SPIDER) which aims to enhance good governance and public service delivery through the improvement of sub-national level budgets’ transparency.
