Youth Civic Engagement Project Kick-off

CAMBODIA: The Affiliated Network for Social Accountability (ANSA) Cambodia with financial support from the United Nations Democracy Fund (UNDEF) would like to announce the kick-off of a two year project “Strengthening Youth Civic Engagement in Cambodia.” 

For many years, Cambodia has been led by one party, practically eliminating space for the democratic process and public debate. Land and Natural Resources (LNR) rights violations are the leading human rights challenge in the country and land disputes are increasing relentlessly with many chronic land disputes remaining unresolved. For more than two decades, Cambodia lost 2.5 million hectares of tree cover to illegal logging and land grabbing. These violations have widespread impacts on not only the environment and specifically climate change due to unsustainable logging practices, but also on families where increased instances of domestic violence and family dissension is seen, men are forced to migrate out of the home requiring women to take on more domestic responsibilities and children may be forced out of school to assist in providing for families.  

LNR activists are routinely detained and communities are denied opportunities to raise their voice, discuss and make decisions over the use of their own land. The project aims to revitalize democracy through strengthened civic youth engagement to support engagement in accessing government services and safeguard and advance LNR rights within a democratic framework. Starting in November 2023 and continuing until October 2025, ANSA will engage with 50 youth and women members of 30 communities and reach out to the affected 50 community members in Phnom Penh city, Kampong Speu province, Kampot province, Ratanakiri province and Mondulkiri province currently facing land disputes, forestry land disputes, and/or other housing issues. 

The key outcomes of this project are to: 

1. Create 30 Youth Hubs comprised of 50 youth leaders, engage another 750 members of the communities and equip them all with training on LNR and communication skills. It is anticipated that 50% of the youth leaders will be women; also, male youth leaders will be trained on gender-sensitive practices to become sensitized to the benefits of this project for women within their communities
2. Build a systematic LNR data collection system that maps LNR violations. Biannually, reports based on this citizen monitoring will be disseminated to the 750 Youth Hub members. 
3. Increase local and national youth-led awareness on LNR rights by building an application and social media network used to share short videos and other youth-led campaigns with over 1,000,000 young Cambodians.
4. Facilitate two youth–led national policy consultation forums with 40 decision makers to debate, share and follow up on the most pressing LNR issues raised.

Further, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) serve as a roadmap for achieving a better, more sustainable future for everyone and this project contributes to three of these goals:

·         Goal 4: Quality Education

·         Goal 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth

·         Goal 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions.

This project gives youths the opportunity to refine their leadership skills, allowing them to attain higher education which will lead to future economic growth. Also, with more of the population educated in advocacy skills, they will be empowered to promote peace, justice and a strong Cambodian society.

Once the project is complete, the results will be posted on our website https://ansa-cambodia.org/en and on the ANSA facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/AnsaCambodia0/.