Thursday, May 7, 2009

Coordination Meeting of CEDAC Field Program in Siem Reap

On 07 May 2009, CEDAC Field Program organized a coordinating team meeting in Siem Reap province with the participation of 29 staff. The main agenda of the meeting focused on:
  1. Sharing information among the participants
  2. Sharing the progress activities and results of the projects
  3. Discussion on CEDAC staff policy, policy of using car and motor
  4. Presentation on commune project by Mr. Say Tith
  5. Participatory action research and further SRI data (yield)
  6. Cooperation among the projects and other departments/units of CEDAC
  7. Impression of the meeting
  8. Make appointment for next meeting



After the meeting, I could know what we need to strengthen especially the improvement of participatory action research relating to the agricultural technical techniques in the field. The project staff will manage the human resources to involved in conducting this useful activity in the field, and the specific discussion about what we should conduct participatory action research will be discussed on 28 May 2009 during the meeting with Dr. Yang Saing Koma, the president of CEDAC. I think that it is really good that we discussed to improve the participatory action research because it allows us to spur and to develop new innovations for extension to the community farmers. It is to remind that CEDAC has conducted many participatory action researches in the field by collaboration with the community farmers, such as the action research on Ecological Chicken Raising (ECR), fish raising and natural fish trapping, cover crop and green manure, System of Rice Intensification (SRI), etc. Recently, it seems to be that staff have not paid highly attention to conduct participatory action researches meanwhile they are likely concentrating to the formulation of farmer organizations (village based farmer associations, rice farmer producer groups, vegetable producer groups, chicken producer groups, etc). Based on the result of the meeting, the staff will pay attention to conduct participatory action research in order to develop new ideas/agricultural innovations for widely extension to the community farmers.

Particularly, the meeting also discussed about the commune project. Mr. Yi Kimthan, senior program officer of CEDAC, will be responsible to supervise the commune projects which are implementing under the responsible of Mr. Say Tith. Additionally, the participants discussed about the regulation and policy of using car and motor and there are some main points were suggested for improvement. It is to note that CEDAC has been implementing a development project, called "Local Administrative and Reform" with funding support from PACT. But the commune project above means that the project that implemented by the commune councile with the sub-contract to other agencies/NGOs. On the other hand, relating to SfR project, only 40 out of 310 SGAs (Saving Group Animators) will continue to support the saving groups in the target villages. It means that the potential SGAs will continue thier work with the project.

During the meeting, it is able to know that there are many other call for proposals that CEDAC Field Program considers to apply such as call for proposal to EC on food security that CEDAC Field Program is interested to apply for this project in Odor Meanchey and Prey Veng provinces, call for proposal of WINROCK relating to children education in Prey Veng province, and many other call for research proposal, etc. Hopefully, those calls are the great opportunities to expand the projects and to diversify the intervention of CEDAC Field Program in the communities.