This is the story of how the women's NGOs in Cambodia trained more then 5,500 women to stand as candidates in the Commune election, and had more than 900 elected, using a small amount of money and a lot of ingenuity and determination.

In February 2002, Cambodia held its first democratically contested commune elections in three decades. With a budget from UNIFEM of USD 70,000 for training and an advocacy campaign, and with complementary funding from other sources, including CIDA Canada, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, GFW, NPA, the Netherlands Embassy and USAID/The Asia Foundation, women's groups in Cambodia succeeded beyond all expectations in promoting women's participation in all aspects of the election process, including winning seats.

Women Candidates

A total of 75, 244 candidates stood for the 1621 Commune constituencies. Of these 11,853 were women - an impressive 16 per cent in round figures. The breakdown of women among the registered candidates for each of the three major parties was: Cambodian People's Party 13 per cent; Funcinpec 14 per cent; and Sam Rainsy Party 20 per cent. The percentage of women among the much smaller total number of candidates for the remaining minor parties was even larger, ranging from 33 to 56 per cent. Certainly, Cambodia succeeded in ensuring women's participation as candidates.

NGO Working Group Training Strategies

They also succeeded in training, directly and indirectly, a significant proportion of the women who did stand.

Using all available resources, a systematic approach and considerable ingenuity, seven women's NGOs with expertise and experience on women's issues and good governance and aided by staff from The Asia Foundation Bangkok set up a Working Group, recruited five Master Trainers and organized an initial Training of Trainers (TOT) Course for 80 trainers from 24 provinces.

Organizing training on politics is not a simple matter in a country like Cambodia. The training, which was held between April 2001 and January 2002, required careful planning and preparation. Official letters of permission from the Ministry of Interior were necessary before Women for Prosperity was even allowed to enter a province to conduct training. These were obtained for the 18 provinces originally included in the training plan. When another six provinces asked to be added, another letter was needed, creating further delays. Thanks to the active support of the Director-General of Administration in the Ministry of Interior, the necessary letter was eventually issued.

The weather was another obstacle: a number of training sessions during the rainy season had to be postponed because of difficulties in traveling to some locations.

Leaving nothing to chance and recognizing that willingness alone might not be sufficient, the NGOs carefully selected their would-be trainers on the basis of an examination conducted before the training.

In addition, a total of four trainers from each of the three major parties were also included in the TOT. A condition of their participation was that each would subsequently conduct training for women candidates from their own party.

Following the training course, the 80 participants sat an exit examination, which only 59 passed. The new "graduate trainers" were then given further hands-on training during two pilot training courses for candidates, one in Kandal Province and one in Ket Municipality.

Each of the 59 trainers then returned to their respective provinces to run between 6 and 26 workshops to train women candidates to stand for the election. A total of 124 workshops were organized across the country, providing training for a total of 5,527 women, of whom 60 per cent actually registered as candidates. [One advantage of the rather long lead time was that many of the participants were already registered by the time they were able to attend a training workshop.]

The NGO training covered candidates from five political parties, including all three major parties. The proportion of those trained from the parties who were then registered as candidates by the party were: Cambodian Peoples' Party 76 per cent (from 1,813 trainees); Funcinpec 56 per cent (from 1,824 trainees), Sam Rainsy Party 52 per cent (from 1,763 trainees); Khmer Democracy Party 42 per cent (from 83 trainees) and Khmer Progress Party (from 44 trainees).

The target of the NGOs had been to train at least 30 per cent of all women candidates. In fact, they succeeded in directly training at least 61 per cent. This excludes two municipalities and one province, which failed to report the number of women trainees who had registered as candidates.

In addition, although we do not have exact figures for the numbers involved, the four trainers trained for each of the three major parties also conducted training for women candidates standing for their respective parties.

The Parties clearly took their commitment to women quite seriously: a total of 1.163 women were ranked in the first three positions in the Party List, which provided the greatest chance of winning in the election.

Who was trained?

The women trainees were drawn from 24 provinces and 208 districts. The majority - 60 per cent - had only primary level education, but only 45, less than 1 per cent, were illiterate. Almost 31 per cent had some lower secondary education, 8 per cent had upper secondary education and only 14 - less than 0.25 per cent - had higher education.

Trainees also represented a wide range of ages: 5 per cent were under 25, 33 per cent were aged 26-35 years, 34 per cent aged 36-45 years and 28 per cent aged 46-62 years.

Media coverage of the Training

Most training sessions were broadcast on television and radio, as well as featured in the print media. The TV channels providing coverage included TVK, TV3, TV5, TV9, TV11, TV Bayon, CFI, WMC, KWVC and provincial channels.

Radio stations RN, FM98, FM99, FM103, Bayon, Apsara, WMC, KWVC, Free Asia, VOA and provincial and local stations also covered the training.

Articles and features appeared in the newspapers Raksmey, Kampuchea, Damnneung Peal Lngeacg, Camodge Soir, Japanese Newspaper and Cambodge Daily, as well as in magazines issued by Comfrel, the Election Commission, and KWVC.

Evaluation of the Training

The NGO Working Group conducted two workshops to evaluate the training: one in Phnom Penh 6-7 September 2001 attended by trainers from 24 provinces, and one in Sihanoukville on 27-28 December 2001, by which time all training had been completed.

At the first workshop, some trainees who had participated in the provincial training related their experiences. The workshop also provided a briefing on the role and responsibilities of the NGO Coordinating Committee at the election.

The second workshop learned of some of the logistics problems involved in training in the most isolated provinces such as Rattanak Kiri, Mondol Kiri and Koh Kong. Transport had proved a major barrier, involving travel by boat and even by elephant. The costs of transport in these distant locations were so high that the NGO Working Group had not been able to cover all the costs, as originally intended.

The second workshop also provided capacity building for the trainers on election monitoring by members of the NGO Coordinating Committee, as well as a final session on post-election planning.

UNIFEM-funded Communications Strategy

To support the women candidates, the UNIFEM funding directed through the NGO Women for Prosperity was used to mount a media campaign and communications strategy in collaboration with AMARA, Cambodian Women for Peace and Development and Banteay Srey, all NGOs focusing on women. The campaign explained the registration and voting processes, encouraged women to vote and promoted women candidates on a non-partisan basis to both women and men voters.

The project had originally planned to fund two TV spots and radio spots on the official mass media, as well as opinion surveys to provide input to the Campaign. However, although the mass media covered the training workshops, it proved difficult for the NGOs to get as much time as hoped for on the national TV channel and radio stations for the media Campaign.

Undaunted, the NGO Working Group decided to produce video and cassette tapes instead. In a country and countryside starved of entertainment, battery-operated TV and tape players are to be found in virtually every community, even in the poorest and most remote villages. The UNIFEM videos and cassettes immediately found an enthusiastic audience.

Women for Prosperity (WFP) and the NGO Working Group made a total of 383 copies of the video tapes featuring the two spots, the first showing the activities of the Polling Station Officers on polling day, and the second showing the ballot counting process. The Election Commission felt that these tapes were largely responsible for the more peaceful conduct of these elections compared with the 1998 General Election. Due to the UNIFEM videos, this time most people were familiar with the procedure and more willing to wait patiently in line to vote.

WFP and the NGO Working Group also produced 2,834 copies of an audiocassette tape on voter education. The tapes covered: what is an election? Why is there an election? When will it start? Will there be secret voting? How will the Commune Council Election be conducted? What is political decentralization? What is the power and duties of the Commune Council? Why should women be involved? Why should women be elected? In addition, the tapes featured the four studio-recorded songs on Women Commune Chiefs (sung by a woman); Women Commune Chiefs (sung by a man); Role of Women in Politics (sung by a woman and a man) and the Importance of the Election (sung by mixed group).

The NGOs used a variety of creative ways of distributing the cassettes and videos and ensuring that they were widely aired. The first strategy was to use the NGO Election Monitoring Network and other official election bodies. In addition to promoting women candidates, the UNIFEM materials explained the process of registration and voting in very simple language. Consequently, the NGO Election Monitoring Network, which monitored voter registration and the election in virtually every commune, distributed the UNIFEM-funded materials as part of their voter education role. Similarly, the National Election Commission also distributed the UNIFEM cassettes and videos. Because the messages were non-partisan and all political parties had committed themselves to promoting women candidates, the main political parties also distributed the UNIFEM materials.

Unofficial channels were also used for distribution. Videos and cassettes were distributed to temples, which are an important focus of community activities and entertainment in most rural areas in Cambodia.

In a creative use of appropriate technology, women and NGO activists also spent many hours pedalling their bicycles around rural communities and townships with battery-operated cassette players and Public Address systems broadcasting the cassette messages to all and sundry! UNIFEM supported rental of loud speakers, battery chargers, bicycles with loud speakers in rural areas, and cars with loud speakers in the towns. We even covered the cost of the electricity used in coffee shops to ensure that the cassettes would be played round the clock!

A total of 17,600 calendars, 400 colourful shoulder bags carrying the logos of UNIFEM, Women for Prosperity and the national campaign of the Ministry of Women and Veteran's Affairs "Women are Precious Gems", 50 banners for street processions, posters and 3000 t-shirts were also used to spread the campaign messages. In keeping with their careful attention to detail, the very desirable calendars, bags and t-shirts were only distributed to those able to provide the correct answers about the election law, women's contribution to democracy and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.

An opinion survey of women candidates provided input to the Campaign materials.
The Working Group also held question and answer sessions for the media on the election laws, decentralization of government, and the role and responsibilities of the Commune Councils.

Additional UNIFEM-funded activities

The UNIFEM funds were also used to support some additional activities that the Working Group felt were essential to the success of their Campaign. The first were community meetings in the provinces on non-violence in the election cycle, aimed at helping women to handle their concerns about possible violence during the election period.

This was obviously needed: several candidates and election canvassers were killed during the election period. Sadly, three of the murdered candidates were women, underlining the fact that the active involvement of women in politics in Cambodia demands great courage, as well as determination and commitment. Intimidation was widespread, much of it directed at women candidates.

Following these killings, the NGO Working Group also mounted a peaceful public demonstration to protest the killings. A total of 300 people and 44 NGOs participated in the demonstration.

Success: Women WERE elected!!

The significance of the results must be seen in the context: prior to these elections, there were only ten women in the Commune councils in the entire country - four as village heads, and six as ordinary members.

The unofficial election results compiled by the NGO Working Group showed that women were elected in all 24 provinces covered by the training, from five women elected (Kep province) up to 102 (Battambang province). The majority of successful women were elected as council members. Just under 17 per cent were elected to one of the top three positions in the Commune Councils. The majority of those elected were from the Cambodian Peoples' Party, reflecting the dominance of that party in the overall election result. The following tables show the distribution of women elected by both the level at which they were elected and the Party to which they belong.

Women Elected to Commune/Sangkat Councils
3 February 2002

Level	Number	Provinces electing women at this level	Percentage
Chief of Commune	34	11	3.7
First Deputy Chief of Commune	55	16	5.9
Second Deputy Chief of Commune	73	20	7.8
Member	770	24	82.6
Total	932	24	100

Women Elected to Commune/Sangkat Councils By Party
(Major Parties Only)
3 February 2002

Party	Number	Percentage
Cambodia Peoples' Party	782	84
Sam Rainsy Party	84	9
Funcinpec	65	7
Total	931	100

What next?

Of course, this amazing success is not the end. Rather, it is only the beginning for both women in Cambodia and the women's NGOs. Women for Prosperity and the NGO Working Group are already strategizing to begin the continuing task of empowering women in Cambodia to make a difference in the Commune Councils and to ensure that, as a result of women's active involvement in Commune decision-making, women's needs, concerns and priorities are more effectively addressed.

Note that one of the very practical challenges that now faces the women members and their NGO supporters is to ensure that they have access to an appropriate means of transport to travel around their constituencies and communicate with women in their communities. The Ministry for Women's and Veteran's Affairs and the NGOs are seeking your help to provide the new women councilors with a bicycle.

Dated: 27Feb2002