Role of Civil Society in Promoting Good Governance

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In addition, in 2015, Cambodia has adopted a law on association and non-governmental organization. The purposes of this law are to determine the formalities to legally recognize associations or non-governmental organizations as well as to establish the relationship between the associations and/or non-governmental organizations and the public authorities for the development of Cambodian society as it stated in article 2 of this law. Moreover, because of civil society participation is recognized as crucial to development, civil society have been invited to engage in the international processes on aid effectiveness, which has recognized the particular strengths of civil society (law association and non government organization, 2015).

- Role of Civil Society in Development of Cambodia

According the history of Cambodia, this country has suffered many tragic events since they gained independent such as civil war and changes in political regimes. After Cambodia could get peace and stability, it is time to think about development. The development of this country really need the active participation of all relevant organizations and institution. Among those, civil society play a vital role in contribution for development, especially related to delivering basic services to capacity building and knowledge transfer, and from humanitarian and disaster response to advocacy work. Civil society are also significant to the representation of marginal communities, the protection of the environment, and the raising of public awareness over such issues as gender, education and health.

The notable role of civil society organization in development is that the civil society can perform a mediating role between individual and state (Sophal, 2013). The citizen can get much benefit from this role because civil society organizations can help to improve the performance of government program because of their individual efforts are organized and made more cohesive. Moreover, civil society organization also play crucial role as agent of social change (trialog, 2013). As Cambodia is a country that follow democracy system as stated in its constitution, role as agent of social become more importantly by helping people and government engage and listening to each other in their daily life as well as election time. According to cooperation committee for Cambodia, the social change can range from support for education and health services that help transform the life of a nation to engagement with more structural elements of social life, such as underlying values and behaviors, good governance, aid and development processes, respect for human rights, management and regulation of the economy, policy coherence for development, and democratization, depending on the social and political context (Flurscheim, 2012). In the role as agent of social change, civil society also make a big contribution in providing information, and grassroots experience to inform decisions and policies; raising public awareness of relevant issues, and people’s right to seek to influence policies. They also help the government in monitoring and give feedback on the policy implementation that might face with some challenges (Bottomley, 2014 ). Another important role of civil society is building social accountability and good governance. Moreover, civil society’s also functional contribution to good governance. In this role civil society can be the watchdog that work against violation of human right and governing deficiencies, the advocate of the weaker sections’ point of view, the agitator on behalf of aggrieved citizens, educator of citizens on their right, entitlement and responsibilities, and the government about the pulse of the people, and the service provider to areas and people not reached by official effort or as government’s agent (DORAISWAMY, 2007).

- Challenges of civil society organization

Civil society organizations have played many significant roles in Cambodian development in both enhancement of the public and private sectors, and particularly in every small area where the government have not noticed. However, these entities have faced wide ranges of challenges internally and externally.

Most NGOs in Cambodia have granted development funds from official donors such as International Organizations and other development partners. However, these funds are decreased from time to time because the situation has improved and it is time for Cambodia to stand and deal with her problems. Consequently, some NGOs have disappeared and replaced by government agencies or private entities to provide public services to Cambodian citizens. In addition, there are withdrawal of aids from development partners which illustrates a pattern of reduced resources for the aided section of civil society that lead to reduction in services provided and cut down labor forces (C, 2010).

Another significant threats for CSOs is that the government have provided contracts to companies in area many NGOs assumed were ring fenced for them such as the expansion of privatization of welfare, health and education. Many private companies have used the image of CSOs in order to receive exemption from tax and other incentives. The cuddly image of ersatz civil society groups and the generation of NGO leaders who have known nothing except relatively straightforward funding have contributed more or less to the withdrawal of aids from donors. Moreover, there is a chronic generational stagnation in many NGO sectors which means that there are many new emerged civil society groups which form up to challenge illegitimate authorities, repressive governments, and abuses of power by governments and private sector. These groups, which use various methods such as social networking, online petitions, direct action and protests, normally are threatened by the authorities. In recent times, some human rights civil societies’ members and activists have been arrested and detained and there is a large pressure from international stage to release all of them but the government still object with the reason of strengthening the rule of law.

Last but not least, the government has drafted the Law on Associations and Non-Governmental Organizations, which could change the current function of CSOs and give government authorities far-reaching power to control the rights of citizens to organize and express themselves. According to this draft law, all CSOs have to register mandatorily with complex and burdensome requirement and restriction of operations of rural grassroots groups, informal networks and associations with limited resources (law association and non government organization, 2015). Many CSOs have complained that this law has violated their rights and many provisions