Cambodia's recent turbulent history left the country without much of the basic infrastructure that is necessary both for development and for the most rudimentary functions of a modern society. As well, after years of civil war, the country was left with little administrative structure at the village level. The United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) believes that sustained peace in Cambodia can come only through equitable development to raise the standard of living for all citizens by strengthening the bonds between civil society and the State and by empowering rural Cambodians to participate fully in the development process.

In many developing countries UNCDF programmes serve as a catalyst to bring together the three dimensions of effective local development: local government, civil society and private enterprise. Through its Local Development Funds (LDFs), UNCDF facilitates the transfer of a fixed amount of resources to these local governments and communities; then provides the necessary development planning tools to help them to prioritize their needs, implement projects and then monitor and evaluate results. In Cambodia, through a participatory process that listens to the communities' needs, a dynamic and pioneering UNCDF programme assisted a number of projects that succeeded in generating greater economic and social development and improve the quality of life for rural people.

The SEILA/CARERE/LDF project has been called "an experiment in decentralized planning and financing of participatory rural development." It was an experiment in restructuring local government institutions, building their capacity, and furthering civil society, while at the same time building infrastructure. It is also a participatory planning process. The Local Development Fund is an important component of the overall project and provides resources for implementation. The project was a partnership between government (SEILA), CARERE (a project of UNDP), and the Local Development Fund supported by UNCDF and other donors. SEILA is a Royal Government inter-ministerial task force that oversees the project in the five provinces of Battambang, Banteay Meanchey, Siem Reap, Pursat and Ratanakiri. These five provincial government administrations implemented the project, while CARERE was the catalyst that propeled the programme forward through training, technical support, and management advisory services.

In short, the project combined a bottom-up/top-down relationship between local government at the base and provincial government at the top. The tangible outputs of the project were rural infrastructure sub-projects, made possible through donor money directed to the Local Development Fund. A participatory Local Planning Process is the connecting thread between outputs and the institutions that implement them.

This impact and success of this programme was evaluated in 2001. Both the full evaluation and a summary are available in the menu.