Project News

The Final Evaluation Team dispatched from JICA conducted an evaluation on the Legal and Judicial Project Phase 3 from 22nd August to 2nd September. JICA operates "mid-term review" and "final evaluation" for ongoing projects. Generally, final evaluation is conducted 6 months prior to termination of the project. In final evaluation, a team confirms progress of project(s) and evaluates whether the project purpose can be achieved or not, and proposes the better operation by the end of the project if necessary.

In this final evaluation, the team interviewed and discussed with the committee members, Japanese long-term experts and relevant donors, and organized the information from interviews and discussions. Based on the information, the team discussed on the progress of this project again with the Secretaries of State in the Ministry of Justice (His Excellency Hy Sophia and Her Excellency Chan Sotheavy) and finalized a Minutes of Meeting (M/M). On 2nd September, the M/M was signed by His Excellency Ang Vong Vathana, Minister of Justice and Ms. Kyoko Kuwajima, Head of the team, Director General of Industrial Development and Public Policy Department in JICA.

The outputs of our project confirmed in the final evaluation team are as follows. As for the assisting for draft, different from the Phase 1 and 2, the policy for drafting dramatically changed in this phase. That is, JICA and the Ministry of Justice of Cambodia made a decision that officials in the Ministry of Justice should make first draft of law and regulations. This was a quite challenging and thus the officials objected to it at first. However, the officials have got accustomed to it gradually and they conducted leading part in drafting now. In addition, the drafting speed has been improved so much and the contents of drafting have been more sophisticated too. This is an important output of this phase. Especially, regulations on registration which are under drafting in the project are indispensable system for implementation of Civil Code. These regulations are also directly related to the foreign investment and thus the completion of these regulations is strongly desired by relevant countries as well as Cambodian side.

In addition, regarding the training human resources, Japanese long-term experts train the human resources for the future dissemination of Civil Code. Their knowledge has been improved to be able to disseminate Civil Code to relevant institutions and ministries in the future.

As is seen in these outputs, the team, upon subsequent surveys and discussions, states in the M/M that, without extension of project period, the project purpose is expected to be achieved, with the continuous efforts by the Cambodian side. Moreover, the team also offered several recommendations to improve ongoing progress of the project activities. The officials of the Ministry of Justice of Cambodia and long-term experts of the project will consult and work together.

We believe that assisting for draft and training human resources are both indispensable operations in the Legal and Judicial Development Project. It is challenging for us to maintain both activities, but we make special effort to support them until the end of this project.