Cambodian NGO Officers Train in Climate Change Advocacy

By Soy Sophea

About 20 NGO officers gathered in a four-day workshop on climate change advocacy, which was conducted and sponsored by DanChurchAid (DCA) and Christian Aid (CA). The workshop took place April 21-24 at the Cambodiana Hotel in Phnom Penh.

Jeff Rutherford, a trainer in the workshop, said that the workshop is very important for Cambodian NGO officers to understand more about the issues surrounding climate change. He said that through the workshop, they learned advocacy skills that will equip them to influence policy makers and share information with local and international media on Cambodia’s climate change. Rutherford said the issue is very important for people living in developing nations like Cambodia.

“This workshop introduces trainees to advocacy strategies on climate change,” he said.
The first day of the seminar focused on the relevance of climate change, focusing on an overview of the science behind the issue, how humans are responding to it and what it means to the trainees’ work. The second day focused on institutions and the ways states, businesses, civil society and communities are addressing climate change, with an emphasis on the UN negotiation process. During the third day, participants talked about potential of climate change initiatives by discussing what people are doing different scales to mitigate or adapt to climate change and what else people can do. On the last day they discussed about taking action and revealed details for the development of concrete action plans for organizations to deal with climate change.

Overall, the workshop aimed to build the officer’s background knowledge and understanding of climate change in order to advocate and lobby the government to take more action, said Sam Pagna, DCA’s program assistant.

“I believe they will have more capacity to deal with the government’s policy,” she said.
Hep Sokhannaro, a trainee and researcher from the NGO Forum on Cambodia, said climate change is something beyond his understanding. It is related to justice and human rights as Cambodia produces less carbon than more powerful countries because Cambodia is in a developing countries group and not destroyed climate as China and United States of America.
He promised to share the knowledge he gained from the seminar with the Cambodian community to give them more detailed explanations on the issue.

“I want Cambodian people to get involved in climate changes because it is a global concern,” Sokhannaro said. “At the very least, we can ask them to reduce their chemical fertilizers in cultivation and not to have further forest clearance.”

Khim Sarin, trainee and program manager at Development and Partnership in Action, works with Cambodian farmers and said they lack education about agriculture technology. Although the farmers know about normal weather changes, such as the rainy and dry seasons, they are not informed about climate change. He said that NGO officers will take the opportunity to raise these concerns to ordinary people as it is related to their daily farming activities.

“I think that we need more time to educate people to get to know and be involved with global concerns,” Sarin said.