Public services are crucial for the Government to implement its strategies and to provide the appropriate services to its citizens. Providing for the basic needs of local communities, the local public service mechanism needs to be enforced to enhance local governance and promote social and economic welfare for the population. In the context of promoting good governance, corruption and systemic bribery in public services have been repeatedly identified as major constraints on Cambodia’s development process. Government, donors and civil society have made concerted efforts to search for optimal strategies to improve Cambodia’s current situation. As a result, some Government institutional reforms have been noticeably successful, especially the decentralization and deconcentration reforms.
This exploratory study was conducted by the Economic Institute of Cambodia (EIC) under the auspices of DANIDA and PACT Cambodia with the objective of finding out where commune level service provision directly affects households’ livelihoods and the current reality of unofficial fees in order to find the best opportunities for institutional reforms.