Strengthening Civil Society This project is partnership with Cooperation Committee of Cambodia (CCC).
As the GDP of Cambodia is steady at nearly 7% per year the Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC) is determined to continue its path of economic growth. Even if there is progress economically, on the other hand socially there are challenges to the freedom of expression and rights. In recent months, CSOs in Cambodia have felt an increased tightening of their fundamental freedoms by the government. There has been resistance to The Law on Associations and Non-Governmental Organisations (LANGO) which increases the pressure on NGOs to abide by corrupt practices and opens up many new opportunities for authorities to extract resources by finding grounds to fine, extract bribes and close downNGOs. LANGO also increases the pressure on NGOs to allow their projects to be directed by RGC development committees to have more influence over who benefits from NGO projects. Compliance with LANGO would therefore mean that NGOs abide with a system thatentrenches them and other CBOs to register. This is far from  civil societies acting as defenders of democracy and human rights.
The civil societies in Cambodia have beenassisting the communities towards expressing concerns on various development issues and have contributed positively to Cambodia#s development since four decades.
There have been various CSO groups that have provided support to civil society actors in an ad hoc manner. Such support was limited and  accessible by only a small group of actors. This initiative is looking at developing a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of the different needs and existing coping mechanisms of Civil societies and to identify various solutions and a way forward.  This will be achieved through working through and with CCC, cooperation Committee of Cambodia, which is the biggest  umbrella organisation for civil society in Cambodia.  .
Oxfam in Cambodia wishes to take a step back, reflect and take stock of the current situation and launch an organicprocess of preserving fundamental human rights to be owned, managed and executed by Civil Society Organisations. Secondly, it is to increase the preservation of will, space and capacity of Civic space. The recipient of this project can be at individual, institutional or community level. The goal is to analyse existing political-civic context; detect opportunities and assess  existing protection and mitigation mechanisms amongst Civil Societies. The outcome will be a menu of services and actions (both related to their own protection and mitigation as well as related to pro-actively preserve civic space) that can be adopted and taken forward by various institutions as per their requirement and need. It will do so by increasing CSOs capacity to creatively put in place new strategies to reduce exposure and dealing with threats, as well as by providing some options for activities to pro-actively preserve space. The project will also engage with the Oxfam civic space working group and OI regional influencer tomobilize their support to defend the Civil Societies in Cambodia and link and learn with other countries.
All of this will contribute to the outcome of the project of strengthening civil societies  and will outline the basis for a Strengthening Civil Society strategy for 2019-23.
The following activities will be initiated with CSOs in partnership with the Cooperation Committeeof Cambodia (CCC):
# A context analysis of issues related to CS space. This should define the problems in Cambodian context relatedto shrinking space as well as the opportunities and should provide an analysis on the Will, Space and capacity of the CS to counterthis problem. The outcome of the analysis should lead to understanding of root cause for the need of protection mechanisms (PM) of CSOs. This will be disseminated to partners.
# Design a protection mechanism security strategy on building capacity of CSOs on risk awareness, management and mitigation measures. This include scenarios related to threat to staff, partners, individual activists, allies, community members or local leaders.
# A finalised civic space monitoring and measurement tool relevant to Cambodia context that can be implemented by Oxfam, partners and CSO. The existing internal monitoring tool of Oxfam can be used to be made relevant to Cambodian context.
# A strengthening CS piloting plan for 2019 developed, governed and implemented by CSO community for sustainability of this project. This plan will be made based on recommendations from the context analysis, design and monitoring tool material developed from this research. This plan will include elements of protection and mitigation as well as identify activities and strategies to proactively preserve and/or re-open civic space.