Over the past 15 years, our organisation has come a long way, from a small programme established by our international partners to a well known actor playing a leading role in local civil society. We are now active in almost two thirds of Cambodia’s provinces, and we are implementing more than ten projects at any given moment.
Ever since API was established, back in 2003, we have been not only expanding and constantly reviewing our programmes to match the real needs in the field, but we have also paid special attention to the internal development of our organisation. Prompted by our strong belief that our values apply to ourselves first, as well as by the evolving standards of accountability in the international and local NGO sector, we have been striving for more professionalism and for a maximum of integrity, transparency and efficiency in spending our project funds. Our budget has been growing impressively over the years, in spite of fluctuations which are natural for civil society organisations of our size.
Accountability – both to our donors and to our beneficiaries – remains one of our central concerns. Currently, we comply with all the standards of governance and professional practices as they are spelled out in the NGO Code developed by the Cooperation Committee for Cambodia (CCC). Moreover, we implement our projects and manage our budget according to the best international practices in the field, a fact that our international partners regularly acknowledge and that recently contributed to API’s having received the Partnership Award from Care Germany.
We have been able to meet the compliance requirements of diverse donors with different, and sometimes challenging, standards of accountability (EU, USAID, UN agencies, bilateral aid agencies, various INGOs and foundations). We are constantly improving our systems in order to keep pace with all these demands. API’s expenditure is audited twice a year by reputed auditing firms. To date, the audit reports have proven API’s high standard of integrity and accountability.
Strategic Plans have guided our programme development since we established ourselves as an independent actor in Cambodian civil society. Organisational Development and Organisational Impact Assessments have identified strengths, weaknesses and new opportunities for our development. API has long years of experience with the collection and use of data for professional monitoring of the progress and results of our work. Currently, we are working on transitioning from a project-based monitoring system to a consistent organisation-wide, ICT-based system, supported by a Monitoring and Evaluation Manual. As a standard, our multi-year projects are evaluated at least once in the project cycle.
At any given time, our Phnom Penh based team is implementing more than ten projects simultaneously, and we are active in almost two thirds of Cambodia’s provinces. This has obviously created the need to hire new staff, to constantly consolidate and extend our presence at the grass roots level. We are also often looking for consultants to support our more than 20 team members, offering essential expertise.
