Project Management

The Biodiversity and Protected Areas Management Project is implemented by the Ministry of Environment, managed from a Project Liaison Office which is located at the Ministry of Environment in Phnom Penh, and supported by individual consultants who are hired as advisors.

The project has been financed through an International Development Association Learning and Innovation Credit from the World Bank, a grant from the Global Environment Facility Trust Fund and counterpart funding from the Royal Government of Cambodia. The project, which was originally planned for a 4-year period, was extended for two years at the end of 2003, for one more year at the end of 2005, and for a final one year period at the end of 2006.

The need for an extension of the original 4-year implementation period was necessary due to a slow project start-up, the complex project design and the implementation of additional key activities, difficult field conditions in Virachey National Park, operational constraints with procurement and recruitment of consultants, and staff leaving the project. Furthermore, capacity building in nature conservation is a slow process, particularly given the very limited conservation expertise in Cambodia at the start of BPAMP.

A comprehensive overview of the project's achievements until the end of 2006 can be downloaded by clicking here.

The legal project documents were signed on 07 March 2000, and by June 2000 the project infrastructure was set up and implementation could start. The recruitment of consultants started very slowly, and it took until the end of 2002 before a core team of advisors was in place.

Systematic planning, monitoring and evaluation started with a project cycle management training and an annual operations planning workshop in late 2002. The experience made with planning and evaluation since then has led to the development of standardised formats for annual operations and budget plans, evaluation and reporting. An Annual Operations and Budget Planning and Monitoring & Evaluation Manual has been produced as a contribution the tool kit for protected area management.

Overall support to capacity building for project and Ministry of Environment staff has been provided through on-the-job training, organisation of training courses, financing of trainings, and through financing of the participation in key conservation events. These include the World Parks Congress in Durban (South Africa) in 2003, the 7th Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) in 2004, the World Conservation Congress in Bangkok (Thailand) in 2004, the 10th meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Bangkok (Thailand) in 2005, the 1st meeting of the Ad Hoc Open-ended Working Group on Protected Areas in Montecatini (Italy) in 2005, and the 8th Conference of Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity in Curitiba, Brazil.