STAY ENGAGED

The aim of the PCAsia Programme on Parliamentary Diplomacy (PCAsia-PPD) is to strengthen capacity of parliamentary staff to better support the diplomacy work of their respective Parliaments. This training, now in its fourth year as a regional programme unique for the Southeast Asia region, officially opened on 2 May 2022 from the PCAsia Representative Office inside the Cambodian Senate compound. The opening sessions was introduced by PCAsia Executive Director Mr Dararith KIM YEAT, Professor Michel FOUCHER, former French Ambassador and Director of the Programme on Parliamentary Diplomacy, and Mr Xavier NUTTIN, former official of the European Parliament, currently a Senior...

This year is the third time that the Cambodian Parliament is serving as Chair of AIPA. To support the Parliament prepare for what will be the 43rd AIPA General Assembly, PCAsia organised a training on Drafting Techniques for staff from key departments of the General Secretariats of the Senate and National Assembly. The training took place from 21 January to 18 March 2022 with the participation of 17 trainees, including 9 women). During the training, Dr CHHEANG Vannarith, an expert instructor whose expertise is in policy communication helped guide trainees in the methods to draft resolutions, meeting scenarios, meeting reports...

After three weeks, from 24 November to 14 December 2021, the 5th series of the training seminar on “An Overview of the Parliamentary Responsibilities: Strengthening the Institutions” has come to an end. Despite being delivered virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which limited physical interaction among participants and resource persons, the 32 attendees from AIPA Member Parliaments and KPI showed their commitment and interest in learning and sharing experiences about the similarities and diversity of parliamentary practices of various parliaments, including from the French Senate and National Assembly, the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, Canada, the Swedish Parliament, the European Institute...

The 2021 Training Seminar on “An Overview of Parliamentary Responsibilities: Strengthening the Institutions” will be run for four weeks from 24 November to 14 December, hosted by the Parliamentary Centre of Asia (PCAsia) after its successful evolution from the Parliamentary Institute of Cambodia (PIC) earlier this year. On the afternoon of 24 November 2021, the official opening of this training seminar was delivered by H.E. Mrs NGUYEN Tuong Van, Secretary General of the ASEAN Inter Parliamentary Assembly (AIPA). During the first session, there were 32 attendees from participating AIPA Member Parliaments and from King Prajadhipok’s Institute (KPI), with resource persons...

The world’s shared challenges require collective responses, and Parliaments have a decisive role to play. This became evident to all those involved in four-months of online training starting from 05 July to 28 October 2021, the third intake of the PCAsia Programme on Parliamentary Diplomacy (PCAsia-PPD). Fittingly, the main objective of the PCAsia-PPD is to provide trainees with knowledge, skillsets and techniques that will enable them to better support their Parliamentarians in their increasing role in international/foreign affairs. Thirty trainees from AIPA Member Parliaments, including from the AIPA Secretariat, attended the two main parts of the programme. The first part...

The thoughtful and methodical drafting of legislation is crucial to support parliamentary functions, especially the legislation function. This was the key message expressed by the Executive Director of the Parliamentary Centre of Asia (PCAsia) on the afternoon of 22 October 2021. Thus, to contribute to improving the knowledge of parliamentary staff from AIPA Member Parliaments on legislative theory, principles, standards and methods on how to design good legislation and techniques for drafting and reviewing legislation, the Parliamentary Centre of Asia (PCAsia) organized a two-afternoon seminar on “Legislative Drafting Techniques and Procedures: An Overview of Legislative Drafting Work” held on 21...

The Cambodian Parliament will host the 11th Asia-Europe Parliamentary Partnership Meeting (ASEP 11) meeting on 16 November 2021. The Parliament has much work to prepare the necessary documents to support an international meeting of this scale. In response to the Parliament request, the Parliamentary Centre of Asia (PCAsia) has initiated a training on “Drafting techniques to support the 11th ASEP meeting”. Parliamentary staff, who are directly involved in helping to draft the documents to support this meeting were nominated to participate. The training has been conducted once a week from 13 August to 17 September 2021, delivered online. Adopting the...

Parliamentary committees are a vital part of the work of Parliament. They investigate issues and proposed laws in detail so that lawmakers can make well-informed decisions. They play an instrumental role in debating complex issues and scrutinizing the executive, therefore ensuring proper checks and balances. In particular, they examine bills and conduct subject matter studies, review government policies, and analyze how government uses budget funds. Parliamentary staff plays a vital role in the work of parliamentary committees by providing analytical, administrative and technical support to committee members. To contribute to improving the effective support of parliamentary committees, the second version...

PCAsia is honored to be invited as an AIPA Partner to participate in the 42nd General Assembly of AIPA under the presidency of the Legislative Council of Brunei Darussalam. The theme of the 42nd AIPA General Assembly focuses on the contribution of AIPA Member Parliaments to the realisation of ASEAN Community 2025 by improving parliamentary partnership through digital inclusion. Three delegates from PCAsia were registered to join the General Assembly taking place from 23 to 25 August 2021 virtually. Those delegates are Mr. Dararith KIM YEAT, Executive Director; Mrs. Kunthea KONG, Manager of Institutional Development Department; and Mr. Sonya HENG,...

On the morning of 16 July 2021, the signing ceremony for the Memorandum of Understanding between the General Secretariats of the Senate and of the National Assembly of Cambodia and the Parliamentary Centre of Asia (PCAsia) was organized via videoconference and presided over by H.E. Mr OUM Sarith, Secretary General of the Senate, H.E. Mr LENG Penglong, Secretary General of the National Assembly, and Mr KIM-YEAT Dararith, Executive Director of PCAsia. The signing of this MoU builds an official cooperation framework for partnership between the Cambodian Parliament and PCAsia in jointly organising capacity strengthening programmes for Cambodian parliamentary staff on...

The Parliamentary Centre of Asia (PCAsia) organised a regional programme on “Fiscal Analysis Capacity Training (FACT)”, from 12 July 2021 to December 2022.  Sixteen parliamentary staff have been selected to participate in this training programme. The program is funded by Sida and the EU under the Partnership for Accountability and Transparency Programme (PAT). The objectives of the programme are to increase the capacity of parliamentary staff to perform fiscal analysis related tasks, and to increase transparency of public funds in pursuit of the democratic principle of the parliamentary oversight function.  The training programme consists of three training modules, starting from...

The Parliamentary Centre of Asia (PCAsia) has just begun an online Programme on Parliamentary Diplomacy that will run for ten weeks, from 5 July through 10 September, followed by a one-week simulation session in late October 2021. Involved are 30 trainees from AIPA Member Parliaments including staff from the AIPA Secretariat. The programme is being offered by PCAsia, established in early 2021 as the successor of the Parliamentary Institute of Cambodia, founded in 2011, a transition that reflects an expansion of activities with parliaments across ASEAN region and encouraged through a MoU with the ASEAN Inter-parliamentary Assembly (AIPA). PCAsia-PPD’s aim...

The virtual Training Seminar on Parliamentary Responsibilities held its last day and closing ceremony on 6 November 2020. The ceremony was attended by H.E. Mr Srun Dara, Deputy Secretary General of the National Assembly of Cambodia and Her Excellency Mrs Nguyen Tuong Van, AIPA Secretary General. Also participating were resource persons and moderators, along with representatives from ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly (AIPA) Member Parliaments, including Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, AIPA and King Prajadhipok’s Institute. Among the 54 participants attending the five-week training seminar, 48 participants have been awarded a certificate of completion and participation....

This marks a great occasion as the General Secretariat of the Cambodian Senate, in collaboration with the Parliamentary Institute of Cambodia, has launched a two day training seminar on “Management and Leadership”. The workshop was conducted online on 12 and 13 November 2020 and attended by 36 senior management officers of the Senate, among which 10 are women. The objectives of this training workshop are to provide opportunities for the participants to learn and exchange experiences with parliamentary practitioners from the French Senate about experiences and best practices on French institutional reform and on the management of resources. Former Secretary...

The Training seminar for Cambodian parliamentary staff on “The organization of parliamentary committees work” falls directly within the framework of the new relationships established by the Memorandum of Understanding between the Parliamentary Institute of Cambodia (PIC) and the l’Assemblée parlementaire de la Francophonie (APF), signed in Paris, on January 17, 2019, by Mr Dararith Kim-Yeat, Executive Director of PIC witnessed by its President Mr. Oum Sarith, and Mr Jacques Krabal, Secretary General of the APF. This training aims to strengthen the technical capacities of parliamentary officials so that they can provide improved expertise to parliamentarians in the exercise of their...

The Graphics Design Training course organized by the Parliamentary Institute of Cambodia held its closing ceremony on February 3, 2021. Twelve staff from the Information Departments of the Senate and National Assembly of Cambodia who participated in the Training Course received their certificates of completion. The training was in response to the stated needs of Cambodian Parliament to develop the design skills of their staff involved in producing parliamentary communication materials. It was designed to equip them with the basic concepts and principles of graphics design development and production used in various parliamentary communication platforms, using both class room training...

The Parliamentary Institute of Cambodia (PIC) hosted the “Regional Training of Trainers Program”, an online workshop conducted from 30 November to 4 December 2020, delivered in cooperation with the University of Sussex Department of Education. The participants were staff from ASEAN Inter-parliamentary Assembly (AIPA) Member Parliaments, including Myanmar, Cambodia, the Philippines and Thailand, who had previously completed PIC training programs. The five-day training featured the introduction of instructional design theories and models, flipped learning, peer feedback, and a range of activities and group discussions through an E-learning digital platform. The main objectives of the training were to improve the quality...

The Parliamentary Institute of Cambodia (PIC) organized an online training workshop on “Parliamentary Committee Work”, held from 16 to 18 November. The three-day workshop, entitled “Strengthening Parliamentary Staff”, included participants from ASEAN Inter-parliamentary Assembly (AIPA) Member Parliaments, including Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, as well as resource persons from the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. In his opening remarks, the PIC Capacity Development Director Mr John Christopher discussed the key roles of committees in performing the functions of parliament. He highlighted the importance of capacity strengthening in this area, as a valuable addition to PIC’s activities including parliamentary research, parliamentary diplomacy...