Challenge statement
Challenge type: If you are working on multiple challenges, please indicate if this is your "big bet" or "exploratory" challenge.
Please note: we ask you to only submit a maximum of 3 challenges - 1x Big Bet, 2x Exploratory. Each challenge must be submitted individually.
EXPLORATORY
Challenge statement: What is your challenge? (Please answer in specific terms: "Our challenge is that...”.)
Our challenge is to explore the characteristics of people who are being left behind in the development intervention in Cambodia, and how the UNDP Country Office, as an accelerator for inclusive development, can support those left-behind groups to take advantage of the development opportunities.
The Cambodian Sustainable Development Goals (CSDGs) place emphasis on leaving no one behind so that all Cambodians can enjoy the benefits of the country’s future development and prosperity. For this to happen, it is therefore important to understand who exactly is being excluded and discriminated against with regards to the distribution of the socio-economic and human development benefits, as well as the reasons why they are excluded or discriminated. This will allow for the designing of appropriate interventions to overcome the barriers to inclusion and ensure the inclusion of the most vulnerable and poor individuals. This study aims to understand the meaning of Leaving No One Behind (LNOB) in Cambodia and to suggest entry points of intervention and actionable program recommendations for the UNDP and the UN system in Cambodia.
Background: What is the history of your challenge? What is causing or driving it? Who is involved? How does the current situation look like? What undesired effects does it produce?
All United Nations member states commit to alleviating poverty in all its forms, ending discrimination and exclusion, and reducing the inequalities and vulnerabilities that leave people behind and undermine the potential of individuals and of humanity. As a result, the United Nations system has brought Leaving No One Behind (LNOB) pledge as the core of its programming. LNOB is the fundamental promise of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its goals (SDGs) which took a practical approach to all its goals to ensure no one will be left behind, and those who are the furthest behind will be reached first and become the focus of policymaking.
Despite Cambodia's progress in terms of overall development, certain groups within the population continue to be left behind, trapped in poverty and exclusion. Addressing these disparities requires a comprehensive approach that tackles economic inequality, bridges the rural-urban divide, empowers marginalized communities, promotes gender equality, and establishes robust social protection systems. Only through inclusive and equitable development strategies can Cambodia ensure that the benefits of progress reach all segments of society, ultimately fostering sustainable and holistic development for the entire nation.
Quantitative evidence: What (official) data sources do you have on this challenge that better exemplifies the importance and urgency of this frontier challenge? You can add text, a link, or a picture.
The UNDP Strategic Plan 2022-2025 fully elevates LNOB as one of the key components under its three “directions of change”. It defines LNOB as “a rights-based approach centred on empowerment, inclusion, equity, human agency and human development capabilities which recognizes that poverty and inequality are multidimensional.” This definition indicates that LNOB is closely linked to poverty and inequality, while also having a cross-cutting character.
The 2018 discussion paper “What Does it Mean to Leave No One Behind?” coined five factors that intersect to produce disadvantage and deprivation. At the intersection of factors, people face multiple, reinforcing sources of deprivation and inequalities, making them more likely to be left behind based on the UNDP Five-Factor Framework for LNOB as follows:
1. Discrimination: on the basis of assumed or ascribed identity or status;
2. Geography: isolation, risk or exclusion due to location, includes environmental degradation, transport, technology;
3. Vulnerability to shocks: include natural disasters, conflict, and economic shocks;
4. Governance: laws, policies, institutions, voice and participation (including informal and traditional governing systems);
5. Socio-economic status: multidimensional poverty, inequalities.
Qualitative evidence: What weak signals have you recently spotted that characterizes its urgency? Please provide qualitative information that better exemplifies the importance and urgency of this frontier challenge. You can add text, a link, or a picture.
Some United Nations agencies in Cambodia recently conducted LNOB studies, with a focus on specific areas. For instance, the UNESCAP has been working on the LNOB analysis focusing on five main areas, namely basic resources, child and family planning, education, finance and violence against women, providing analysis with specific key indicators. The LNOB and inclusion analysis conducted by the World Food Programme (WFP) concentrated on uncovering intersecting vulnerabilities and risk in the area of food security and nutrition. The study found four groups of LNOB comprising of (1) core lifecycle groups: women, persons with chronic illness, and persons with disabilities (2) work-based vulnerabilities: unpaid caregivers and garment workers, (3) Location-based vulnerabilities: rural poor, those living in flood-prone areas and urban poor, and (4) identity-based discrimination: LGBT community, indigenous, refugees or migrants, religious minorities, and the poor with no access to social protection.
Value proposition: What added value or unique value proposition is your Accelerator Lab bringing to solving this challenge? Why is it your Lab that needs to work on this challenge and not other actors within UNDP, other stakeholders in the country respectively? Why is it worth investing resources to this challenge?
Accelerator Lab can bring value added in the efforts for inclusive development by defining and categorizing groups of people in vulnerable situations that are being left behind.
Despite the effort to unpack the issues facing the most vulnerable segments of Cambodian society, there is still limited understanding of who is considered left behind and why, especially when considering the multidimensional and intersectional nature of being excluded from development interventions. The UNDP will therefore conduct this study to develop a more systemic and holistic understanding that will help close the LNOB gaps in the country development. This study of LNOB will also contribute to the preparation and implementation of the new Country Programme Document (CPD) of the UNDP. It will as well help fill out the research gaps on LNOB and inform other UN agencies and various development organizations to take the systemic and inclusive interventions and actions to ensure those left furthest behind will be included in the developmental progress of the country.
Short “tweet” summary: We would like to tweet what you are working on, can you summarize your challenge in a maximum of 280 characters?
Who are the most vulnerable and excluded in Cambodia? How can we ensure that no one is left behind in the pursuit of sustainable development? Join the UNDP Cambodia Accelerator Lab as they explore these questions and co-create innovative solutions.
Learning questions
Learning question: What is your learning question for this challenge? What do you need to know or understand to work on your challenge statement?
1. Who are left-behind groups within development interventions in Cambodia? Why are they being left behind (looking at root causes, underlying structures, and mental models)?
2. Who are left-behind groups that the programme priorities of UNDP Cambodia should address? What are the intersecting characteristics of those prioritized left-behind groups?
3. In line with the programme priorities of UNDP Cambodia, what are strategic interventions that can ensure the inclusion of those who are being left behind? What are policy recommendations for development interventions of different actors in Cambodia?
To what stage(s) in the learning cycle does your learning question relate?
Sense, Explore, Test
Usage of methods: Relating to your choice above, how will you use your methods & tools for this learning question? What value do these add in answering your learning question?
Systems thinking approach, particularly the iceberg model, will be used to identify underlying structure and mental model that underpin the exclusion of certain groups from benefiting from the development intervention. Ethnography/participatory research will be used to define the characteristics and intersectionality of the left-behind group, while horizon scanning will be used to scan for signals that may positively or negatively impact the target groups and their exclusion. Mapping, through e.g., Geographical Information System, will be used to overlay different layers of data to unpack the geographical characteristic of being excluded and how it links to other characteristics of exclusion.
Existing data gaps: Relating to your choice above, what existing gaps in data or information do these new sources of data addressing? What value do these add in answering your learning question?
Disaggregated data for different groups considered to be left behind: the new data sources will allow us to define intersectionality and identify geographical and socioeconomic characteristic of the left-behind groups.
9Industry, innovation and infrastructure
10Reduced innequalities
17Partnerships for the goals
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