In “Cambodia’s NGO Sector Is Collapsing. Does It Matter?”, Louise Coventry asks an uncomfortable but necessary question: is Cambodia’s NGO sector worth saving? She challenges the assumption that a large number of registered organisations necessarily indicates a strong civil society, arguing that international donors imported an NGO model that has often displaced rather than strengthened locally rooted forms of political organising.
Coventry’s provocation deserves serious consideration. Preserving the sector unchanged is not the answer, and discussions on rethinking civil society are underway.
But the question is not simply which organisations should be saved. It is which essential civic functions must endure. And if international partners helped shape this sector, they share responsibility for how its transition is financed.
How Cambodia’s civil society landscape evolved
Cambodia’s contemporary NGO landscape emerged under exceptional circumstances. After decades of conflict and the devastation of the Khmer Rouge period, international assistance expanded rapidly around the 1993 UN-sponsored elections. Public institutions and community structures were recovering from profound destruction. The Buddhist Sangha, pagoda committees and other local civic actors were also rebuilding. International and, increasingly, Cambodian NGOs became important channels for service delivery and development assistance.
The circumstances of that period matter, but they do not resolve Coventry’s argument. The more pertinent question is what happened in the two decades since the mid-2000s, as Cambodian organisations developed and new forms of community-based organising emerged. Research has questioned whether donor investment sufficiently strengthened civil society at the national level, while also documenting grassroots activism beyond the formal NGO sector. The claim that NGOs simply supplanted local organising deserves closer examination: which forms of collective action were displaced, which were supported, and which developed alongside the NGO sector?
The NGO landscape and its funding relationships evolved together. Donor priorities, grant conditions, project cycles and reporting requirements shaped which activities and organisational forms received support. Organisations learned to navigate competing expectations from donors, government and communities, sometimes at the expense of their connections with the people they served. At the same time, localisation helped build Cambodian expertise, professional networks and organisations working on human rights, environmental protection, gender equality, research and community development. International cooperation contributed to these capacities, while also shaping the incentives under which they developed.
That legacy deserves critical reflection, not wholesale dismissal
Finance the transition, not just programmes and projects
Coventry is sceptical that local philanthropy, social enterprise, blended finance, shared infrastructure or mergers can sustain the existing sector. She is right that none of these options is universally viable and that contraction is likely. There is nothing inherently wrong with sharing office space, transport resources, accounting or legal support, or pooling translation services and equipment for conferences and events. But different organisations and civic functions will require different paths forward.
For some service-oriented organisations, diversifying income, sharing resources or developing social enterprise and hybrid models may be realistic. International partners can support organisational development, financial planning and change management, while also advocating for enabling government policies. Where alternative income can sustain service delivery, it may reduce competition for scarce international funding, freeing up resources for civic functions that cannot readily be financed through commercial activity or domestic philanthropy.
That distinction matters. Cambodia has a strong culture of generosity, including giving associated with Buddhist merit making and community obligation. Yet such giving may not readily be made available for organisations documenting rights violations or advocating politically sensitive change. Fundraising support alone will not resolve this gap, and domestic resources also need to reach a broader range of public-interest work.
Cambodia is scheduled to graduate from Least Developed Country status on 19 December 2029. This milestone should not become an arbitrary deadline for civil society to achieve financial independence. Independent civil rights monitoring, environmental scrutiny, feminist advocacy and the defence of Indigenous Peoples’ rights generate public value that cannot be measured by revenue. For organisations whose purpose depends on independence, flexible multi-year core funding can be a precondition for their work to continue. Transition funding must not become a euphemism for withdrawal before viable alternatives exist.
The human capacity at stake
More than three decades of international cooperation have helped build generations of Cambodian professionals with expertise in human rights, environmental protection, gender equality, research, journalism and public policy. Their movement into government, universities and other sectors can be positive as this expertise is a national asset and should contribute to Cambodia’s future across institutions.
But what happens when organisations close or can no longer offer a viable future? The consequences extend beyond lost jobs. Institutional memory, field experience, community trust and professional networks may disperse with the people who have sustained them. Much of this capacity is built through relationships and accumulated experience.
Coventry suggests that knowledge and human resources accumulated by NGOs might be transferred to government organised NGOs (GONGOs) or public institutions. There is a reasonable argument for the movement of civil society professionals into public service. Their rights-based knowledge, research experience and community relationships can enrich institutions, and expertise should not be locked inside a shrinking sector.
Technical knowledge may travel while the freedom to use it for independent scrutiny does not.
Where institutions operate under political direction or constraints, the role that expertise can play may change. Individual career moves can be entirely constructive. The wider concern is what happens if independent monitoring capacity is steadily absorbed into structures that cannot perform the same function.
The political economy of absorption
A further risk for donors to consider is that this absorption could become a vehicle for political and economic co-optation. The movement of former NGO leaders and professionals into government positions may coincide with the emergence of new or reconstituted organisations with privileged access to administrative networks. In a context where large donor-funded programmes continue to require local implementation partners and service providers, political and institutional connections may become a means of securing contracts and channeling resources to organisations whose formal independence may no longer reflect their actual relationships or interests. Such arrangements could turn access to development funding into a new business model, built on political connections and patronage, blurring the boundaries between public authority, organisational interests and private benefit, and creating risks of patronage, rent-seeking and corruption. This is not an argument against professional mobility or cooperation with public institutions, nor does it imply that every government-aligned organisation is a GONGO.
Such arrangements could turn access to development funding into a new business model built on political connections and patronage.
The transition must address more than the destination of staff and resources. Documenting methods, archiving research, preserving institutional memory and maintaining links between professional networks can help make accumulated experience available to future civic actors. Development partners should establish monitoring mechanisms and pay attention to where expertise goes, whether independent networks remain connected, and whether younger generations can still see civil society as a viable place to work or volunteer. This will not happen automatically. It requires deliberate planning and sustained support.
NGO deregistration and the question of intent
Coventry’s suggestion that the government deliberately makes deregistration difficult in order to maintain the appearance of a large NGO sector is not sufficiently substantiated. Cambodia’s NGO Law (LANGO, Articles 26 and 27) provides for the voluntary suspension and closure of domestic and foreign NGOs, although the practical process involves several administrative steps and can be complicated, particularly where tax clearance is concerned. At an August 2025 meeting with INGOs on registration, compliance and visa procedures, the Cambodian Foreign Ministry (MoFAIC) representatives themselves raised the problem that organisations often cease operating without formally notifying the authorities or completing deregistration, making it difficult for the Ministry to establish how many organisations are actually functioning. This is consistent with incomplete administrative records, but it does not, by itself, establish a government strategy to preserve inflated NGO figures.
Whatever the explanation for the discrepancy, the number of registered NGOs is not in itself a measure of the strength or independence of civil society. The more consequential question is what happens to the civic functions these organisations perform, and whether other actors can sustain them.
Which civic functions must endure?
The disappearance of NGOs should not be mistaken for the emergence of stronger alternatives. Community based care and collective action are essential, yet they cannot automatically replace the services provided by larger organisations or the independent scrutiny of power. Human rights monitoring, environmental watchdog work and advocacy against abuses, including efforts to challenge impunity in cases of gender based violence, serve functions that other actors cannot simply be expected to take on. This distinction matters especially in Cambodia, where restrictions on civic space already make such work difficult.
Indigenous organisations, feminist groups, environmental advocates, independent researchers and human rights defenders need the resources and institutional capacity to continue their work. International scrutiny cannot substitute for local agency, but neither should responsibility for defending rights fall entirely on local organisations operating under increasingly difficult conditions.
Donors must therefore look beyond the technical capacity of organisations to deliver funded activities and ask whether they retain the autonomy to perform independent civic functions. Sustained, flexible support remains important, alongside appropriate international monitoring and accountability mechanisms.
Conclusion
Cambodia’s civil society needs to change. Some organisations will diversify, consolidate or transform, and many will close. New actors, networks and forms of collective action may emerge. Neither the existing NGO sector nor its funding model should be treated as an end in itself.
What matters is not whether organisations learn to survive with less. Can communities still organise? Can rights be defended and public decisions scrutinised? Will independent evidence and uncomfortable questions remain part of public life?
International partners helped shape Cambodia’s NGO landscape. Their responsibility now is to support viable alternatives where possible, sustain financing where independence is essential, and help preserve the civic space in which locally rooted collective action can develop. This also requires transparent allocation of implementation opportunities and safeguards against funding arrangements that reinforce patronage rather than independent civic work.
Success should not be measured by how quickly international funding can be withdrawn, but by whether what has been built over decades can contribute to Cambodia’s future without sacrificing the independent voices, relationships and accountability functions on which pluralism and accountable governance depend.
Success should not be measured by how quickly international funding can be withdrawn.