The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport has begun implementing strict mechanisms to evaluate each national sports federation, to ensure transparency and efficiency in the use of the national budget.

All federations—whether they have previously received funding or not — will be evaluated. The amount of financial support they receive will depend entirely on the results of the evaluations.

Vath Chamroeun, secretary-general of the National Olympic Committee of Cambodia (NOCC), will chair the Committee for Implementing Evaluation Criteria for National Sports Federations.

The committee met on January 20 to discuss evaluation procedures.

“Today, all parties gathered to discuss what procedures should be used to accurately evaluate each federation. Since they receive state funding to carry out their work, this represents a new turning point in the education ministry’s deep reforms of the physical education and sports sector,” said Chamroeun.

Within the physical education and sports sector, the Ministry of Education has issued guidelines on how evaluations should be conducted to reflect the actual performance of each national federation.

The ministry has issued guidelines on how the evaluations will be conducted, noting that they will be based on three main principles.

A review of achievements, with a focus on the results of the 2023 SEA Games, as well as a review of governance, leadership and management. Finally, they will be assessed for the popularity, development and growth of the sport they govern.

“We must examine these three major aspects and evaluate all federations, both those that already receive subsidies and those that do not. They must be re-evaluated to qualify for state support. This is necessary work and represents a new phase — this is the first year we have organised such an in-depth evaluation to ensure fairness in leadership, management and equal treatment,” said Chamroeun.

“Equity means that federations that work harder and achieve better results will receive more support; those with average results will receive average support; and those with lower results will receive less. This is social justice in the field of physical education and sport,” he added.

Education minister Hang Chuon Naron has paid close attention to the process, instructing all relevant institutions to conduct the evaluations responsibly and transparently to avoid disputes in the allocation of funding.

“This is a new achievement for our physical education and sports sector. It helps avoid disputes and injustice in evaluations. We are conducting these assessments based on scientific results, with qualified experts and all relevant departments working together. What we have done this morning shows positive outcomes,” noted Chamroeun.

The evaluation results are expected to be released soon — no later than March — in order to meet urgent financial requirements and establish clear standards for allocating state budgets to national sports federations for their respective development programmes.