(as prepared for delivery)

• His Excellency Vong Sauth, Minister, Ministry of Social Affairs, Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation
• TBD, Save the Children
• TBD, European Union
• Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen

On behalf of the donors engaged in Family Care First REACT including the European Union, UNICEF, and Save the Children Hong Kong – I would like to welcome all of you.

Our congratulations to the Ministry of Social Affairs, Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation for overseeing the development of the Guidelines on Basic Competencies for Social Workforce in Cambodia. We would like to thank them for their endorsement and for the official launch today.

These guidelines are an important step forward for Cambodia to ensure high quality social work is practiced throughout the country. This is particularly important to ensure that children are in safe, nurturing family-based care.

We would like to express our appreciation of the efforts of the Ministry’s technical team over the past three years to ensure that these guidelines are of a high standard, are appropriate for Cambodia, and have incorporated lessons from around the region.

We would also like to recognize the high level of collaboration that has occurred to develop and finalize these guidelines. This includes the partnerships between the Ministry, UNICEF, international, and national NGOs with particular recognition of Hagar, First Step Cambodia, and Save the Children who have played significant roles in their development. This collaboration provides a great example of how we can work together to achieve excellent outcomes for the Cambodian people.

On behalf of USAID, the EU, UNICEF, and Save the Children Hong Kong I would like to recognize the importance of these guidelines in strengthening Cambodia’s child protection system to better support vulnerable children and families.

This launch is just the beginning of the journey. The key to ensuring their impact is successful implementation. USAID is happy to support the Ministry’s upcoming exposure visit to the Philippines. This technical exchange will provide insight and lessons learned regarding the implementation of similar guidelines. We look forward to these lessons being incorporated in the official roll out of the Guidelines on Basic Competencies for Social Workforce in Cambodia.

Thank you to everyone for being here today and showing your support to these important guidelines and the positive impact they will have on Cambodian children and families.