Cambodia and Safe Drinking Water

Cambodia and Safe Drinking Water Issue

Cambodia is a flat land country, and about 86% of the territory (182,035 Km²) is filled by water from Mekong River and rain every year, especially during the wet season. The inflow of Mekong River alone, the total amount of water estimated to be 610 billion m³. Despite that, because Cambodia does not manage the water well for agriculture and use, the access to safe potable water is still low compared with the neighboring countries. Only 34 percent of the total population could get access to safe drinking water.


Problem

According to the Demographic Health Survey 2000 show that 54% of poor remote households relied on pump or well, not ground water, for their water supply. Among these, only 23.7% of households have a safe drinking water, compared with 60% of urban households.
In Cambodia, the infant mortality rate & children under five mortality rates are relatively high; 98 and 143 per 1,000 live births respectively. These figures seemed to be the highest in the region compared to Lao = 62 & 79, Viet Nam = 16 & 19, and Thailand = 18 & 21, according to the UNDP report 2007. Diarrhea, dysentery and other entero-gastric diseases are very high among inpatient care across the country, and these diseases are believed to be the main cause of death, especially in children. Among the top ten of main health problems in inpatient care, diarrhea & dysentery accounted for 3.71% & 1.33% respectively. Unsafe drinking water and poor sanitation claim to be the reason for this.

Solutions

Rural water supply is a big concern for the Cambodian government to find way to solve it. Solving this problem will improve both - an irrigation system for agriculture and an access to safe drinking water for good health of the people. Water supply and sanitation policy framework have been established, which will focus on financial autonomy, tariff adjustment to initiate cost recovery, private sector participation, donor coordination, water allocation, and regularity responsibilities, according to the national poverty reduction strategy (2003 – 2005). Further enhancement to allow the utilization of autonomy finance through maintaining and investing program will be provided to the rural poor. Other than the allocation of government budget, donor supports will focus on activity participation of the local beneficiaries.

Leadership

Leadership plays extremely important role in providing safe drinking water to the people. Water supply in Phnom Penh, capital city of Cambodia, is a case in point. It is hard to believe that in such a short period of time after the prolonged war destroying basic infrastructures and the rapid urbanization, Phnom Penh people could drink safe water even from the tap. Largely this attributes to the efforts and commitment of Mr. Ek Sonn Chan, Director of Phnom Penh Water Supply Authority (PPWSA), who came to his office in 1993. After resuming his office, he discovered many challenges and issues regarding water supply management in Phnom Penh. He said “It was bureaucratic and it was full of incompetence staffers,” “I fired many staff and my friends told me that I would be assassinated”. He has transformed PPWSA into model public water utility in Asia, for which he has been awarded the 2006 Ramon Magsaysay Award – the Asian equivalent of the Nobel Prize – and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has hailed him as a “water champion”.

Water Financing

Water financing and subsidies are necessary to improve access to clean water in rural area. I come from a small district in Cambodia, which had suffered for a long time from the lack of safe drinking water especially in the dry season. My family and others tried to dig small wells close to the river to get clean water. We struggled to get just drops of safe drinking water. We woke up early in the morning to compete to get drinking water. Such competition created some conflicts among the villagers. But now the situation is much better. We could get access to "machine water" as we call it from the local private company. Although the price is still expensive comparing with our living standard it helps us to a great extend. The water related diseases have been reduced and we no longer need to compete for the drops of drinking water. From this experience, I think the private sector plays an important role in providing safe drinking water to the local rural people. But it should have some kinds of subsidies and financial support from the government and international donor agencies to help those small private companies and reduce price.