CWS: 'Clean Water Scarce in Rural Cambodia'

["Lesley Crosson" <lcrosson@churchworldservice.org>]

Church World Service
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
 
 
 
Water as human right hasn’t reached rural Cambodia, CWS tells Geneva 
consultation
 
GENEVA, Switzerland –Sept. 17, 2010 -- Cambodia has made strides over 
the past two decades in providing clean water and sanitation to its 
urban areas. But those gains have yet to reach the majority of rural 
Cambodians, according to Cambodian humanitarian agency water program 
specialist Mao Sophal. 
 
Sophal, senior staff member for Church World Service Cambodia, spoke 
on the issue of affordability of clean water and sanitation for 
Cambodia’s poorest, during a consultation earlier this week in Geneva 
between international civil society representatives and Catarina de 
Albuquerque, United Nations independent expert on issues of access to 
safe drinking water and sanitation as a human right. 
 
Sophal and Agneta Dau Valler, Country Representative for CWS Vietnam 
and Cambodia, attended the consultation after last week’s World Water 
Week summit in Sweden, where this year’s Stockholm Industry Water 
Award was given to the Phnom Penh Water Supply authority for its 
achievement in providing water to nearly 90% of the city’s 
population. 
 
“We applaud Cambodia’s advances in making clean water accessible to 
so many more people in Phnom Penh,” said Dau Valler. “However, the 
situation is still completely different in the countryside.”
 
In rural Cambodia -- where 80 percent of the country’s population 
resides -- UNICEF estimates that only 16 percent of people have 
access to adequate sanitation and 65 percent to safe water. 
 
The overall lack of clean water and sanitation is costing Cambodia 
around half a billion dollars every year in poor health and loss of 
tourism.
 
But for clean water and sanitation to become a reality for all in 
Cambodia and the rest of the world’s poorest countries, water and 
sanitation infrastructure and management also have to be accessible 
and affordable to all, says CWS’s Sophal. 
 
“There also has to be equal focus on civil society’s advocacy at 
government and world body levels and cooperative engagement with 
local and regional authorities,” she said. 
 
Sophal was one of 19 civil society panelists from developing 
countries and from the U.S. selected from some 50 applicants to 
present at the Geneva consultation, based on their responses to de 
Albuquerque’s questionnaire on good practices in water, sanitation 
and human rights programs.  
 
In her presentation, Sophal said that CWS has focused its sustainable 
development work in rural Cambodia in great part to align with the 
country’s stated rural water and sanitation strategy—that, by 2025, 
every person in rural communities will have “sustained access to safe 
water supply and sanitation services” and will be living in “a 
hygienic environment.”
 
Specifically, CWS aims to help the “poorest of the poor” in rural 
Cambodia.
 
To realize that goal, CWS had to develop a valid, consistent and 
inclusive method of “ranking wealth” among residents, so communities 
can identify who will receive clean water and sanitation facilities 
and training in the villages CWS serves in Svay Rieng, Kompong Thom 
and remote Preah Vihear Provinces. 
 
Mao said the agency’s team follows the humanitarian “do no harm” 
approach, with a participatory appraisal process in each village that 
engages district and provincial authorities, village chiefs, commune 
development leaders and water user groups to establish their own 
criteria to identify residents as “poorest of the poor,” “poor” or 
“better-off poor.” 
 
In one village, “better-off poor” families may be identified as 
having a wooden house with a zinc roof, a certain number of draft and 
livestock animals, a small amount of land, agricultural income 
sources, and just enough food to make it through the year, and 
“poorest of the poor” families as having no draft or livestock 
animals beyond a few poultry, no land, no income source beyond their 
own labor, living in a tiny cabin, and insufficient food seven to ten 
months of the year.
 
Families selected for assistance receive priority facilities such as 
upgraded wells, latrines, or bio-sand water filters for safe drinking 
water.
 
To promote ownership, CWS said the Cambodian beneficiaries contribute 
labor and resources as possible and appropriate to their situations.  
The program also provides water and sanitation resources for health 
centers, commune offices and primary schools.
 
Sophal said the CWS approach requires a lot of NGO staff time and 
energy, but the benefits have been significant. Communities served 
now experience less water-borne disease, rarely have diarrhea, and 
households, schools and community centers have improved sanitation 
and hygiene. With community guidance, households are assisted in 
growing and maintaining productive home gardens for better food 
supply and income-generation.
 
She said the process promotes the human right to water and sanitation 
among community members and authorities, promotes community 
solidarity, accountability and honesty, and empowers women in 
decision-making.
 
On July 28, the UN General Assembly approved an historic non-binding 
resolution recognizing "the right to safe and clean drinking water 
and sanitation as a human right.”  On Monday, de Albuquerque told the 
Geneva civil society gathering that her mandate from the UN is to 
clarify the content of human rights obligations related to access to 
safe drinking water and sanitation and to make recommendations that 
could help reach Millennium Development Goals, particularly the goal 
relating to safe water and sanitation. 
 
The UN water expert has held related consultations with governments, 
private sector leaders and other stakeholders. 
 
Worldwide, an estimated 884 million people lack access to safe 
drinking water, more than 2.6 billion people do not have access to 
basic sanitation, and some 1.5 million children under the age of five 
die each year from water- and sanitation-related diseases. 
 
Media Contacts
Lesley Crosson, (212) 870-2676, media@churchworldservice.org
Jan Dragin - 24/7 - (781) 925-1526, jdragin@gis.net