In Cambodia, Partners for Development has often been known as “angkaa teuk sa’at,” the "clean water organization” because water and sanitation have been core aspects of PFD's work there for over a decade. Over the course of several projects, PFD worked in the isolated and underserved northeast region to improve rural access to safe water and sanitation in a country where less than 30% of the rural population has access to safe water and less than 10% to adequate sanitation.
PROGRAM FOCUS
Seeking to increase access and to improve health outcomes, PFD’s water and sanitation efforts have operated simultaneously on three fronts:
- Demand-responsive rural infrastructure programs with high levels of community participation and ownership;
- Community awareness and behavior change activities focusing on water use and hygiene, including school health education activities targeting children;
- Capacity building at the local and national government levels, including support for the development of effective new national policies on rural water supply and sanitation and drinking water quality.
Water and sanitation programs are integrated with PFD’s activities in health, nutrition, and food security as each sector complements and reinforces the priorities of the other. Integration also magnifies success and leads to greater sustainability.
PFD believes in using technical approaches and innovations that meet local needs and which can be sustained over the long term. Low-cost community hand-pump wells, household water filters, and community-owned and managed piped-water systems are among the most successful of these.
IMPACT
Over 160,000 rural residents have benefited from PFD’s rural water supply programs alone. PFD also has worked to improve sanitation in schools as well as the surrounding community – through supporting the construction of over two thousand latrines that in turn have served as models to increase demand for these services in rural communities.
PFD was also a leader in surveying the quality of drinking water in rural Cambodia. Since the recent discovery of arsenic in Cambodia’s ground water, PFD has carried out thousands of chemical and bacteriological water quality tests to ensure the safety of water supplies. This contributes to the national effort to identify problem areas and to develop appropriate technical responses. Community education concerning the links between water quality and health has been an important part of these activities.
