WaterSHED – Sanitation in Cambodia

WaterSHED is led by the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health and supported by USAID’s Regional Development Mission-Asia (RDMA). WaterSHED, which stands for Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Enterprise Development, is a public-private partnership designed to bring effective, affordable water and sanitation products to market in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.

• WaterSHED – Presentation on sanitation in Cambodia
• WaterSHED website

Meeting debates Mekong sanitation

HA NOI — Ways to improve water quality and sanitation for 1.8 million poor people living across three countries are being discussed at a three-day conference in the city.

The conference of the Mekong Region Water and Sanitation Initiative (MEK-WATSAN) started yesterday.

The initiative, with a likely budget of US$41 million, aimed to halve the proportion of people in Laos, Cambodia and Viet Nam without access to quality water and sanitation services by 2015, said Andre Dzikus, the chief of the Water and Sanitation Section II of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat)

Conference delegates want to finalise regional programmes for training, analysis, sanitation and hygiene education along with cost estimates so the initiative can achieve the best possible results for at least eight more towns in the countries.

MEK-WATSAN promotes pro-poor urban water governance, urban water conservation and demand management; integrated urban environmental sanitation and income generation for the urban poor through community-based water and sanitation services.

Secondary urban towns in the Mekong region are the target of the initiative. While some progress had been made, a substantial percentage of the people in the peri-urban and secondary urban settlements and rural areas were left without improved water and sanitation, said the United Nations Resident Co-ordinator, John Hendra.

In Viet Nam, the national coverage for water and sanitation was 70 and 30 per cent respectively, but coverage for secondary towns remained at a third for water and only a tenth for sanitation, noted Hendra.

Some water and sanitation projects under the initiative have been fast tracked in 17 secondary towns in the Mekong region. Investments of more than $3 million have provided safe piped water and sanitation facilities and improved the standards of water utility staff and through public awareness campaigns, water conservation and demand management skills.

In Viet Nam, the fast-tracking of projects in Quang Tri Province’s Lao Bao and Dong Ha towns improves water quality and sanitation for 40,000. The projects use poverty mapping and an initial environment examination to ensure the best service is implemented.

Community-based water supply and sanitation projects involving nearly 300,000 people are under way in five towns, including Khanh Hoa Province’s Cam Ranh Town, Ninh Thuan Province’s Thap Cham and Ca Na towns, and Phu Yen Province’s Song Cau and Tuy Hoa towns. —VNS

Source – Viet Nam News

Sell sanitation with sex appeal

‘Selling sanitation the Madison Avenue way, with good old-fashioned sex appeal and social pressure’, writes a National Geographic reporter from the Istanbul World Water Forum on 17 March 2009. How?

 

The feature provides six messages that every water and sanitation promoter should spread continuously.

 

• Make a toilet into an object of desire.
• It’s cool to have a toilet.
• Be the first person on your block to have one.
• Miss Kenya promotes toilet malls use in Kibera slum.
• Romantic songs and videos make sanitation and health sexy in Cambodia.
• Make it acceptable to talk about shit. 

See a video belo from Cambodia featuring an attractive young couple. The woman sings “You’re a great husband for giving me this well,” and he responds “I gave it to you because I love you.” Theay also sing about arsenic pollution.

Cambodia: Floating Toilets for Floating Villages

Mr. Sahari Ani, Photo: ADB

Mr. Sahari Ani, the CEO of Lien Aid, a Singapore-based nongovernment organization, was interviewed by the Asian Development Bank in their “Water Champion” series. Mr Ani spoke about his organisation’s work in Cambodia, in particular on the floating toilets of the “River of life” project (see also an earlier blog post on this project). “With this, we hope to provide better sanitation options for the floating communities on the Tonle Sap [lake]. We’ve already heightened the communities’ awareness on proper sanitation. This month, we will introduce different toilet designs that they can build on their houseboats. Simultaneously, we’re providing them with a safer choice for drinking water by building a floating water treatment plant” Mr. Ani said. “We are exploring several options including the use of especially adapted septic tanks plus ecological sanitation using the urine diversion-dissecting (UDD) toilet”.

Based on the villagers’ preferences, Lien Aid “determined the size of the toilets, buckets to be used for storage of excreta, ecosan pans (2-hole or 3-hole), and other design considerations [resulting in] 3 workable designs to date”. “Our next challenges are to modify existing toilets to incorporate the UDD options, ensure availability of suitable drying material for covering feces, and keep the costs manageable”, Mr. Ani explained.

Lien Aid, which works together with the Ministry of Rural Development (MRD) and local authorities, “is developing simple [...] publications on methods of construction, use, and maintenance of the floating toilets”.

Floating toilets cost “between US$50-200, depending on whether the family will just upgrade their existing drop-hole toilet to accommodate the UDD technology or whether the entire toilet, including superstructure, will be constructed from scratch. The size of the toilet will also dictate the cost – toilets that can accommodate 2 tanks will obviously cost more. We’re still trying to lower the cost by using indigenous materials and encouraging local entrepreneurs to manufacture the UDD pans”.

Together with the floating toilets, “a land-based composting unit and collection system will be established to manage the semi-composted feces. We hope to promote the use of fully decomposed feces as compost”.

Lien Aid had “already set up a community center for water-sanitation related training and advocacy activities” and “will also form a water-sanitation group from among the residents and community leaders”.

“Our work is less about giving hand-outs and more about empowering people to participate and make informed choices on how they can improve their lives. Extensive consultation with local authorities, NGOs, and communities is the backbone of our work”.

See sample designs of floating UDD toilets here.

Source: ADB, Feb 2009

Cambodian comedian takes rural sanitation to the Kingdom’s TVs

Comedian Chab Chean. Photo: PHOTO SUPPLIED

TV personality Chab Chean has been chosen as the government’s spokesperson in a push to promote sanitation throughout the countryside.

The government is hoping a little toilet humour will go a long ways in bringing its pro-sanitation message to the countryside, where millions live without access to running water and the nearest rice field often passes for the bathroom.

Only about 16 percent of rural Cambodians have access to toilets, according to the World Bank-sponsored Water and Sanitation Program. In some parts of the country, that figure can drop below five percent.

[...] “Many people in the countryside come around when they see Chab Chean educating them about the program, which is different from being told by local authorities,” [Chea Samnang, director of the Department of Rural Health at the Ministry of Rural Development] said. “As a local TV comedian and presenter, Chab Chean has been considered an excellent model in encouraging Cambodian people to cooperate with local authorities so that they know how to live in a clean environment and how to use toilets”.

“We have many methods of encouraging people in the countryside to help spread knowledge about rural sanitation. We show them through our jokes so that they are interested and happy, and they will never get bored,” Chab Chean said.

Source: Khoun Leakhana, Phnom Penh Post, 23 Dec 2008

Cambodia: Singaporean group introduces “floating” toilets

In rural Cambodia, only 16 per cent of residents have a proper toilet — the lowest rate in Southeast Asia.

Floating house with outside toilet. Photo: Channelnews.com

[...] On Cambodia’s great lake, Tonle Sap [...] homes are floating platforms and must move seasonally, and outhouses are simply a wooden plank over the open water. People have no choice but to contaminate the very same water they use for drinking and washing.

[The "River of Life" project launched by Singaporean NGO Lien Aid and the Lien Institute For the Environment (LIFE)], aims to make a difference in this community of about 10,000 people [by] introducing the concept of “floating” toilets which are affordable, locally-made, and therefore sustainable.

“It is actually a simple system… We’re going to use locally available buckets where they can collect the faeces. We are going to use some locally available agent to dry the faeces, that is, using ashes and other local material,” said the CEO of Lien Aid, Sahari Ani.

One key to the project is that locals will have to source and build their own toilets, to ensure that all parts of the community are involved.

“The toilet that we introduce to the community — they are very happy to get that one and they try to find their own resources to contribute to the project,” said the director of the Department of Rural Health Care, Ministry of Rural Development, Chea Samnang.

Lien Aid was set up in 2006 to address the water and sanitation crisis in developing countries around Asia. A Singapore based non-governmental organisation, it was established as an independent entity through the Lien Foundation – Nanyang Technological University Environmental Endeavour.

Source: Anasuya Sanyal, Channelnewsaia.com, 13 Dec 2008 ; Lien Aid

Cambodia: hand washing a low priority in rural areas, ARDA study says

Only one in four rural Cambodians practice appropriate hand washing regardless of access to clean water and hygiene knowledge, according to a recent study presented by the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) at the World Federation of Public Health Associations/American Public Health Association (WFPHA/APHA) Annual International Health Breakfast held in San Diego, California.

Dr. Leonard Uisetiawan, provincial projects advisor for the ADRA office in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, who presented the study [said] that less than 26 percent of rural Cambodians use good hand washing techniques regardless of access to clean water and hygiene knowledge. In addition, less than 6 percent of child caretakers properly washed their hands after changing a child’s soiled diaper or after defecation.

This research, funded by Colgate-Palmolive through the American Public Health Association, also highlighted that the practice of hand washing in Cambodian homes is not dependent on the availability of soap, water, buckets, accessibility to hand washing areas, household size, amount of children, mother’s vocation, or educational level.

[...] The Hand Washing Research Project has been conducted over the past year as part of “Phum Mittapheap Koma”, a three-year initiative aimed at improving rural health and reducing morbidity and mortality among more than 22,500 women and 17,400 children in the Kampong Thom province.

View a presentation of the Cambodian study here

See also two other related presentations by Colgate Palmolive Research grant recipients:

R. Courtney Cawthon: Hand Washing Education in Quezalguaque, Nicaragua;

Tova Reichel: Using the Child-to-Child Approach in Promoting Positive Hygiene Behaviors among Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) in Rural Western Kenya 

Source: Satha Sin, Nadia McGill and Hearly Mayr, ARDA, 31 Dec 2008 ; WFPHA Monthly E-newsletter, Nov 2008

‘Shit’ Matters: Community-Led Total Sanitation and the MDGs

Robert Chambers – 19 November 2008

Wednesday 19 November is World Toilet Day – but this is no time for toilet humour. Almost 6,000 people, mainly children under five, die every day because of poor sanitation, hygiene and lack of access to clean water, making sanitation one of the most important challenges for developing

IDS [Institute of Development Studies, Brighton, UK] and partners in Bangladesh, India and Indonesia are currently engaged in research, action learning and networking on Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS). This is a revolutionary approach to rural sanitation.

[...] CLTS has the potential to be a real development success story. It has been spread from Bangladesh where it originated, to India, Cambodia, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, Bolivia, Yemen, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Zambia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and other countries. CLTS practitioners from different countries [were asked] to talk about their experiences:

• Where better to celebrate World Toilet Day than in a toilet?
  by Heino Guellemann, Project Coordinator, Swiss Red Cross, Cambodia
• East Java, Indonesia : Indigenous strategies for scaling up CLTS impact,
  by Nilanjana Mukherjee, Sr. TSSM Project Adviser and Djoko Wartono, TSSM National Coordinator, WSP-East Asia and Pacific
• Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) steadily becoming a movement in Kenya, by Sammy Musyoki, Plan Kenya

Source: Robert Chambers, IDS, 19 Nov  2008

Sanitation costs: cash, lives

A World Bank report draws attention to the financial costs of the Kingdom’s poor levels of sanitation and says up to 10,000 lives a year are needlessly lost.
DIARRHOEA and other diseases related to poor sanitation kill nearly 10,000 people a year in Cambodia and cost the Kingdom US$448 million annually, said a recent report from the World Bank’s water and sanitation program.

According to the report, which will be officially released on December 9, the costs translate into a per capita loss of US$32, which is equivalent to 7.2 percent of Cambodia’s national income. (…)

Read all Phnompenhpost.com

Releated site (for the original publication): www.wsp.org

CAMBODIA: Rural sanitation in crisis

PHNOM PENH, 25 September 2008 (IRIN) – At the rate rural communities are gaining access to sanitation, it will take Cambodia 150 years to achieve a government goal of universal coverage in 2025, specialists warned.

According to a recent report by the World Bank-sponsored Water and Sanitation Programme (WSP), only 16 percent of rural Cambodians have access to toilets. (…)

Read all IRINnews