LSO strongly believes that ensuring a safe water supply is vital to keeping Cambodian people healthy and contributing to the country's development. We have long experience in the area of rural water supply improvement through the installation of water wells for the needy and poor families or community institutions such as schools, mosques, pagodas, health centers that cannot afford to buy and installed water-well –easy access to safe water for the family, children, and for the neighboring populations. In support of MA-USA, LSO implemented this community safe water supply system free of charge to the remote villages. We bring safe water to the doorstep of each house in a rural village, from a deep-drill water well and an overhead tank (powered by an electric or solar pump).

Cambodia Community Water Project (CCWP)

Water supply in Cambodia is characterized by a low level of access in rural areas (62.8% in 2018) and rural sanitation (78.8% in 2018) compared to relatively high access to an improved water source in urban areas (96%). Nearly half the population of Cambodia does not have access to safe water and basic sanitation. However, the rural water supply in Kampong Chhnang province in 2018 reached only 60.8%. Some 40 percent of primary schools and 35 percent of health centers in the country do not have access to safe water and sanitation. Disparities in access to safe water between urban and rural areas, across and within provinces, and among different wealth groups are clear. People living in rural and peri-urban areas, diarrhea prevalence is five times greater in some regions than others, and the rich have 22 times more access to piped water than the poor. The countryside has plenty of available groundwater; the problem is that not much of it is safe enough to drink. Many ponds or open wells are contaminated with industrial runoff, human waste, or contaminants like arsenic and E. coli bacteria. The main reason millions of Cambodians lack access to safe water is that the government has to make other development areas a higher priority in terms of development, such as infrastructure, education, agriculture for food, and other areas, so sometimes it hasn’t been focused on clean water and sanitation. Local authorities in rural areas often place more importance on building new roads and schools than they do on improving the water supply in their areas. Cambodia had some of the highest infant and under-five mortality rates in Southeast Asia, at 33.9 and 39.7 per 1,000 live births. Attention to rural water supply, sanitation, and hygiene will unquestionably deliver results—fewer child deaths, better learning at school, fewer diseases, more productive workers, and less health costs for the people and the system.