INTRODUCTION TO 1001FONTAINES 1 1. Background: Access to water in - PDF document

INTRODUCTION TO 1001FONTAINES 1

1. Background: Access to water in Cambodia According to the Cambodia Inter-Censal Population Survey Final Report (2013), nearly 57% of households have access to an improved water source against 47% in 2008. These figures actually mask a very unequal improvement of access to water in Cambodia. In the urban areas, over 80% of the households have access to improved water sources (mainly through piped systems, tube and protected wells) while less than 50% of the rural households have access to these same sources. Within these improved water sources, the quality of the water is often lacking especially in rural areas where maintenance is more challenging. Damaged equipment, broken tubes, flooded or dry wells are a daily burden for the local populations who are left with limited alternatives. According to the 2013 National Assessment on drinking water at the point of consumption, only 23% actually have access to safe drinking water at the point of consumption. The lack of high quality drinking water – as well as sanitation - leads to severe health problems. As a result, rural villagers suffer from a variety of water-borne illnesses, while child mortality rates are among the highest in South East Asia. In Cambodia, according to AAA-C, an estimated 50 children under five die every day, mainly because of diarrhea or pneumonia 1 . Data on diarrheal disease morbidity and mortality is often underreported though, so the true diarrheal disease burden in Cambodia could be appreciably higher, as well as its weigh on poor households’ budget. The health risks incurred by the populations are even more severe in certain provinces of Cambodia such as Kampong Cham, Prey Veng and Kandal where the presence of natural arsenic was confirmed between 1999 and 2000 (Cambodia Drinking Water Quality Assessment conducted jointly by the Ministry of Rural Development and the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy). According to a report published by AAA-C in 2009, 2.25 million people are estimated to live within arsenic affected areas, with associated risks of cancer. The poor quality of available drinking water and the lack of centralized systems to deliver safe water to households especially in rural areas has facilitated the development of a market for household water treatment. According to WSP 2 , 200,000 people already use some form of filtration (sand or ceramic) or chemical treatment at the household level and many more treat collected water using coagulants, traditional cloth filters or boiling. Although these treatment methods have yielded positive results, the sustainability of such initiatives and the quality of the treated water over time is not always guaranteed as maintenance is often entrusted to the end users who generally lack basic education on hygiene practices. Since 2007, Teuk Saat has been providing rural communities the opportunity to produce safe drinking water locally via the creation of small water kiosks managed as social enterprises. The 3 cornerstones of the model are water quality, accessibility (i.e. affordability for beneficiaries) and sustainability. Today, 150 sites are run by local entrepreneurs operating in Cambodia, providing safe drinking water to 400,000 beneficiaries including 100,000 children. Each site is managed by a local entrepreneur trained to produce and distribute safe water in the village at an affordable price ($0.01 per litre). The water is delivered in 20 litre disinfected sealed bottles guaranteeing the quality of the water up to the point of consumption. This social business model creates incentive for each entrepreneur to reach new clients, increasing the global impact of the project. Our ambition is to reach 1 Million beneficiaries in Cambodia by 2020 and to achieve financial sustainability at national level, by bringing our operations to full capacity though the implementation of 90 additional sites to create a network of 240 sites across 18 provinces (2/3 of Cambodia, 15 of rural population with no access to safe drinking water today). 1 http://www.unicef.org/cambodia/6.Maternal.pdf 2 Improving Household Drinking Water Quality, Use of Ceramic Water Filters in Cambodia, WSP and UNICEF, August 2007 2

Given the ambitious goal set by the Ministry of Rural Development to reach 100% of the population with access to improved water supply by 2025 ( National Strategy for Rural Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene , 2011-2025), providing safe drinking water to rural populations must be a priority in Cambodia for the years to come. The Teuk Saat1001 project, presented in this proposal, provides an innovative and efficient solution to address this challenge, by ensuring high quality drinking water at an affordable price in a sustainable way for rural populations. 2. The Teuk Saat1001/1001fontaines model Since 2007, 1001fontaines has been pioneering a bottom-up social business approach using low cost technology to provide safe water at an affordable price to the poorest populations (water-treatment kiosk system). The initiative relies on key principles: - Water quality: The system purifies water that is available locally (mainly surface water) with very light infrastructure (detailed in the figure below). The purified water is delivered to the beneficiaries’ homes in 20L containers, which are disinfected and sealed, thereby guaranteeing water quality at the point of consumption. A rigorous treatment process ensures water quality according to national and international standards. Monthly controls are performed in the NGO laboratory and twice a year at the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy. - Accessibility: This starts by providing water at an affordable price for the poor (1,500 riels for 20L) in addition to social marketing actions to foster changes in behavior related to water and hygiene. Safe water is produced in the village, for the sole benefit of the village. By using water available locally, as well as a simple technology (UV disinfection) relying on solar energy, and by limiting transportation, production costs remain very low, guaranteeing the accessibility of the service. - Sustainability: The business model consists of entrusting local villagers to operate the water- treatment kiosks with the support of the community. The villagers are trained to become entrepreneurs and manage each water-treatment kiosk according to a social franchise model. Once a production water-treatment kiosk is operational, water sales provide enough revenues to cover all field expenses, including operators' income, maintenance costs, and shared services costs. This ensures that each village is self-sufficient and that the solution is durable. Operational su stainability is ensured by the local support team (“platform”), which provides assistance to the entrepreneurs, performs maintenance on the water-treatment kiosk, supplies spare parts and conducts quality control tests on the bottled water. In exchange for these services, the platform receives monthly fees from each water-treatment kiosk. 3

Teuk Saat 1001’s water-treatment kiosk 4