Rural Piped-Water Enterprises in Cambodia: A Pathway to Women’s Empowerment?

How can Civil Society Organisations more strategically engage with other civil society actors, government and private sector actors to achieve gender and inclusive WASH policy, practice and outcomes?

The Institute of Sustainable Futures, University Technology Sydney (ISF-UTS) investigates part of this key research question via fifteen structured interviews with female water entrepreneurs in rural Cambodia. 

Piped-water systems are essential to delivering the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Cambodia, given the goal of drinking water services being ‘safely managed’, which calls for clean water on premises. ‘Universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all’ is a global goal by 2030. An indicator for this goal, is the ‘proportion of population using safely managed drinking water services’, which requires drinking water services to be ‘on premises, available when needed, and free from microbiological and priority chemical contamination’ [1]. One key means to deliver drinking water services that meet ‘safely managed’ standards, is through well  maintained piped-water systems.

This research examines the extent to which women’s ownership and management of water supply schemes lead to their empowerment, including their economic empowerment, in rural Cambodia. Privately managed water supply schemes in rural Cambodia serve over one million people. This study is the first of its kind to systematically investigate the experiences and needs of female water supply scheme owners.

Melita Grant 1,*, Simone Soeters 1 , IV Bunthoeun 2 and Juliet Willetts 1

1 Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney 2007, Australia; Simone.Soeters@uts.edu.au (S.S.); Juliet.Willetts@uts.edu.au (J.W.)

2 East MeetsWest Cambodia, Phnom Penh 12000, Cambodia; Iv.bunthoeun@eastmeetswest.org
* Correspondence: Melita.grant@uts.edu.au

 [1] World Health Organisation (WHO); United National Children Fund (UNICEF). Safely Managed Drinking Water: Thematic Report on Drinking-Water 2017; World Health Organisation: Geneva, Switzerland, 2017

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