Cambodia Country Strategy
Cambodia is changing fast and finding some of the solutions to its development challenges. The number of children under five who are stunted and the number of people who defecate in the open or drink unsafe water is still high compared to other countries in the region, with wide-ranging impacts on people's health and the economy. Yet these numbers are dropping quickly as Cambodia innovates scalable solutions to increasing water and sanitation services and other areas of human development.
Cambodia is now aiming to accelerate this progress and reach everyone, everywhere with access to drinking water and sanitation within the next decade, whilst also looking for solutions to improving the quality of services, ensuring sustainability and reducing inequality.
WaterAid Cambodia's first country strategy is designed to align with key Royal Government of Cambodia strategies such as the National Action Plan on Rural Water Supply Sanitation and Hygiene,
the Food Security and Nutrition Strategy and the National Health Strategic Plan. The strategy also aligns with WaterAid's Global Strategy 2015-2020 with its emphasis on being an influencing organi- sation and four aims on
a) reducing inequality,
b) strengthening services,
c) integrating WASH into other sectors and d) improving hygiene behaviours.
This strategy sets out WaterAid Cambodia's intents from 2017 to 2020. It has been informed by a country program review and consultation with external stakeholders. The strategy aims to give broad direction to WaterAid's work whilst allowing space to be responsive to new opportunities. Each year an annual Business Plan will be developed to operationalise the strategy and quarterly reflections and an annual review will be used to track progress and adapt plans.
Though this is WaterAid's first country strategy for Cambodia we are planning from the start for the time when we will exit the country. If we achieve our ambition and Cambodia reaches near to its aim of universal access by 2025 this would be the right time for WaterAid to begin a transition out of the country.