Building Water Utilities with Local Private Entrepreneurs : The Example of the Mirep Program in Cambodia 2000-2010
The involvement of the rural private sector in water supply in Cambodia is unique to the country. The presence of this private sector allows other entities to respond to new demands from people living in the larger villages for household water supp...
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2017
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/122891468229471916/Building-water-utilities-with-local-private-entrepreneurs http://hdl.handle.net/10986/27923 |
| Summary: | The involvement of the rural private
sector in water supply in Cambodia is unique to the country.
The presence of this private sector allows other entities to
respond to new demands from people living in the larger
villages for household water supply, which the State is not
yet able to address. These entrepreneurs operate on a
merchant basis, lacking an institutional structure which is
still being created. Their business is most often based on
pushcart delivering water barrels at the house of villagers
or more recently on small piped networks usually
distributing raw surface water. Service is rough; the water
quality is uncertain, but the users are satisfied with this
service, because for them, it constitutes another
alternative to the already considerable choice of water
supplies available-ponds, wells, boreholes, and rivers.
Their demands focus more on a practical objective (a supply
in the household) than on a sanitary one, even if surveys
show that villagers have a good understanding of health
risks associated with water. Through the implementation of
14 small scale water supply systems, the goal was to enhance
a qualitative improvement of the water service in some
Cambodian small towns through the transformation of rough
and informal merchant services to a basic water service
supplying drinking water to an extended population under a
formal institutional arrangement. The MIREP (Mini Reseaux
d'Eau Potable - Small Scale Piped Water Supply System)
program, launched in 2001 to transform these very basic
initiatives into basic services, began as a pilot project
supporting one entrepreneur in the implementation of a small
piped water system. In order to move forward, the MIREP
program made a choice, in particular linked to its proximity
to the Ministry of rural development, to assist the nascent
involvement of communes in decentralization, to strengthen
provincial power through the process of decentralization,
and to respect the cultural heritage of those who devised
and financed the project. |
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