Country profile

Cambodia      New Zealand Capital Phnom Penh Wellington Population 14.1 million 4.1 million Official language/s Khmer English and Maori Per capita income US$380 US$27,250 NZ$1=US$0.70 NZ$519 NZ$38,928 Life expectancy 57 years 80 years Under 5 mortality rate 143/1000 5/1000 Adult literacy 74% 99% (Source: UNICEF The State of the World's Children 2008)

People
The majority of Cambodians are ethnic Khmer and speak the Khmer language. While English is growing in importance, French is spoken in places. Theravada Buddhism, the state religion, is followed by 95 per cent of the population. Christianity, Islam and traditional religions are also practised.

Geography
In the centre of the country is a large plain around Tonle Sap Lake and the Mekong River. Most of the population lives in this central area.

Cambodia has a tropical climate. During the wet season, from mid-May to November, monsoon winds come from the southwest, bringing hot, humid weather and lots of rain. Floods and droughts are common.

History
Cambodia became a French protectorate in 1863 and kept its links with France until independence in 1953.

In 1975 the Khmer Rouge, under the leadership of Pol Pot, gained control of the country. Cities were evacuated and residents forced to become agricultural workers. Money and property were abolished and basic freedoms curtailed. An estimated two million people died.

Vietnamese troops invaded Cambodia in 1978, sending the Khmer Rouge into the countryside and plunging the country into 13 years of civil war.

The Paris Peace Accords were signed in 1991 and United Nations-sponsored elections took place in 1993. With the formation of a coalition government and the surrender of almost all remaining Khmer Rouge guerrillas, by 1999, a sense of stability returned.

Economy
As a result of the nation’s turbulent past, infrastructure is inadequate and most adults have little education.

Clothing and footwear are significant exports, and the government is committed to high labour standards in the industry; 90 per cent of garment workers are women. Other exports include timber, rubber, rice and fish. Tourism is increasing. Nevertheless, foreign aid remains important to reduce poverty.

Agriculture
Three-quarters of the workforce is involved in agriculture, with rice being the main crop. Agricultural production is limited by the effects of drought and flood, lack of irrigation and fertiliser, shortage of animals for ploughing and the presence of landmines. In the dry season many people move to the cities to seek alternative work.

Education
Six years of primary school are followed by three years of lower secondary and three years of upper secondary. Most children eventually enrol in school, but some start long after the official enrolment age of 6 and many drop out early.

Only half of the villages have primary schools and even fewer have secondary schools. There are shortages of classrooms and equipment. The quality of education is poor because teachers are badly paid and in short supply as many qualified teachers were killed by the Khmer Rouge.

Health
Cambodia’s health system is still recovering from the years of Khmer Rouge rule, when hospitals were destroyed and doctors killed.

People with disabilities suffer discrimination even though Cambodia has the greatest number of amputees per head of population in the world.

Waterborne diseases are common as more than half the people don’t have access to clean drinking water and there are few sanitary latrines. Infant and maternal mortality rates are high, as is the rate of malnutrition. HIV prevalence has remained high but stable in recent years, but the care and treatment of people with HIV and AIDS and orphans and vulnerable children still pose significant challenges.

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Cambodia COUNTRY UPDATE

Serious about sanitation

“Every dollar invested in water and sanitation yields an estimated seven dollars worth of productive activity. And that comes on top of the immeasurable gains in cutting poverty, improving health and raising living standards.” United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

Roughly 40 per cent of the world’s population lacks access to something we take for granted in New Zealand – a toilet. It’s a problem so serious that the United Nations is calling worldwide attention to it by declaring 2008 the International Year of Sanitation.

There are eight United Nations Millenium Development Goals, designed to help countries address the needs of the world’s poorest. Within these goals, there is a specific target to reduce by half the proportion of the 2.6 billion people without access to basic sanitation, by 2015.

Why is lack of sanitation such a big problem? The United Nations reports that every 20 seconds, a child dies as a result of poor sanitation. That’s 1.5 million preventable deaths each year – and that’s just the children. When people get access to better sanitation facilities, their health improves too. And when people use clean, safe water – which hasn’t been contaminated by pollutants, such as human waste – they’re much less likely to contract life-threatening water-borne diseases.

Even in developing communities, where lack of access to water means a flushing toilet isn’t possible, human waste can be collected safely using latrines. When latrines aren’t available, human waste can end up in the same streams and ponds that developing communities use for washing, bathing and drinking.

That’s particularly true in Cambodia, where community members traditionally collect water from surface water sources such as streams, hand-dug ponds and shallow wells. People’s knowledge of what is a safe source of water and what is not, is often poor. Combined with a lack of knowledge about hygiene practices such as hand washing, this puts them at higher risk of disease. What’s more, only around 55 per cent of Cambodians in urban areas use adequate sanitation facilities. In rural areas that figure is as low as 17 per cent. And it’s these remote parts of the country that World Vision mostly works in.

Water and sanitation go hand in hand – to be able to wash their hands, for example, people need easy access to water. But that’s easier said than done in the dry season, from March to June, when shallow water sources can dry up altogether. This means people sometimes have to travel long distances to reach a well.

World Vision has introduced rainwater-harvesting systems to many communities in Cambodia. With the necessary materials from World Vision – roofing, guttering, downpipes, a storage tank and tap – communities have built rainwater-harvesting systems to collect water during the rainy season for use during the dry season.

World Vision’s Area Development Programmes (ADPs) in Cambodia are continuing to work on increasing awareness of the importance of hygiene. For example, in Koh Andaet ADP, training sessions are being held on the importance of washing hands with soap after toileting and before eating. ADP staff are also teaching community members the benefits of using a latrine and providing the materials to build them.

Improving access to safe water sources is part of World Vision’s ongoing work in Cambodia. This means not only installing wells with pumps and rainwater-harvesting systems, but teaching communities how to maintain them so that they last for many years to come.

With better access to safe water and decent sanitation facilities, Cambodia will be on its way to meeting the targets set within the Millennium Development Goals.