Policy Framwork of Water Supply and Sanitation

Policy Framework - Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Sector Year of Enactment and Implementation Prepared by the Ministry of Rural Development in collaboration with line ministries and support agencies, 27 February 2001 Purpose This policy focuses on the services of rural water supply and sanitation without any harmful effects on the environment and public health. Control Area Nationwide Overview The rural framework states “every person has to have an access to safe water supply and sanitation services and live in a hygienic environment by 2005” and it was developed and approved during the Kampong Cham sector stakeholders’ workshop in May 2000. A Rural Water Supply Working Group followed up the meeting in Phnom Penh in July 2000. A common understanding of the meaning and implications of the version is necessary, so that all people of Cambodia can collaborate in achieving it. Features The Policy Framework: Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Sector will guide the sectors to agree on the objective by facilitating the following intervention in rural areas of Cambodia. • The initiatives of sectors to provide water that meets the appropriate standards for domestic consumption to all inhabitants of rural areas. • The initiatives for the safe disposal of human urine, excreta and domestic wastewater. • The initiatives for promoting a clean environment, for which minimises the transmission of water and excreta-related diseases. The rural water supply and sanitation sector policy proposal does not go beyond these basic interventions. It is recognised that proper environmental management implies clear linkages between various aspects of the environment, such as drainage and solid waste disposal, but these considerations will need to be dealt with separately. All aspects of environmental management should eventually be integrated into one comprehensive water and sanitation policy document. The policy framework is a part of a large activity including the development of a sector strategy, which is being prepared as a separate exercise. The sector policy outlined a broad course of action for achieving the vision, while the sector strategy will describe a set of short, medium and long-term actions to put the sector policy into practice. The proposed policy is based on the “Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Sector” agreed by key stakeholders in November 2000. The outline categorised the principal sector policy issues into ‘Role’, ‘Rule’, and ‘Approach’, all directed at achieving the sector version. • Roles refer to the principal responsibilities of the key stakeholders: the stakeholders’ relationships with one another and the tasks they must complete in order to fulfil their responsibilities. The five key stakeholders are the community, the Government, NGOs, external support agency, and the private sector/public enterprise. These five key stakeholders’ responsibilities have closed inter-linkage to each others. Therefore, to achieve the target of rural water supply and sanitation sector, all key stakeholders have to work under the same target will firm cooperation and understanding. • Rules are defined as, ‘A set of transparent guidelines, policies and laws that regulate actions leading to sector objectives, and guide stakeholders in the implementation of their respective sector roles.’ Various sector rules are already in place, example, of which are the Ministry of Rural Development guidelines on Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Sector and a number of circulars and Sub-Decree that describe the mandates of the government institutions active in the sector. New rules, such as the ‘Water Resources Management Law’ and Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Sector’, are currently being prepared. • Approaches are always the implementation of roles and rules. In developing and implementing programmes and projects, it is commonly possible to pick out from a number of different approaches, some of which prove in the end to be more effective than others. Supply driven approaches that have been the norm over most of the past two decades have proven not to be very effective in providing sustained and equitable access to Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Sector services. The new approach promotes the following initiatives as follows: 1. Response to demand in ways that ensure sector investment decisions are guided by the demand of communities for the Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Sector’s services. Their willingness to pay for improved services is seen as indicator of ‘felt need’. 2. Promotion of sustainability and effective use of the Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Sector’s services. 3. Improvement by the community of its capacity to operate and maintain the Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Sector’s services. 4. Activities that aim to change hygiene-related behaviour within the community. 5. Initiatives that ensure equitable access to the Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Sector’s services. These initiatives lead to the following results: 1. The use of inclusive, participatory, demand-responsive methods in planning and implementation. 2. A structural change in project and programme design that grants more importance to human resource development for end-users and communities. 3. The promotion of private entrepreneurship wherever feasible. 4. Modifies monitoring and evaluation indicators of the outcomes the Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Sector’s services. Among other things, the indicators show the extent to which human resource development and the quality of construction are related to the sustainability of services. Source: Ministry of Rural Development. Feb.2001. Policy Framework: Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Sector