UN Water publishes new SDG 6 country acceleration studies : the case of Cambodia

In the context of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres' Decade of Action to accelerate progress towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, a SDG 6 Global Acceleration Framework was launched in 2022. In its 2021 SDG 6 Progress Report, UN-Water had noted that the world would need to increase its investments by a factor of 4 if it were to achieve all the targets of SDG 6. The Global Acceleration Framework is an initiative which is intended to mobilise all stakeholders in the water and sanitation sectors, from governments and civil society to the private sector and academia, around action on 5 cross-cutting and interdependent pillars: financing, data and information, development of innovation capacities, and governance.

This is why, as part of the Framework's second pillar – dedicated to data and information – UN-Water has published country studies every year which highlight instances of exceptional progress on one or more of the targets and indicators of SDG 6. In 2022, the studies focused on  Senegal, Pakistan and Costa Rica, while in 2023, publications were released on cases drawn from of Brazil, Ghana and Singapore.

Since the 8th of July 2024, studies have been published on Cambodia, the Czech Republic and Jordan. The aim of these studies is to explore the advances made by these countries in achieving progress on one or more of the 8 targets listed within the water and sanitation sector under SDG 6. The studies attempt to identify the solutions developed by each country, the processes involved in implementing water and sanitation policies, and thereby try to shed light on how these successes could potentially be replicated elsewhere.

For example, what lessons can be drawn from the 2024 country acceleration study on Cambodia ?  Some of the main lessons include the fact that Cambodia has managed to turn an ailing state-owned water utility into a well-managed one, double access to sanitation in rural areas, attract private investment into the water sector and make connection to piped water and sanitation services attractive to the population, including in smaller cities and rural areas. It managed to rid cities of open defecation and is now making significant progress in rural areas.

From a position of virtual bankruptcy in 1993, the Pnom Penh Water Supply Authority transformed into a utility that was outperforming utilities in London or Los Angeles and which was set to achieve SDG 6 ahead of time. Within a 15 year timeframe, the utility increased its annual water production by 437% and its distribution network by 557%. Based on research by Biswas et al., UN Water points out that this success was achieved with long-term support from Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), French Development Agency (AFD) and other partners. Some of the lessons learned include the importance of leadership within the utility and the stability of chief executive tenure, and the importance of organizational culture. As is the case with many utilities, steps were taken to reduce non-revenue water (water that is produced but is lost before reaching the customer), to improve the availability of data and the quality of reporting, and to increase the number of connections to poor communities. This took place in a step by step process which started with effective repair of leaks and updating the customer database.

In general. Cambodia has made notable progress on six of the eleven SDG 6 indicators and has regressed on none of these. For instance, the percentage of the population having access to safely managed drinking water increased by 13% by 2022 relative to the year 2000, the degree of implementation of integrated water resources management (IWRM) increased from 46 per cent in 2017 to 62 per cent in 2023, and between 2014 to 2021, there was a 400% increase in Official Development Assistance (ODA) provided by donor countries to Cambodia increased four times, from around 75 to more than 300 million USD today.

The study lists several factors which have been instrumental in achieving these results. The first of these is the setting and pursuing of clear and ambitious goals by government . Thus in 2010, the government set the goal to achieve 100 per cent coverage of improved water and sanitation in rural areas and achieve open defecation free status by 2025.

A second factor is data availability : in Cambodia, water contamination data is accessible to all amongst others through a database of wells which is published online.

Thirdly, the government is spearheading communications campaigns in which piped water systems are presented as beibg easier and cheaper, and toilets are becoming something of a status symbol, resulting in an increased investment by households in sanitation and hygiene is increasing.