Thursday, November 15, 2007

Cambodia to spend more to guarantee clean water, satiation for rural people

PHNOM PENH, Nov. 13 (Xinhua) -- The Cambodian government will try to make 50 percent of its rural people live with clean water and qualified satiation and 30 percent with toilets at home in 2015, an official said here on Tuesday.

The government will spend over 430,000 U.S. dollars for sanitation and clean water next year, said Chea Samnang, head of the healthcare department for rural areas at the Ministry of Rural Development, while marking the country's first National Sanitation Day.

On the same occasion, Yim Chay Ly, secretary of state at the Ministry of Rural Development, said that currently, some 70 percent of the kingdom's 14 million people, especially those in the rural areas, live without toilet at home, while a large percentage of them have no access to safe water.

This results in the rampancy of diarrhea, typhoid and hookworm intestines, he said.

Lack of sanitation and clean water also led to 20 percent of the death of those under five years old, he added.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Hun Sen said that this problem has made the Cambodians live in poverty and it is one of the major obstacles in the economic development of the country.

Only 16 percent people live with qualified sanitation and this ratio is far behind other ASEAN (the Association of Southeast AsiaNations) countries, he added.

According to a study by the Economic Institute of Cambodia, theoverall economic loss from poor sanitation and lack of clean waterstands at 448 million U.S. dollars a year in the kingdom, equal to7.1 percent of its GPD, while some 10,000 people die annually due to the problem.

Most Cambodians are in rural areas and 35 percent of them live in poverty.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Excellent, and thank you to our beloved government from the bottom of our heart for always thinking about our wellbeing.

May God continue to give you strength to help take our country our of poverty.

Chey Yoh, Kamupchea!

Chey Yoh, Pm Hun Sen!

Anonymous said...

Yeah thank your gov't. It took this long for them to notice that hygenic is important.

Anonymous said...

Well, we can only live within our mean in any instant of time. Plus, we are patient and optimistic about our future.