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 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.