PRESS RELEASE – JOINTLY ISSUED BY ROYAL GOVERNMENT OF CAMBODIA, CLTS FOUNDATION AND PLAN INTERNATIONAL CAMBODIA
International Conference on Community-Led Total Sanitation in Cambodia– Paving the way to Open Defecation Free South East Asia
Phnom Penh, 7 November 2017: Phnom Penh will host an international conference on community-led total sanitation (CLTS) that will gather around 100 WASH experts from South and South East Asia region, to share experiences and discuss the way forward to an open defecation-free South East Asia from15-17 November 2017. The conference will be inaugurated by the Deputy Prime Minister of Cambodia, HE Dr. Yim Chhay Ly, in the morning of 15th November at Hotel Cambodiana in Phnom Penh.
The conference titled ‘From Communities to Open Defecation Free Nations: Fast tracking an ODF South East Asia’ is being jointly hosted by the Royal Government of Cambodia and CLTS Foundation in cooperation with Plan International. The WASH experts from Cambodia, Vietnam, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Indonesia, the Philippines, Timor L’este, and India would be participating in the 3-day conference. Apart from the representatives of the governments, WASH experts from International development agencies like the World Bank, UNICEF, WaterAid, SNV, World Vision, and WSSCC (Geneva) and national and international media would also participate.
Mr. Chreay Pom, Director, Department of Rural Health Care, Ministry of Rural Development, Royal Government of Cambodia said: “CLTS has contributed significantly to improving our rural sanitation particularly reducing open defecation practice which is a major problem for our country. However, accelerating progress to enable complete eradication of open defecation and sustaining our ODF achievements to date require more synergy with different initiatives. I am therefore hopeful that this Conference will bring good outcomes that could support us in our continuing efforts to achieve our rural sanitation and hygiene vision.”
CLTS has been instrumental in enhancing sanitation access for millions of people, especially the rural population, across the developing world, during the past one and a halfdecades. By the close of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) period in 2015, CLTS was institutionalised in the national sanitation policy of at least 35 nations and rolled out as the key approach for sanitation in over 65 countries across the Asia, Africa and Latin America.
CLTS was introduced in Cambodia in 2004 through Concern Worldwide, which was later scaled up in eight provinces of Cambodia under the leadership of the .Ministry of Rural Developmentin collaboration with Plan International, UNICEF and SNV. As a result, more than half of rural Cambodians now have access to improved sanitation, compared to only 11% access to basic sanitation in 1990. The Royal Government of Cambodia is targeting to ensure access to improved sanitation to 60% by 2018 and declare the nation Open Defecation Free by 2025.
This conference aims to distill the learnings from experiences and good practices from the region and address the critical questions towards meeting the SDG goal 6.2 of universal sanitation. The different sessions of the conference would discuss the MDG experience of sanitation in the region, key challenges the countries face going forward towards achieving SDG and the critical building blocks for scaling-up in the region.
Deliberations from this conference will be applied to develop a roadmap and action plan for the South East Asia region towards achieving ODF nations in the coming years.
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For further information about the conference, please contact:
Conference Secretariat
Ms. Hilda Winarta
Mr. Amit Sengupta
CLTS Foundation
Phone: (+91)9717984406
Email: amit@cltsfoundation.org
Ms. Preetha Prabhakaran
CLTS Foundation
Phone: (+91) 8017681355
Email: preetha@cltsfoundation.org
Mr. Phary Yoeun
Plan International
HP: +855 (0)92 527 092
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