Rural Piped-Water Enterprises in Cambodia: A Pathway to Women’s Empowerment?

Abstract

This research examined the extent to which women's ownership and management of water supply schemes led to their empowerment, including their economic empowerment, in rural Cambodia. Privately managed water supply schemes in rural Cambodia serve over one million people. This study is the first of its kind to systematically investigate the experiences and needs of female water supply scheme owners, using well-established theoretical frameworks for women's empowerment, namely Longwe's stages of empowerment, and Rowlands, VeneKlasen and Miller's elaboration on different types of power. Business management frameworks relevant to the water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) sector were also drawn on to assess operational constraints and enablers. Fifteen structured interviews were conducted with female water entrepreneurs in rural Cambodia. Female entrepreneurs reported encountering four key barriers to establishing and managing water supply schemes. The first were operational, and government and regulatory related issues, followed by financial issues and limited demand for water services. Three important enablers were reported by entrepreneurs: social enablers, economic enablers and program support from government, associations and non-government organisations (NGOs). This study found that, whilst there was evidence of empowerment reported by female water enterprise owners, the complexity of the ongoing empowerment process, challenges and limitations were also observed. Women's empowerment can be advanced through leadership of, and involvement in water enterprises, as evidenced by this study, however, gender norms constrained women, especially with respect to mobility (leaving the home for extended periods), and household and family duties impacting on income-generating work or vice versa. As such, targeted strategies are needed by a range of actors to address such constraints. The findings of this study can assist NGOs, donors and governments incentivizing entrepreneurship in water services, to ensure that these interventions are not gender blind, and to draw on evidence of the barriers and enablers for female entrepreneurs and how these are influenced by contextualized gender norms. deliver drinking water services that meet 'safely managed' standards, is through well maintained piped-water systems. In 2015, there were an estimated 300 privately managed water supply schemes in rural Cambodia, serving over one million people [2]. Yet, in 2017, only 26% of Cambodians had access to safely managed drinking water services from government and privately managed schemes [3]. Globally, between 2000 and 2017, the population using piped sources increased from 3.5 billion to 4.8 billion [3].The achievement of SDG 6 will not be possible without concerted, deliberate and transformative action on gender inequalities, as outlined in SDG 5 (Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls). The relationship between SDG 5 and 6 has received attention from the water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and water resources management sect...

Water, Sanitation, and Women’s Empowerment: A systematic review and qualitative metasynthesis

“…The terms "empower," "empowerment," "empowering," "disempowerment," or "disempowering" featured in the text of 133 (52%) articles. Only 17 (7%) articles included a specific definition or conceptualization of empowerment to inform their research (see Table 2; Supplemental Table 5 for specific definitions used); 29,[42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57] 12 (5%) had a specific aim or research question focused broadly on empowerment. 29,42,43,45,50,52,54,56,[58][59][60][61] One hundred fifteen (45%) articles focused on water, 57 (22%) on sanitation, 85 (33%) on both; 34 (13%) engaged menstruation.…”

“…Only 17 (7%) articles included a specific definition or conceptualization of empowerment to inform their research (see Table 2; Supplemental Table 5 for specific definitions used); 29,[42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57] 12 (5%) had a specific aim or research question focused broadly on empowerment. 29,42,43,45,50,52,54,56,[58][59][60][61] One hundred fifteen (45%) articles focused on water, 57 (22%) on sanitation, 85 (33%) on both; 34 (13%) engaged menstruation. Table 3 summarizes which studies contributed to each domain or subdomain; Supplemental Table 6 collates all menstruation-related articles by domain and subdomain.…”

“…181 (70%) articles engaged at least two of the empowerment domains; 113 (44%) engaged all three (Supplemental Figure 1). (n = 53) Abu 2019; 62 Aguilar 2005; 49 Akolgo 2020; 63 Aladuwaka 2010; 42 Assaad 1994; 64 Bastidas 2005; 65 Bastola 2015; 66 Bhandari 2009; 67 Bisung 2014; 68 Boateng 2013a; 69 Boateng 2013b; 70 Cairns 2017; 58 Carmi 2019; 71 Chipeta 2009; 72 Clement 2018; 43 Coulter 2018; 73 Crow 2012; 74 Das 2014; 75 Devasia 1998a; 76 79 Gate 2001; 80 Ge 2011; 81 Grant 2019; 29 Harris 2017; 82 James 2002; 53 Leahy 2017; 44 Lebel 2015; 83 Leder 2017; 45 Mandara 2013; 84 Mandara 2017; 85 Mason 2012; 86 Mehta 2015; 87 Naiga 2017; 88 O'Reilly 2006; 55 Padmaja 2020; 89 Prokopy 2004; 90 Sijbesma 2009; 91 Singh 2006b; 92 Singh 2018; 93 Stevenson 2012; 94 Sultana 2009a; 95 Sultana 2009b; 96 Thai 2019; 97 Torri 2010; 61 Tortajada 2003;…”

“…19,[22][23][24][25] Critical discourse on gender and WASH is evolving. While historically WASH programs focused on women's instrumental value in improving effectiveness and impact of programs, focus has been shifting to consider how WASH programming may contribute to women's empowerment [26][27][28][29] . Recent reviews examining WASH and gender further demonstrate this shift in focus.…”

Science—Policy Engagement to Achieve “Water for Society—Including All”

“…access to water and sanitation have the potential to dramatically improve the lives and livelihoods of youth and women worldwide and to ensure that no one is left behind. Grant et al [2] examined the extent to which women's ownership and management of water supply schemes led to their empowerment, including their economic empowerment, in rural Cambodia. Lyon et al [3] highlighted the need to establish a new standard of higher education promoting exchange between countries, as local populations are vulnerable to future shifts in climate at global scales and changes in land usage at regional scales.…”