SBR- Content.pmd - INBO

12 - Domestic water and sanitationThere are big differences between the four MRCcountries with regard to providing safe water andsanitation services and these differences are likely to bereflected in each country’s part of the basin. Viet Namand Thailand have made relatively slower progress overthe last decade, though from much higher starting points.In Cambodia and Lao PDR, coverage levels improvedmore sharply in the 1990s, albeit from very low levels.Nevertheless, Cambodia remains one of only three Asiancountries with water supply coverage of less than 50percent. 15According to the World Resources Institute, 16 estimatesof safe water coverage (rural and urban combined),averaged out over the period 1990-1996, indicated thatCambodia had approximately 36 percent coverage(ranking 89 out of 101 countries globally). Lao PDRhad 52 percent coverage (ranking 74 th ), Thailand had89 percent coverage (ranking 19 th ) and Viet Nam had38 percent coverage (ranking 84 th ).Water quality and hygiene have a significantimpact on human health and productivityComparable sanitation coverage figures from the same source and for the year 2000, were 14 percentfor Cambodia, (ranking 97 th out of 101), 28 percent for Lao PDR (ranking 78th), 96 percent forThailand (ranking 6th), and 21 percent for Viet Nam (ranking 87th). The combined global rankingfor “potential exposure to polluted water” placed Cambodia 89 th out of 101, Lao PDR 76 th , Thailand18 th and Viet Nam 86 th . 17 Although the data for Thailand and Viet Nam are for the whole country andtherefore include significant territory outside the basin, circumstances in the LMB are likely to beworse than national averages, not better.Despite the wide variability in the data, referred to earlier, what is clear from the figures quotedabove - and also from the sources used in compiling Tables 2 and 3 - is that in three of the LMBcountries, as in almost every country worldwide, water supply coverage is higher than sanitationcoverage. This seriously limits the benefits from improvements in water supply. Without parallelimprovements in sanitation, it is difficult to improve hygiene and hence health.According to a WHO/UNICEF/WSSCC report, 18 Thailand appears to be one of only seven countriesworldwide where sanitation coverage has outstripped water supply, with sanitation coverage levelsof over 95 percent. In contrast, and in the same report, Cambodia is noted for having “extremelylow” levels of sanitation coverage, one of only two Asian countries where both sanitation and watersupply coverage is less than 50 percent. In Lao PDR, over half the overall population also lacksproper sanitation, with one source also putting Viet Nam’s sanitation coverage at less than 50 percentin rural areas. 19Moreover, rural services lag far behind urban ones, and the gap between urban and rural coverage isvery wide. In Cambodia and Lao PDR, rural water supply coverage is probably half or less thatwhich is available in urban areas, although for Viet Nam, the ratio is nearer 60 percent. In Thailand,the ratio is around 86 percent. Rural/urban comparisons for sanitation can be even greater. InCambodia, rural sanitation coverage is only one-sixth as high as coverage in urban areas, while inLao PDR, the rural/urban coverage ratio is less than 40 percent. 20255