Female Water Entrepreneurs in Cambodia: Considering enablers and barriers to women’s empowerment, Enterprise in WASH – Research Report 9

Publisher:
UTS
Publication Type:
Report
Citation:
2018
Issue Date:
2018
Full metadata record
In 2015 there were an estimated 300 privately managed water supply schemes in rural Cambodia, serving over onemillion people (World Bank, 2015,p. 15). In recent years, a range of policies has been put in place by the Cambodian Government to promote gender equality within the rural water and sanitation sector. One such policy is theCambodian National Strategy for Rural Water Supply (2011–2025),whichincludesprovisions to increase gender equality. One of the ways the Strategy aims to do this is by: ‘Mainstream[ing]gender in the [rural water supply] sector’ (Cambodian Government, 2011, p.10). However, there are major knowledge gaps related to how gender norms intersect with the rural water sector, and with the growth of water enterprises in Cambodia. These gaps include:a lack of knowledge about how gender influences who becomes a water entrepreneur; what the experiences, challenges and opportunities of water entrepreneurs are; and how water entrepreneurship relates towomen’s empowerment, including economic empowerment. To begin to address these knowledge gaps, this study examined the extent to whichwomen’s ownership and management of water supply schemes led to their empowerment, including economic empowerment. This study, and a related concurrent study in Indonesia,arethe first of their kind to systematically look into the experiences and needs of female water supply scheme entrepreneurs(henceforth referred to as “entrepreneurs”), and the first to explore their experiences with reference to women’s empowerment frameworks.
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