By Lauren Crothers
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia
Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA)’s latest assistance-in-kind programs in Cambodia are focusing on addressing the impact of poor sanitation, lack of access to healthcare and the looming threat of drought, according to an agency official.
While condo projects dot the skyline of the Cambodian capital and SUVs dominate its roads, these signs of development belie a starker reality in rural parts of the country where people still grapple with basic issues such as sanitation and healthcare.
Expert Anil Turken and senior expert Yesim Baktir completed their five-day assessment and training mission in Cambodia on Friday, which they described as an “eye-opening” experience.
TIKA provides $3.9-billion in overseas direct assistance globally in 2015, and has been active in Cambodia since 2010, where it is represented regionally through an office in Myanmar and locally via the Turkish embassy.
In 2015, the Turkish government’s aid agency opened a maternal healthcare center in the northerly province of Preah Vihear “to ensure that the rural population located a distance from healthcare centers can have direct access to these facilities,” Turken told Anadolu Agency in an interview on Friday.
Today, the center is working “at full capacity,” as is a TIKA-built primary school for 60 children in Kompong Cham province.
The delegation also visited a community in Kompong Cham where 15 water wells are now serving 15 households, which also indirectly serves the needs of “a couple of thousand people”; 200 latrines were also built in partnership with the Ministry of Rural Development.
“The sanitation problem is larger than we thought,” Turken said, and there are environmental issues in a number of villages due to improper disposal of trash.
TIKA partnered up with the ministry, whose provincial representatives were given training by a visiting expert from the Ankara Water and Sewerage Authority as part of a “focus on behavioural change-related programs.”
“It’s exciting for us to be here,” Turken said. “It’s eye-opening. We see the level of need. The drought was a problem for us in Turkey [last year] and we know about the devastation it causes.”
Cambodia experienced one of its worst droughts in decades last year, and farmers have been warned to expect more of the same this year.
Although accounting for about $1-million in TIKA-funded assistance to date, there is a possibility that Cambodian proposals could account for more in the future, he added.
