Sustainable access to drinking water in rural areas

To be much more than a simple drop of water, that is certainly the ambition of the founders of the 1001fontaines pour demain association. Their credo is to promote the installation of autonomous drinking water production stations combining UV filtration and solar energy. This project is complemented by the creation of local micro-businesses (families becoming small private operators), responsible for producing and selling this water at very low prices.

Its target? Cambodia's rural population, the majority of whom have no access to drinking water. The inhabitants of isolated villages often have no water or energy supply infrastructure. Several hundred thousand people still consume untreated surface water or water from unprotected wells.

A first phase in Bantey Chmar, Sisophon and Preah Netr Preah

The first unit has been installed in Bantey Chmar, a village of around a thousand families in north-west Cambodia. Nine months after the project began, almost one family in five has already opted for water treated by the new private operator. Priced at around 0.17 euros per 20-liter cylinder, the purified water has won over around 800 people on a regular basis, despite the drain on their budgets. A second station has been set up in Sisophon, a few kilometers from Bantey Chmar, at a children's home run for many years by the Enfants du Mékong association, and a third at the Preah Netr Preah hospital.

Following its initial success, 1001fontaines decided in 2006 to extend the system to 15,000 new beneficiaries in eight new villages. In 15 years, it has installed 260 water treatment units and as many "water kiosks", and estimates the number of beneficiaries at 800,000.

Skills development through new tools

In 2024, the Veolia Foundation is renewing its support for 1001fontaines to meet three types of technical needs, by making available several areas of Veolia expertise:

1. Ultrafiltration, a water treatment technology, will be deployed in the water kiosks, in particular to combat microbiological contamination. The project will also provide an opportunity to review the technical design of the kiosks to reduce their construction and renovation costs.
2. An IT master plan for 1001fontaines will be implemented to optimize and cross-reference all the NGO's processes: customer, financial and technical. The process will integrate the issues of connectivity and water quality.
3. Structured asset management is expected, based on the drafting of maintenance, renewal and rehabilitation plans. The preferred methodologies will incorporate generative artificial intelligence.

The aim remains to improve resource management in order to produce high-quality water for the greatest possible number of people.