Development of an e‐learning course to disseminate guidelines for effective promotion of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) initiatives in Cambodia

• Author: Virak Chan,Brian S. McIntosh,Fabian Alfvegren
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/wwp2.12017
• Published date: 01 November 2019
• Date: 01 November 2019

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wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/wwp2 World Water Policy. 2019;5:118–137.

© 2019 Policy Studies Organization.

Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

DOI: 10.1002/wwp2.12017

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Development of an e-learning course to disseminate

guidelines for effective promotion of Water,

Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) initiatives in

Cambodia

FabianAlfvegren1,2

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Brian S.McIntosh1,2

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VirakChan1

1Center for Sustainable Water, Phnom

Penh, Cambodia

2International WaterCentre, Griffith

University, Brisbane, Qld, Australia

Correspondence

Fabian Alfvegren, International

WaterCentre, Griffith University, Brisbane,

Queensland, Australia.

Email: fa@redngreen.org

ABSTRACT

An estimated 8million people in the Kingdom of Cambodia

live without access to improved water supply, sanitation,

and hygiene (WASH; WHO/UNICEF, Joint monitoring pro-

gram for water supply and sanitation, 2015). To increase ac-

cess to WASH in rural areas, Cambodia's Ministry for Rural

Development has sought to decentralize the administration

of national WASH programs and implement program man-

agement at the subnational level. Working at the Center for

Sustainable Water in Phnom Penh, the aim of the research

was to assess whether an e-learning platform might be uti-

lized to facilitate the transfer of knowledge of WASH from

governmental staff based in the capital to those working in the

provinces. A desktop literature review revealed that the suc-

cess of an e-learning module is largely predicated on the ex-

tent to which the needs and limitations of the target audience

are understood. In order to ascertain those needs and limi-

tations in the Cambodian context, technical resource assess-

ments and interviews were carried out at government offices

in the provinces of Kampong Cham, Kratié, and Ratanakiri.

Those provinces were selected on the basis that each broadly

represented a distinct “zone” in terms of current capacity

to carry out Rural Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene

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INTRODUCTION

Efforts are currently underway in the Kingdom of Cambodia to decentralize certain government

functions, personnel, and resources, drawing them away from the ambit of national ministries and

redistributing them to subnational branches of government. Rural Water Supply, Sanitation and

Hygiene (RWSSH) is one area of responsibilities that are being transferred from the Ministry of

Rural Development (MRD) to authorities at the provincial and district levels (Eng & Ear, 2016). The

National Strategic Plan for RWSSH aims to facilitate and accelerate the achievement of decentral-

ization targets set by the Royal Government of Cambodia, and the MRD has developed National and

(RWSSH) initiatives, population size, relative poverty indi-

ces, and concentration of RWSSH partner organizations at

the district level. An analysis of the qualitative data gath-

ered from interviews in the field demonstrated that attitudes

to an e-learning program were overwhelmingly positive, on

the proviso that any such program was tailored to the edu-

cational and professional background of its intended par-

ticipants. Moreover, even offices in the most remote and

resource-limited province of Ratanakiri had the necessary

infrastructure to support the use of e-learning, provided that

local hardware and software limitations were kept in mind.

Results from the literature review, field interviews, and tech-

nical resource assessment informed the adaptation of an exist-

ing paper-based National WASH guideline into an e-learning

format. Through a process of consultation with the Ministry

of Rural Development, WaterAid Cambodia and the Institute

of Technology of Cambodia, and collaboration with project

staff at the Center for Sustainable Water, the contents of the

‘National Guidelines on WASH for Persons with Disabilities

and Older People’ were synthesized into both an English-

language and Khmer-language e-learning course. Center for

Sustainable Water has since obtained funding from WaterAid

Cambodia to deliver the pilot e-learning module in the prov-

inces, a process which will undoubtedly pave the way for fur-

ther improvements.

KEYWORDS

Cambodia, capacity building, E-learning, government, information

technology, national guidelines, sanitation and hygiene, water supply