ReliefWeb

Cambodia is considered one of the world’s most vulnerable countries to natural disasters. Over the last few years, floods and droughts have affected thousands of Cambodians, particularly small-scale farmers, rural women, and vulnerable groups such as the elderly and people with disabilities. With EU support, ActionAid and local partners are helping vulnerable communities in flood-prone Banteay Meanchey province to be as prepared as possible. Here, Philip Sen, Advocacy and Communications Coordinator with ActionAid Cambodia, explains how they work to make these flood prone regions safer.

The village chief stretches above his head to point at a layer-cake series of stains on the wooden staircase. These are the high-water marks from successive floods in Talom commune, but today at least there’s a good use for them.

We’re setting up an early warning system with the Provincial Department of Water Resources and Meteorology survey team and our local partner Ockenden Cambodia, in Cambodia’s north-western province of Banteay Meanchey.

Having daubed the high-water mark in red paint, the team sets up their optical sights and GPS systems while a villager chops a piece of bamboo into a sharp stake. It’s a real mixture of high- and low-tech. We search for a good place, knock the stake into the ground with an axe head, and check its position with the GPS. Holding up a measuring rod, the precise height of the stake compared to the high water mark is recorded.

At each of the bamboo stakes, ActionAid, Ockenden and Provincial Department officers will later set up a water gauge that will help villagers detect when a flood is about to hit. During the September-October rainy season, when floods are most likely, Village Disaster Management Committee members observing the gauges will alert the Department, triggering a voice message through a mobile phone Early Warning System announcement. “This will help the village be ready to move fast during flooding,” explains the Chief of Beng Voang village, Tam Narom.

But before any of this can happen, the process actually needs to start with a questionnaire that the Provincial Department officials fill in with the assistance of the village leaders, as experience shows that placating external models without community participation seldom works. The officials therefore collect both statistics on the numbers of women, children, elderly, disabled and other vulnerable people in the village; and first-hand information on the impact of previous floods on the settlement.

For the project to work, it’s also essential that the Village Chief and others are able to explain the importance of the measuring instruments being set up, and the Early Warning System they will fit into. In this area, many of the people are already on board. In the next village, Klar Kham Chea, a small crowd gathers to watch the measurements taking place and the people seem excited that this year they may not lose everything to the floods once again.

This initiative is part of a Disaster Risk Reduction project funded by the European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection department (ECHO), designed to strengthen the Resilience of local communities in Cambodia. Another 30 stations are being installed in Banteay Meanchey province; plus another 50 water gauge systems being set up by ECHO’s other partners: People in Need in Pursat province, and Oxfam in Kampong Thom. As the project progresses, these flood prone regions are becoming safer places to live in.