Phnom Penh (FN), Sep. 29 – On September 27, 2023, USAID, the Stone Family Foundation, and iDE marked the successful conclusion of the world’s first "pay-for-results" development impact bond (DIB) designed to improve rural sanitation. The four-year Cambodia Rural Sanitation DIB accelerated efforts to end open defecation and improve rural health in six provinces: Svay Rieng, Kandal, Prey Veng, Kampong Thom, Siem Reap, and Oddar Meanchey. Under the DIB, the Stone Family Foundation served as an impact investor that provided up-front financing to iDE’s Sanitation Marketing Scale Up program, which delivered affordable latrines to thousands of rural families. USAID then made payments back to the Stone Family Foundation as iDE reached various sanitation milestones. In total, USAID provided almost $10 million in support of the DIB.

From November 2019 to June 2023, the DIB helped rural communities, encompassing nearly 350,000 households, to demonstrably achieve "open defecation-free" (ODF) status, a milestone that signifies universal access to sanitation within villages. The DIB provided a significant funding boost to iDE’s already successful Sanitation Marketing Scale-up Program, which provided cost-effective latrines while building local capacity in the water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) sector. The DIB model provided the Stone Family Foundation and iDE with the ability to learn, adjust, and innovate, which helped the program to exceed its targets despite the added challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic. Upon completion, the DIB surpassed its goal, achieving ODF status in 1,780 villages instead of the targeted 1,600 villages.

USAID/Cambodia Mission Director Ms. Kerry Pelzman, said, "This new results-based financing approach to improving rural sanitation demonstrates our commitment to supporting the Royal Government of Cambodia’s goal of eliminating open defecation by 2025. This DIB, which is USAID’s first dedicated to village-level sanitation, is an under-utilized but innovative mechanism for collaborating and co-designing solutions with diverse stakeholders, including local private sector partners, to achieve the best possible development results."

Mr. John Stone, Founder and Chairman of the Stone Family Foundation, said, “With big risk comes big reward. The fact that our foundation was prepared to take the risk of failure persuaded USAID to pay for success. This DIB demonstrates how it is possible to transition from a grant funder to an impact investor. And what a great success story! The partnership with iDE has achieved transformational change, providing 1.7 million people in Cambodia with hygienic sanitation. Reaching open defecation-free status in these communities is the culmination of a program which began in 2011 when only a small percentage of rural households had access to hygienic sanitation.”

Ms. Lizz Welch, CEO of iDE, said, “We’ve run a great race, but we knew in order to end open defecation, we needed a special push to reach the finish line. The DIB was exactly what we needed: flexible financing that depended not on how we did the work but on the results we delivered.”

H.E. Toch Polyva, Deputy Provincial Governor and Chairman of Svay Rieng Province’s Working Group for WASH said that, "Svay Rieng Province's journey towards becoming Cambodia's first open defecation-free province exemplifies the power of collaboration, commitment, and shared responsibilities between public and development partners. By prioritizing access to clean water supply and improved sanitation, we have not only achieved the national goal but also transformed the mindset of rural communities. The joint efforts of different stakeholders at all levels have fostered three crucial hygiene behavior changes: adopting hygienic latrines, consuming safe water, and practicing handwashing with soap. This success story serves as a testament to the transformative impact that shared responsibility can have on the well-being of our society."

iDE (formerly International Development Enterprises) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending poverty. Our work within agriculture, sanitation, climate change resilience, and gender equality, stands out because we don’t simply provide handouts. Instead, iDE believes in powering small-scale entrepreneurs and building robust market ecosystems that lay the groundwork for low income and marginalized people to prosper on their own terms. iDE has almost 1,400 global staff – including those in Cambodia – and offices in 10 countries across Africa, Asia and Central America.

For more information, please contact:
Ms. Tet Chann, Communications Specialist, iDE Cambodia
Email:tchann@ideglobal.org
Tell: 011 276 775
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