Two decades ago, the capital city of Cambodia had virtually no water system to speak of. Few households received running water, pipes were leaky and corruption was rampant.

With a change in leadership in 1993, the city’s water department set out to do what no one thought possible: build a municipal water system that would be the envy of the world.

Today, not only is Phnom Penh’s water system efficient, it’s resilient, able to bounce back quickly from shocks big and small.

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