ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the current situation, and estimates the future needs of international assistance for rural water supply in P. R. China and the Southeast Asian countries. The people living in rural communities used to store and drink rain water, and the majority of them are drinking rain water even after they get a piped water supply. China is the most populous country in the world with a population of over 1.2 billion in 1995. In spite of the rapid urbanization, more than 900 million people still live in rural areas. Most waterworks in rural areas are owned, managed and operated by the villages or by collectively owned water companies formed in more industrialized regions. In the rural areas of Cambodia, people used rivers, ponds and shallow wells for their domestic water supply. Vietnam had a population of 75 million in 1994, of which 73 percent lived in rural areas.
