And there's more...

The figures are out, and there's more people in Cambodia than ever before! Shock, horror. And more than half of them are women. Result. The total population is 13, 388, 910 as at March 3rd this year. There's six and a half million males, but more females. The population growth rate has slowed but its still higher than most of SEAsia. It didn't come as a surprise to me that Kompong Cham province is the most populous, as nearly everyone I meet originates from there. One in 5 Cambodians now live in an urban area rather than in the countryside, though if recent government calls for families to move into remote areas along the Thai-Cambodian border are heeded, we could see a change to that demographic. This was the first census for a decade and these are just the preliminary numbers only.
I liked the sound of WASH day on Wednesday. 1,000 villagers and primary school kids in one of Phnom Penh's 76 commune's focused on the importance of washing hands in order to prevent the spread of disease, with a hand-washing display arranged by USAID. A global Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) day is set for 15 October (my birthday!) as its the UN's Year of Sanitation this year. This is important - over 2 million children die every year because of diarrhoea - clean hands can save lives.