Tag Archives: World Water Week 2011

More from World Water Week 2011

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World Water Week 2011 took place this past summer August 21 – 26 2011 in Stockholm, Sweden. The Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases along with our Latin America and Caribbean water initiative partners — the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and FEMSA Foundation — had our very own session during the conference entitled “Focus Latin America and the Caribbean: Fighting Poverty in Latin America: Integrating Water and Health Initiatives.” Panelists convened to take in-depth look at NTDs in Latin America and the Caribbean, and  to discuss promising strategies to sustainably reduce the burden of NTDs within the region. Below are photos from the session:

Our booth during the event.

Panelists (from left to right): Ann Kelly, Partner, Global Philanthropy Group and The Global Water Initiative of the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, Vidal Garza Cantú, Director, FEMSA Foundation, Neeraj Mistry, Managing Director, Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases, Carlos de Paco, Operations Lead Specialist, Inter-American Development Bank, and Moderator Gian-Carlo Ochoa, Board Member, Charity Water.

Group photo with Global Network Managing Director Dr. Neeraj Mistry and event participants.

Eliminating NTDs with Clean Water Initiatives

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On Wednesday, the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases co-hosted a seminar at World Water Week in Stockholm, Sweden. We were joined by the Howard G. Buffet Foundation to discuss the current state of water and NTD programs within the Latin America and Caribbean region. In the blog post below, Ann Kelly, representative of the Howard G. Buffett Foundation’s Global Water Initiative and co-founder and Partner at Global Philanthropy Group provides an overview of the event, and her experience at Wednesday’s event at the 2011 World Water Week.

By Ann Kelly, representative of the Howard G. Buffett Foundation’s Global Water Initiative and co-founder of Partner at Global Philanthropy Group

As another World Water Week comes to an end here in Stockholm, we are reminded how central water is to so many of the world’s development issues. The other night I had the honor to sit on a panel entitled “Fighting Poverty in Latin America: Integrating Water and Health Initiatives” sponsored by FEMSA Foundation, the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases  (Global Network) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). My co-panelists Vidal Garza Cantú, Director of the FEMSA Foundation; Dr. Neeraj Mistry, Managing Director of the Global Network; and Carlos de Paco, Principal Partnerships Officer at the IDB are already collaborating with the Pan-American Health Organization, and the government of Chiapas to eliminate trachoma, the leading cause of preventable blindness in the world. This collaboration illustrates three things: (1) it is impossible to work on water without also working on health; (2) it takes creative partnerships to do things that are as transformational and sustainable like eliminating trachoma and other NTDs; (3) all of this is achievable relatively easily and inexpensively – it just requires focus and determination as illustrated by the efforts in Chiapas.

As a representative of the Howard G. Buffett Foundation’s Global Water Initiative (GWI), a 10-year, $150 million investment to create an enabling environment for clean water access and security in 13 countries in Africa and Central America, I can say the Foundation did not set out to fund a health intervention. GWI Central America’s mission was to empower communities to manage their own water resources. Our partners in GWI found that the only way to achieve that mission was by focusing on (1) protecting and restoring water sources; (2) promoting equitable and affordable access to water; and (3) reducing water-borne illnesses, especially in young children. In other words, we cannot empower communities burdened by preventable, treatable water-borne diseases. Continue reading →

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Community, Collaboration and Commitment

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Drop in the Bucket is a California-based charity that builds wells and sanitation systems at large rural schools in sub-Saharan Africa. Below is an excerpt taken from Drop in the Bucket Director Stacey Travis’ blog –Water in Africa: the view from the ground:

By: Stacey Travis, Drop in the Bucket Director

We will never make any headway in the battle against Neglected Tropical Diseases if we don’t address the issue of sustainability.  The word is becoming so overused these days that it seems to be losing some of its impact and importance. The truth is if you are providing clean water sources without considering the long-term success of the facility, you run the risk of doing more harm than good.

Take boreholes for example. This mechanism used to extract clean water is provided to community through outside funding and resources. Boreholes are great tools to provide access to clean water, however, they need maintenance over time. Over the past few years, I have seen a staggering number of broken and abandoned boreholes. This is the dirty secret that nobody wants to talk about.  It’s almost as if organizations see it as some sort of failure on their part if their hand pumps don’t work forever, but that’s not where the failure lies. Continue reading →

The Price of Water – Part 1

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For World Water Week, our regular guest blogger Alanna Shaikh has provided us a two-part series on the cost of water. Take a look:

By: Alanna Shaikh

It’s hard to think about paying for water, but it’s also hard to provide it for free. What’s the middle ground?

As this week makes extremely clear, we can’t rely on water as a free resource any more. Clean water is scarce in many places, and it is going to get scarcer. Growing human populations combined with climate change radically increase the demand for water as it becomes more polluted. We need more safe water even as it becomes increasingly harder to get.

Is increasing water costs the answer? I’d argue yes, and I have personal experience to back it up. I’ve lived in Central Asia for the last ten years. This region is extremely water scarce. In fact, many people think that the first major war over water is going to break out here. There are competing demands of water for irrigation, hydroelectric power, household and industrial use, in a region that is essentially a desert full of mountains. Most of the water comes from snow melt.

And yet people treat water like it’s nothing at all. They leave the taps running in their homes and yards at all times. They water the streets outside their houses to keep the dust down. They wash their cars daily, grow water-intense plants for fun, and pretty much never bother to fix leaky taps or faucets. Some faucets don’t even have taps, so you actually cannot turn them off. Oh, and every big house has a fountain, and not the kind that recirculates. In fact, my very first published piece of writing was an article decrying wasteful water use in this region.

Continue reading →