Dr. Albert Morgan Wright joined the Global Sanitation Fund (GSF) Advisory Committee in June 2009. The GSF is managed by the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC).
Through his work over the last 30 years at and for many multi-lateral, intergovernmental, non-governmental and academic institutions, Dr. Wright has played a significant role in water resources and sanitation at global, African and national levels, including in his native Ghana. He joins the other globally renowned experts on the committee: Prof. Sandy Cairncross (Chair), Ashoke Chatterjee, Eddy Perez, Roland Schertenleib, Sophie Tremolet and Barbara Evans (resource person).
Dutch public broadcasting organisation NCRV has awarded the International Mambapoint Volunteer of the Netherlands award to “Mr. Rope Pump” Henk Holtslag. Henk received 500 Euros and a trophy at a ceremony on 26 June 2009. He said the prize encourages him to continue his work promoting rope pumps and water filters, especially his new “300 in 6″ plan for household water treatment options.
After 3 years of posting at the Embassy of Denmark in Cairo, Egypt, Bente Schiller returns to Technical Advisory Services (TAS), area water & sanitation, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark (MOFA) as of 1st May 2009.
Bente has been employed with the Ministry since 1990 and she has been dealing with both water & sanitation, environment and for the last 3 years also renewable energy and climate change. Back in TAS, Bente, who has an M.Sc. Engineering, will deal with projects in the area of water & sanitation.
François Brikké, a French national, has recently joined UNICEF Indonesia as Chief Water, Sanitation and Hygiene. From 2004-2008, Mr. Brikké was based in Lima, Peru, as Regional Team Leader of the Water and Sanitation Program – Latin America and the Caribbean (WSP-LAC), administered by the World Bank.
Mr. Brikké, is both a socio-economist and a sanitary engineer and graduated from the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Nancy (France) and the Institut des Sciences de l‘Ingénieur of Montpelier (France). He has had more than 20 years of experience working with or in developing countries of Latin America, Africa and Asia. His experience in the water and sanitation experience started in 1992 at the IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre, where he worked as a Programme Officer in charge of the development of policies and guidelines on sustainable provision of services. He then created his own consultancy firm in 1999, “Dialogue and Development”, based in France, where he specialized in sector policy formulation, reforms, decentralization, SWAPs development, and monitoring.
WaterAid Sverige (Sweden) officially launched [on 8 June 2009] at a prestigious event hosted by the UK Ambassador to Sweden, Andrew Mitchell. WaterAid Sweden’s distinguished chair is Jan Eliasson, the former United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Darfur and President of the United Nations General Assembly.
WaterAid Sverige has been in development since late 2007, when Per Stenbeck, then UNICEF’s International Fundraising Director, floated the idea to Andrew Cook. In his original concept paper, put forward to the WaterAid Board in March 2008, Per commented that he had for many years been impressed by the WaterAid concept, believing it had “potential way beyond the shores of the UK”.
Per Stenbeck’s appointment as General Secretary of WaterAid Sweden was confirmed in March 2009, and a Board of eight members recruited, drawing expertise from the fields of health, development, the environment, the Swedish water industry, and the media.
The focus for WaterAid Sverige will be on fundraising, awareness building and development education.
Dr. Akissa Bahri, Director – Africa Director of the International Water Management Institute, has been selected as the 2009 recipient of the “Prof. C.N.R. Rao Prize for Scientific Research”. This prize was instituted in 2006 to honour distinguished scientists from Africa and the Least Developing Countries, who have made outstanding contributions to science and technology. The prize will be awarded to her in Durban, South Africa, on occasion of the TWAS 20th General Meeting and 11th General Conference to be held from 20th to 23rd October 2009.
Akissa Bahri has worked in the field of agricultural use of marginal waters (brackish and waste water), sewage sludge and their impacts on the environment. She has been working for the National Research Institute for Agricultural Engineering, Water and Forestry in her home country Tunisia, where she was in charge of research management in the field of agricultural water use. She has been involved in policy and legislative issues regarding water reuse and land application of sewage sludge, and is a member of different international scientific committees.
Akissa Bahri was appointed Director of Africa of IWMI, a CGIAR-supported research institute headquartered in Colombo, Sri Lanka, effective September 2005.
Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister, Senator Muhammed Adamu Aleiro, has said the FCT Administration would sanction Biwater Nigeria Limited, the contracting firm handling the multi-billion-naira water treatment Plants, phases III and IV, in the Lower Usuma Dam, for unimpressive performance. Aliero said this [...] when he paid an unscheduled visit to the project site [on 03 June 2009].
He lamented the lack of seriousness on the part of the contracting firm, in spite of the fact that government has met all its financial obligations and wondered why the contractor is not moving at the desirable pace. Aliero expressed his administration’s dissatisfaction with performance of the firm, saying, “we have made a promise to provide potable water to all the nooks and crannies of the FCT, anything that would frustrate that good intention would not be acceptable.
“I have inspected this project site three times since I took over the mantle of leadership and all these visits were not for fun,” he said, and charged all contractors handling projects in the FCT to endeavour to meet all contractual agreements, promising that his administration would continue to fulfill its own part of the agreement.
Source: Mustapha Shehu, This Day / allAfrica.com, 4 Jun 2009
André Olschewski will join Skat – Swiss Resource Centre and Consultancies for Development – in May 2009 as Water, Environmental Management and Spatial Planning Specialist. He has more than 15 years of experience in strategy development and programme management as well as design, planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of programs and projects in the fields of water supply, water resource management, environmental management, transport, and spatial planning. He has been engaged as programme manager and consultant in integrated settlement planning, groundwater and watershed protection, and water supply projects among others in Switzerland, Zambia, Malawi, and Tanzania. He has been involved as expert for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in Romania and Mongolia and leading interdisciplinary teams in the fields of environmental protection, environmental health, and spatial planning in Switzerland.
The Indonesian island of Bali is mostly known for its beauty and tourism industry. But a large segment of its population, mostly the poor, lacks access to sanitation. Many many live the dangerous lives of scavengers in the trash piles. In recent years, an Indonesian environmental engineer put aside her well paid job to come to their rescue. In VOA’s weekly series, Making a Difference, is the story about Yuyun Ismawati and her struggle to improve lives and environment.
For Indonesian environmental engineer Yuyun Ismawati, this was a satisfying moment after years of struggle. She was awarded the 2009 Goldman Environment Prize in a U.S. ceremony for her work in the poorest communities of Bali. “I realized then, when people are empowered and trusted to help themselves they will succeed,” she said.
Almost a decade ago Ismawati was working as consulting engineer, when she began helping some of Indonesia’s worst slums with their waste problems. The government only collects about one third of the nation’s solid waste, mostly from high income areas. “Indonesia population is around 235 million people and 100 million of them have no access to proper sanitation,” Yuyun explains.
While Bali’s island beauty attracts tourists, Indonesians often come here looking for work. But many end up as scavengers, collecting discarded food scraps from hotels to deliver to pig farms. They risk sickness and she says the remaining trash is burned, spreading environmental hazards.
Yuyun and her organization called Yayasan Bali Fokus (Bali Fokus Foundation) negotiated with the hotels and the pig farmers. She persuaded the hotels to provide about 200 jobs to recycle much of the waste.
“Previously some of them were scavengers and now they are working as employee of a company. Of course, maybe the salary is not much different from their previous salary as scavengers, but it builds people dignity,” she said.
Later, Yuyun helped develop SANIMAS, a series of community-based sanitation projects for poverty-stricken areas which can be easily replicated. The concept has been introduced in India, Zambia and the Philippines.
Water For People, a nonprofit international development organization based in Denver, Colo., USA, has named Ned Breslin its Chief Executive Officer effective immediately. Mr. Breslin has been serving in the role of Acting CEO for the past eight months. He joined Water For People in January 2006 as the Director of International Programs.
As Director of International Programs, Mr. Breslin oversaw the organization’s expansion into the Dominican Republic, Peru, Rwanda, and Uganda, as well as led the existing programs in Bolivia, Guatemala, Honduras, India, and Malawi. During his tenure, international programs grew from a $3.3 million budget to a $6.5 million budget, [providing safe water] to 91,722 people and sanitation facilities to 92,983 people in 2008.
Mr. Breslin has worked in the water and sanitation sector for several NGOs since the 1980s, including the Lutheran World Relief, the Mvula Trust and WaterAid. He has a Masters of Arts Degree from the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Studies from St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York.
Dr. Albert Morgan Wright joined the Global Sanitation Fund (GSF) Advisory Committee in June 2009. The GSF is managed by the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC).
The Indonesian island of Bali is mostly known for its beauty and tourism industry. But a large segment of its population, mostly the poor, lacks access to sanitation. Many many live the dangerous lives of scavengers in the trash piles. In recent years, an Indonesian environmental engineer put aside her well paid job to come to their rescue. In VOA’s weekly series, Making a Difference, is the story about Yuyun Ismawati and her struggle to improve lives and environment.
