Mr. Barry M. Jackson, a British national with extensive experience in sanitation and in pro-poor financing for development, was announced today as the first Programme Manager of the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council’s (WSSCC) new financing mechanism, the Global Sanitation Fund (GSF).
Mr. Jackson will join WSSCC in September after 19 years at the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA). At DBSA, he served in several capacities, most recently as a senior policy analyst specialising in water supply and sanitation policy, municipal infrastructure finance and institutional development.
Mr. Edgar Quiroga from Colombia and Mr. Peter Cookey from Nigeria have been elected as new WSSCC Steering Committee members for Latin America and Anglophone Africa, respectively. Their terms begin with the Steering Committee meeting in Geneva in October 2008. The Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) is is a global membership organisation that works to improve the lives of poor people in developing countries.
On 2 June 2008, Maude Barlow, national chairperson for The Council of Canadians, received the Canadian
Maude Barlow, PHOTO: TONY FOUHSE
Environment Award’s Citation of Lifetime Acheivement award for her work in raising awareness about the growing global water crisis. Barlow used a portion of her keynote address to highlight the impacts of a coal bed methane mining operation by Royal Dutch Shell on the environment and health, particularly of First Nations communities, in Canada. Shell is one of the sponsors of the award and Barlow actually helped organise a protest against the oil company, which took place outside the gala ceremony.
Since April 2008, Teun Bastemeijer is the new manager of the Water Integrity Network (WIN), a network, Based in Berlin, Germany, aiming to fight corruption in the water sector worldwide in order to reduce poverty.
Teun has a background as a civil engineer from Delft University, specialised in Polder Development, water in relation to land use management and physical infrastructure planning, almost 20 years experience in the water sector and over 30 relating to development work in government, civil society and academic environments. He has been a project manager, country director and senior advisor for the UN, the SNV Netherlands Development Organisation as well as the IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre.
Dr. Jacqueline (Jackie) Kirk, who had recently been appointed Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Education at McGill University, was killed together with three other colleagues in southern Afghanistan on 13 August 2008 while working for the New York-based International Rescue Committee. Shirley Case, Nicole Dial and Jackie Kirk were returning to Kabul with International Rescue Committee drivers Mohammad Aimal and Zabiullah from Paktya, Afghanistan. They had spent the past two days meeting with the local community about an International Rescue Committee project that aids children with disabilities. The three women and driver Mohammad Aimal were killed. Zabiullah was severely wounded. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.
Jackie Kirk obtained her PhD at McGill in 2002 and had worked with the International Rescue Committee since 2004 in helping to support its education programmes worldwide.
She was founding co-editor of the upcoming journal Girlhood Studies, and a former Research Associate at the McGill Centre for Research and Teaching on Women. Her research focused especially on adolescent girls’ and young women’s education.
One of the topics she wrote on was menstrual hygiene. Her article “Menstruation is on her mind: Girl-centred, holistic thinking for school sanitation” which she co-authored with Marni Sommer, appeared in April 2008 issue of Notes and News published by IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre.
“A British water company thrown out of Tanzania over a bungled privatisation deal has failed in its bid to win up to £10m in damages.
Biwater, whose local management team was deported from Dar es Salaam in 2005, took Tanzania’s government to the World Bank’s business tribunal in 2006, arguing that its assets had been expropriated and its contract illegally terminated.
The claim outraged anti-poverty campaigners who say the privatisation contract was forced on Tanzania, and accused the Biwater-led consortium, known as City Water, of performing worse than the state-run utility it replaced.
The International Centre for the Settlement of Investment of Disputes (ICSID) ruled on Friday [25 July 2008] that Tanzania’s government had violated its bilateral investment treaty with the UK by expelling City Water.
But the Hague-based tribunal said there were no damages to award as the company’s value was “nil” at the time of expropriation. Both parties were liable for their own legal costs – running into millions of pounds – and for the cost of arbitration, the judges ruled.
The UK-based World Development Movement [...] described the verdict as “a good day for the people of Tanzania“. In a statement, Biwater director Larry Magor said: “The rationale [not to award damages] is hard to fathom.”
High level officials from more than 15 Arab countries, including 8 ministers in charge of water, and some 80 water experts from the Arab region and beyond attended the formal launching [on 6 July 2008] of the Arab Water Academy (AWA) in Abu Dhabi, under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Zayed Al-Nahayan, deputy prime minister of the UAE and chairman of the Environment Agency-Abu Dhabi (EAD).
The Arab Water Academy is the brainchild of the Cairo-based Arab Water Council (AWC), a regional water policy think-tank chaired by Dr Mahmoud Abu-Zeid, Egypt’s Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation and former President of the World Water Council, who also attended the meeting. Hosted by the Islamic Development Bank (IDB)’ s Dubai-based International Centre for Biosaline Agriculture (ICBA), in partnership with EAD, the Academy is a groundbreaking regional capacity development programme targeting decision-makers and industry executives. The Academy is being supported by the IDB and the World Bank.
[...]
Speaking to, reporters, Dr Shawki Barghouti, the ICBA Director General, said “The Academy will serve as a regional center of excellence for capacity development,for example, in integrated water resources management, utility management and water governance with a view to improving the delivery of water services through sustainable water sector strategies for advancing national economies of countries in the Arab region”. The Academy will also make extensive use of virtual communication platforms, media and broadcasting resources.
[...] the Academy will also forge strategic partnerships with leading academic and research institutions worldwide, such a Harvard University, Oxford University, Cambridge University and Cranfield University.
The 2008 International Water Association (IWA) Grand Awards go to both Dr. Jim Gill for mastering the
Prof. Mark van Loosdrecht
implications of climate change in Australia and Professor Mark van Loosdrecht for pioneering new wastewater treatment techniques.
Professor Mark van Loosdrecht of the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, is a globally recognized pioneer of new techniques that synthesise environmental biotechnology and good engineering practice. Hhe has been instrumental in developing wastewater treatment, biofilm processes, nutrient removal and the production of chemicals by open microbial cultures. These techniques have contributed worldwide to major improvements in the effectiveness and energy efficiency of water treatment.
Dr. Jim Gill
Dr. Jim Gill is CEO of the Water Corporation of Western Australia, which has been faced with serious challenges in the provision of water services due to climate change. At a time when many had not yet recognized the serious implications of climate change for water supply, Dr. Gill and his team were literally saving Perth and other areas of Western Australia from running out of water.
The awards will be presented during the IWA World Water Congress and Exhibition from 7th- 11th September in Vienna, Austria.
A campaign, organised by the Belgian radio station Studio Brussels and the Red Cross, to raise money for drinking water projects, has won a prestigious “Titanium Lion” award at the Cannes Lions 2008 International Advertising Festival [free registration required to browse the web site]. The campaign was in support of the annual charity event ‘Music for Life‘ which is part of the “Serious Request” project initiated by Dutch radio station 3FM to raise money for Red Cross development projects.
The “viral” campaign involved a black boy who showed up on Flanders’ best watched station ‘één’ during three days, always in prime time. He quickly drank the host’s glass of water and then ran off. The most frequently asked question during these days was: ‘have you seen the thirsty black boy?’ The whole thing started to lead a life of its own on the internet and in other media. After claiming the campaign, the organisers raised 3,3 million euro in 6 days time.
