ITT Corporation announced [on 20 October 2008] a strategic partnership with Mercy Corps as part of its corporate philanthropy program, ITT Watermark. The partnership includes a three-year, $1 million commitment to help provide safe water during emergencies created by natural catastrophes such as floods, droughts and earthquakes. ITT’s announcement was made from the Water Environment Federation’s annual conference in Chicago.
[...] As part of the ITT Watermark initiative, ITT has established an Emergency Response Committee responsible for the coordinated deployment of ITT resources directly to disaster sites during water-related emergencies. The committee will work with Mercy Corps during the balance of [2008] to develop a plan for reducing risks and implementing turn-key emergency response protocol.
[...] This relationship with Mercy Corps is the second strategic partnership for ITT Watermark. In August [2008], the company announced it had partnered with Water For People [...] to provide safe water, sanitation and hygiene education to 300 schools in Asia and Latin America by 2010.
Barlow, reacting in Ottawa to the announcement, says she is honoured to
Miguel D'Escoto Brockmann / UN Photo/Marco Castro
be working with someone of President d’Escoto’s calibre. “I am excited for the year ahead, and am pleased to note that President d’Escoto has already adopted the call for water to be recognized as a human right.”
In his letter to Barlow, confirming her appointment as Senior Advisor, President d’Escoto says, “One of the priority issues for my Presidency is the need to achieve the goals of the United Nations Decade “Water for Life” (2005-2015)… Given your outstanding experience, your creativity and your leadership in water issues, I would like to appoint you as my Senior Advisor for this 63rd session of the General Assembly.”
For a critical review of some of Maude Barlow’s claims see Maude Barlow: No Free Pass by Michael E. Campana, Director of the Institute for Water and Watersheds (IWW) at Oregon State University (18 March 2008).
James Wicken has moved from his position as South Asia Regional Advocacy and Policy Advisor with WaterAid UK to take up a new position as Head of Policy and Advocacy with WaterAid Australia based in Melbourne. Mr. Wicken is co-editor of the recent joint WaterAid-IRC publication “Beyond construction : use by all“.
If you would like to keep in touch with James his new email is: james.wicken [at] wateraid.org.au
Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal of Nepal inducted eight ministers in his cabinet from Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) and Madhesi Janadhikar Forum (MJF) on 22 Aug 2008. Bijaya Kumar Gachhadar from MJF is the newly appointed minister for Physical Planning and Works, taking over from Hisila Yami from CPN (Maoist) who was given the portfolio of Ministry of Tourism.
The Ministry of Physical Planning and Works was established in 2000 to bring important infrastructural development under the umbrella of a single Ministry. Responsibilities of the Ministry include water supply and sanitation. in August the Ministry published the 3rd draft of the National Urban Water Supply and Sanitation Sector Policy.
The India Water Portal has won a Manthan Award for ICT and Digital Content in Development, in the E-Science and Environment category.
The Manthan Award recognizes best practices in e-Content and Creativity in SAARC countries (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Bhutan & Afghanistan). It was launched on 10th October 2004, by Digital Empowerment Foundation in partnership with World Summit Award and American India Foundation.
The award citation reads:
“So far knowledge about water in India existed in silos of universities, governmental and non-governmental organizations. Traditional knowledge and understanding around water were in serious threat. The launch of the India Water Portal has come as a timely resource centre in providing holistic information and content base on water and various issues. Reaching out to a visitor base of around 600 each day and 18000 visits a month, the commitment of the Water Portal to reduce both the digital and the content asymmetry prevalent in India can be validated from their emphasis on “language portals”, “multimedia courses” and the “Kannada Radio shows”. With multilingual options, the India Water Portal hopes to create effective advocacy and awareness
regarding water related issues among general masses in order to achieve solutions for water woes.”
Starbucks has been accused of greenwashing today after it was claimed that the company wastes 23.4 million litres of water – enough to fill an Olympic swimming pool every 83 minutes [and to supply daily the entire two million strong population of drought-hit Namibia] – by leaving taps on in its branches all day.
An undercover investigation by The Sun newspaper revealed that staff at every branch are instructed to leave a cold tap behind the counter running constantly to wash spoons and utensils.
In response [...] the company originally claimed that leaving the tap on uses less water than repeatedly turning it on and off again [but] later dropped [this] and instead argued that the approach was adopted in the interest of hygiene.
[...]
Starbucks has made much of its ethical policies to its customers over the past few years – sourcing organic fair trade coffee and widely publicising an environmental mission statement.
[...]
Neither the hygiene defence nor the claim that leaving taps running uses less water is sufficient justification for the policy, according to Peter Robinson, director of environmental charity Waste Watch.
UNICEF has strongly condemned the killing of a Somali staff member who was shot on Sunday, 19 October 2008, in Huddur, southern Somalia.
Water engineer, Mukhtar Mohammed Hassan, was shot at close range as he walked in town with friends after attending the mosque. According to reports, three gunmen shot into the air to disperse the crowd and then directly targeted Mukhtar.
Mukhtar worked with UNICEF providing technical supervision for UNICEF-supported water, sanitation and hygiene activities in Central and Southern Somalia.
The UN co-ordinator for Somalia, Mark Bowden, said that with 28 aid workers killed in the country over the past year, it had become one of the most dangerous places in the world for humanitarian staff.
Ron Rivera liked to call his ceramic water filters “weapons of biological mass destruction.” For 25 years he traveled to poor villages throughout Latin America, Africa and Asia teaching local potters to make what appears to be a big terra-cotta flower pot but is in fact an ingenious device for purifying water. In 1998 he joined Potters for Peace and became where he became Coordinator of Filter and International Projects.
[...]
Mr. Rivera died on Sept. 3 in Managua, Nicaragua, after contracting falciparum malaria, the most dangerous form, while setting up a water-filter factory in Nigeria, said Kathy McBride, his wife. He was 60.
Read more: William Grimes, New York Times, 14 Sep 2008
Potters for Peace and Potters without Borders have set up memorial pages here and here.
See a presentation video on ceramic filters by Mr. Rivera’s below.
A jewellery tycoon famed for creating the world’s most expensive toilet has died suddenly at his Hong Kong home on 26 Septemebr 2008, local media says. Lam Sai-wing, 53, was the creator of a $HK38 million (US$ 4.9 million) gold toilet listed in the Guinness Book of World Records.
Thousands of people visit his company’s showroom [the Swisshorn Gold Palace, built with 2.5 tonnes of pure gold and costing US$ 50m]) in Hong Kong every week to see the solid-gold toilet, which sits in a garish bathroom with gold fittings, including a gold toilet brush holder (see video below).
Lam Sai-wing was inspired to build the toilet by his boyhood hero, Vladimir Lenin, who said gold should be used to make toilets after the victory of socialism to remind people of capitalist waste.
From left: Catherine Zeta Jones; Craig Kielburger, founder of Free the Children; Manal Shaheen and Michael Douglas (cop. Nakheel)
Hollywood’s star couple Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones have received a donation of AED 7 million (US$ 1.9 million) to carry out water and sanitation projects in developing countries including Sri Lanka and Kenya. The money was donated by Dubai-based property giant Nakheel to the international charity group Free the Children (FTC). The donation was part of the company’s 2008 Ramadan charity programme, which focussed this year on water. In total the programme raised AED 10 million, including a donation to Bait al Khair for its work in the Northern Emirates.
“We’re not just giving them money – we’re giving them hope”, Douglas said. “Water is the lifeblood of communities. If children won’t have to take long walks to collect water, they can go to school.”
Free the Children (FTC) was founded in 1995 by Craig Kielburger, a Canadian child rights activist, who was only 12-years-old then. Since then, the organisation has built over 500 schools worldwide. It claims to be “the largest network of children helping children through education” in the world.
Sources: PTI, 07 Oct 2008 ; Faisal Masudi, Xpress, 06 Oct 2008 ; Nakheel, 06 Oct 2008 ; Gulfnews, 06 Oct 2008
