Jackie Sims and Jamie Bartram leave WHO Water Sanitation and Health (WSH)

Jackie Sims retired at the end of February 2009 from her position as WHO team leader for the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme – until further notice, her functions are taken over by Robert Bos.

Jamie Bartram moved on from his position of Coordinator, WSH to a professorship at the University of North Carolina, effective 31 March 2009 [contact:  jbartram [at] email.unc.edu]. Robert Bos has taken over his responsibilities starting the beginning of April 2009.

Jackie Sims and Jamie Bartram. Photo: Sari Setiogi

Source: Water, Sanitation, Hygiene and Health Newsletter, N° 102, 30 Apr 2009

Elizabeth Wamera leaves Maji na Ufanisi (Water and Development), Kenya

After three years, Elizabeth Ketty Wamera has left Maji na Ufanisi (Water and Development) as of 22 April 2009 to pursue a different opportunity in the WASH sector. At Maji na Ufanisi, an NGO based in Nairobi, Kenya,  Ms Wamera was a community development coordinator also in charge of Gender and HIV/AIDS mainstreaming in the organisation’s programmes.

A replacement has not been determined and in the meantime any communication or inquiries regarding Maji na Ufanisi’s community/WASH/Mainstreaming programmes should be directed to mnu [at] majinaufanisi.org or the programmes Director, Nancy Githaiga.

Source: personal email, 23 Apr 2009

Maude Barlow to Address UN General Assembly

Council of Canadians chair Maude Barlow will make her first address to the United Nations General Assembly on the morning of April 22 [2009] to support the Bolivian call for an annual “International Mother Earth Day” celebration. Her speech will be a call to action to implement the human right to water. According to Barlow, this means the world will have to abandon the “hard path” of large-scale technology – dams, diversion and desalination – in favour of the “soft path” of conservation, rainwater and storm water harvesting, recycling, alternative energy use, municipal infrastructure investment and local, sustainable food production.

[...] Barlow, who was appointed last year as Senior Advisor on Water to the President of the UN General Assembly, will also participate in an afternoon program with Bolivian President Evo Morales, Brazilian writer-theologian Leonardo Boff, and UN President Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann. Barlow will also be briefing more than 35 countries and meeting with key UN agencies on this visit as part of her ongoing commitment to the human right to water.

[...] Barlow is to say. “We need to assert once and for all that access to clean, affordable water is a fundamental human right that must be codified in nation-state law and as a full covenant at the United Nations.”

Source: Council of Canadians, 21 Apr 2009

Energy Globe Award: Oikos East Africa wins water category

Oikos East Africa has won the 2009 Energy Globe World Award in the water category. The awards, each worth € 10,000, were presented at the Energy Globe TV gala on 14 April at the opening of the European environment ministers` meeting in Prague, Czech Republic. The winning project “Water supply for Ngarenanyuki and Oldonyosambu” was implemented by Oikos between 1999 and 2008 in the north of Tanzania. The project renovated and improved existing water distribution systems and installed additional systems. Simultaneously, rainwater harvesting systems, dams and solar-operated pumps were integrated with the existing infrastructure. The system used gravity-fed flow of water as far as possible. Water filter systems were installed and regular measurements are conducted. The other two finalists in the water category were:

• The NGO Green Empowerment for building solar-powered water pumps to provide drinking water in rural areas of Nicaragua
•  The ARGE R.U.S.Z GmbH in Austria for tuning old washing-machines to make them more water and energy efficient

Water For People Co-Founder, Jack Mannion, Dies

John B. (Jack) Mannion, former executive director of the American Water Works Association (AWWA), died Feb. 4, 2009. He retired in 1996 after nearly eight years of leadership at AWWA. Mannion was a co-founder of the NGO Water For People and helped guide it through to its 501(3)c designation as a charitable organization, a process that took nine years, according to Ken Miller, a past president of AWWA, the Awwa Research Foundation (now the Water Research Foundation), and Water For People. Miller recalled the Mannion’s suggestions for the Water For People name and open-hands logo. “Jack was a real supporter of Water For People” until the end of his life, he said.

Source: AWWA / Water For People, 12 Feb 2009

Yemen: kidnapped Dutch water engineer and wife released

  

Jan Hogendoorn and Heleen Janszen during their kidnapping. Photo: AFP

Dutch water engineer, Jan Hoogendoorn (54) and his wife Heleen Janszen (49) who were kidnapped near the Yemeni capital Sanaa on Tuesday, 31 March 2009, were released two weeks later on 14 April. 

Mr. Hoogendoorn works for Vitens-Evides International on a drinking water and sanitation project in the town of Taiz. He and his wife have set up a web site on their stay in Yemen.

The kidnappers, led by tribal chief Ali Nasser al-Siraj, were said to belong to a clan from Bani Dhibyan, an inaccessible region around 90 kilometres south-east of the capital. They had demanded that security officers be brought to justice over an alleged attack on their clan in 2008.

Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen says no ransom money was paid for the release of the couple in Yemen. The minister stressed the Netherlands never pays ransoms for its nationals. It is not clear whether any money was paid by a third party. The kidnappers say they received 325,000 US dollars.

Mr. Hoogendoorn said he did not know if money was paid to secure their release. “I don’t know if it was ransom or pledges in the form of schools, that kind of thing. They were talking about building schools in that region, laying water pipes, electricity and that kind of general infrastructure,” he told Dutch national broadcaster NOS.

Sources: Radio Netherlands, 14 Apr 2009; AFP, 14 Apr 2009 ; Radio Netherlands, 01 Apr 2009 ; AFP, 04 Apr 2009.

See a video of the kidnapped couple posted on the Dutch NOS news site on 12 April 2009 here.

Skoll Awards for EcoPeace and WaterPartners International

EcoPeace-Friends of the Earth Middle East and WaterPartners International are two of the seven organisations that have received a Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship. Each recipient receives a three-year grant of $765,000.

EcoPeace was established in 1994, to promote cooperation in protecting the region’s shared water resources and environmental heritage. The Good Water Neighbors community exchange project, and programs to rehabilitate the Lower Jordan River, are leading examples of cross-border initiatives that have fostered collaboration and increased awareness of common interests.

Set up in 1990, WaterPartners International provides both microcredit and grants for water and sanitation projects. So far it has invested approximately $6 million in projects, which have directly benefited more than 350,000 people.

The Skoll Foundation was created in 1999 by eBay’s first president, Jeff Skoll. The Foundation connects social entrepreneurs and other partners in the field via an online community at www.socialedge.org, and through the annual Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship.

Source: Skoll Foundation, 11 Mar 2009

International Medical Corps and Earth Council Geneva Launch Strategic Partnership

International Medical Corps and Earth Council Geneva have launched a strategic partnership that [...] will take place on both the global and country levels, [focussing] on strengthening the quality, accountability, and efficiency of water, sanitation, hygiene, and other environmental health interventions.

[...] The partnership’s priorities will include:

• Providing access to clean water through the rehabilitation and/or construction of new, locally sustainable facilities
• Delivering hygiene promotion, water and sanitation education, and behavioral change-oriented messages
• Increasing access to locally sustainable sanitation facilities through construction or rehabilitation, as well as providing hygiene products
• Providing education on the importance of proper hygiene and its relation to improving health and well-being
• Promoting education and understanding of one’s role in positively impacting and protecting the environment as it relates to climate change.

Source: IMC, 02 Apr 2009

Colombia: Uribe appoints new environment, housing, territorial development minister

Carlos Costa. Photo: Cesar Carrión - SP

Colombian President Álvaro Uribe has appointed Carlos Costa Posada as the country’s new environment, housing and territorial development minister. A former consultant to the World Bank’s Latin American and Caribbean water and urban development unit, Costa replaces Juan Lozano, who served as minister between July 2006 and March of this year. Costa’s areas of expertise include environmental management, disaster risk and climate change management.

Source: BNamericas [subscription site], 06 Apr 2009 ; Ministerio de ambiente, vivienda y desarrollo territorial, 06 Apr 2009

WOTR wins Kyoto World Water Grand prize 2009

At the 5th World Water Forum, the Watershed Organisation Trust (WOTR) from India, was awarded the Kyoto World Water Grand Prize at the closure of the Forum on World Water Day (22 March 2009) in Istanbul, Turkey. The award, worth JPY 3 million (US$ 30,000) was presented to Dr Marcella D’Souza, Executive Director of WOTR in recognition of the NGO’s contribution towards organising rural communities for watershed development and rain water harvesting. WOTR, with offices in Ahmednagar and Pune, Maharashtra state, was one of 67 entries to the prize.

Source: WOTR in Focus

Photo: IISD