G8 meeting: a thirst for water justice

Activists Maude Barlow and Meera Karunananthan of the Council of Canadians criticize their country’s Prime Minister for positioning “himself as a champion of maternal and child health at this year’s G8 and G20 meetings” on the one hand, while on the other hand refusing to recognize water as a human right.

What Stephen Harper fails to acknowledge is that women need greater control over the factors that contribute to their health and well-being. Charity-based models like aid packages are not sufficient.

Poor women in the global South have borne the brunt of neoliberal economic policies that have placed profits for transnational corporations above the environment and human health. They need international support for strong public services and healthy environments.

Take water for example. Canada has prevented the recognition of water as a human right and promotes the privatization of water services while Canadian mining companies destroy watersheds throughout the world. This has disproportionately affected poor women.

After stressing that women and girls are more adversely affected when access to water is restricted, they add:

While several countries are working to have water recognized as a human right through a covenant at the UN, the Canadian government has opposed it. Such a covenant would provide a legal tool for communities that are denied access.

Yet Canada has voted against resolutions to officially enshrine water as a human right at several key UN meetings.

Canada is also a strong proponent of water privatization. It funds and plays an active role within the Public Private Infrastructure Advisory Facility which promotes the privatization of drinking water and sanitation systems around the world.

Canada also directly invests in private water through pension funds.

Yet experiences around the world show that private water has denied women their basic needs. [..] A recent report published by the National Network on Environments and Women’s Health highlights the disproportionate impacts of water privatization on women.

Barlow and Karunananthan claim that Canadian mining companies “are notorious for their disregard of the environment and human health”.

In Mexico, for example, 87 per cent of the mining projects are run by Canadian mining companies that continue to destroy land and contaminate water supplies despite massive protests by farmers, indigenous communities and environmentalists.

Groups like Mining Watch and the Council of Canadians are hoping Bill C-300, a new bill that passed a narrow vote in the House of Commons in April 2009, will make Canadian extractive industries accountable for their actions abroad.

Source: Chronicle Herald, 28 Apr 2010

Free access to over 100 research articles on water – offer ends 23 April 2010

In support of World Water Day 2010, publisher Routledge is offering free access to over 100 research articles related to sustaining healthy ecosystems, increasing water quality, access to clean water and contemporary challenges in water management. These articles are available free until the 23rd April 2010.

Journal titles include: Water International, International Journal of Water Resources Development, Development in Practice, Hydrological Sciences Journal, Third World Quarterly, Environmental Politics, Gender & Development (special issue on Water), Knowledge Management for Development Journal (special issue on Learning for the Water Sector) and International Journal on Environmental Studies (special isssue on Greywater)

See the full listing.

IWA Women in Water Award for Leadership and Leadership Development

The International Water Association (IWA) is seeking nominations for its Women in Water Award for Leadership and Leadership Development. The award seeks to recognise females working in the field of water who through their demonstrated leadership have had a significant positive impact on the development of the industry.

The closing date for nominations is May 1st, 2010.

Evaluations will be made by the Women in Water Advisory Committee, which will present its decision to the IWA Honours & Awards Committee for approval.

The award is dedicated to the memory of Hei-jin Woo, a Korean female engineer and scientist working in the water field. The first winner of the award in 2008 was Dr. Joan B. Rose for work on waterborne pathogen genomics.

For more information on selection criteria and a submission form go the IWA web site.

Related web page: IWA Women in Water Programme

Fundamentals of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) [course], 10-21 Nov 2008, Washington D.C.

Organised by: Institute for Public-Private Partnerships (IP3)This two-week course focuses on the key elements of water planning and management, including the rationale and objectives of IWRM, the planning and processes of a programme at all government levels, administrative/organizational decentralisation, gender issues, water demand management and stakeholder participation.

Target group:

• Government Officials
• Officials from PPP, Privatization Units or Investment Agencies involved with decentralisation
• Representatives of Stakeholder and Citizen Groups
• Staff of Bilateral and Multilateral International Organizations

For more information and application details go to the IP3 web site

Latrines Trounce Toilets: barriers to sanitation coverage

While Americans may consider flush-and-forget-it indoor plumbing to be the pinnacle of sanitary science, the lowly latrine could be a far better solution for many parts of the developing world, say researchers at Michigan Technological University.

Associate Professor David Watkins, Professor James Mihelcic and PhD student Lauren Fry of the University’s Sustainable Futures Institute analyzed worldwide barriers to sanitation. Diseases such as dysentery attack millions of people every year, often fatally, largely as a result of poor sanitation. In particular, the researchers found that a scarcity of clean drinking water is not as big an issue as one might expect.

In fact, installing water-guzzling appliances such as toilets can actually promote unsanitary conditions when the effluent is discharged untreated into once-clean rivers and streams. A properly built latrine, on the other hand, keeps sewage safely separate from drinking water.

“Our challenge has been to look at what interventions make the most difference,” Watkins said. Their findings show that small changes can be more important in preserving health than big engineering projects, a fact that Watkins, an engineer, relates with some consternation. “As engineers, we like to build stuff. But handwashing is really important, too,” he said. “Even a simple thing like not dipping your hand into the water pot can make a big difference.”

Their paper, “Water- and Nonwater-related Challenges of Achieving Global Sanitation Coverage,” was published in volume 42, number 12 of Environmental Science and Technology.  A feature on their work “Why is Global Sanitation So Elusive?” appears in the journal’s Policy News section.

Abstract:

Improved sanitation is considered equally important for public health as is access to improved drinking water. However, the world has been slower to meet the challenge of sanitation provision for the world’s poor. We analyze previously cited barriers to sanitation coverage including inadequate investment, poor or nonexistent policies, governance, too few resources, gender disparities, and water availability. Analysis includes investigation of correlation between indicators of the mentioned barriers and sanitation coverage, correlations among the indicators themselves, and a geospatial assessment of the potential impacts of sanitation technology on global water resources under six scenarios of sanitation technology choice. The challenges studied were found to be significant barriers to sanitation coverage, but water availability was not a primary obstacle at a global scale. Analysis at a 0.5° grid scale shows, however, that water availability is an important barrier to as many as 46 million people, depending on the sanitation technology selected. The majority of these people are urban dwellers in countries where water quality is already poor and may be further degraded by sewering vast populations. Water quality is especially important because this vulnerable population primarily resides in locations that depend on environmental income associated with fish consumption.

Source: Newswise, 17 Jun 2008