CWS leaves water symposium on high note

["Lesley Crosson" <LCrosson@churchworldservice.org>]

CWS leaves water symposium on high note

STOCKHOLM - Sept. 2, 2011 -- “We have messages to take home,” said
Kenyan Mary Obiero at the closing ceremony of last week’s World Water
Week symposium in Stockholm, which drew a record 2,600 politicians,
civic leaders, scientists, water professionals and leaders from
international development and advocacy organizations.

Obiero, who is water program coordinator for Church World Service East
Africa, said, “some interesting ideas" emerged, some of which will be
useful in the work CWS does.   

Obiero, CWS Senior Advisor for Global Advocacy David Weaver, and CWS
East Africa Director Dan Tyler represented Church World Service at the
annual conference organized by the Stockholm International Water
Institute. 

The CWS representatives joined other conference participants in
agreeing to support efforts to ensure that all government leaders who
attend the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development next
June in Rio de Janeiro will commit to “universal provisioning of safe
drinking water, adequate sanitation and modern energy services by the
year 2030.” 

Weaver said the Stockholm statement
(http://www.worldwaterweek.org/documents/WWW_PDF/2011/2011-Stockholm-Statement.pdf)
reflects the general consensus of water leaders and experts at the
conference, that “there is now a convergence of views on what we can
refer to as the water-food-energy-climate change nexus, and that we must
be guided in our efforts by how those aspects come together and
influence each other.”

The statement issued at the conclusion of the conference details the
following targets for the year 2020: A twenty percent increase in total
food supply-chain efficiency, which would include twenty percent
increases in water efficiency for agriculture, energy production and in
the quantity of water reused; and a twenty percent decrease in water
pollution.  
 
This year's conference focused on global urbanization challenges. 
There "was a big concern about the involvement of policymakers,”
Obiero said.  “Without political goodwill, it becomes very difficult
to implement solutions that give water a national and global approach to
meeting the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals). It has a lot to do with
institutional reform.” 

To date, the majority of countries lagging behind in meeting the MDGs
are in Africa. Those countries, Obiero said, “have been limited by
lack of political goodwill and insufficient government funding for water
and sanitation.

Participants were advised on effective ways for water practitioners to
engage politicians around the issue.

“Some of the ‘right ways’ suggested to us to create pressure on
policy makers include pressing media coverage of the issues and using
communications experts to develop documents that will be user-friendly
to politicians-not fifty-page documents that they won’t even read. 

"We also must make it clear to our leaders that water is a human
right,” not approach them as engineers wanting to talk about water.

World Water Week presenters also acknowledged the power and role of
women in securing rights and access to clean water and sanitation, with
Malawi held as an example. 

“Water is a woman’s issue,” said Obiero. “In Malawi, they’re
using women to manage community-based water and it has worked really
well. If we had more women managers or practitioners in water and
sanitation, the experts agreed that the situation wouldn’t be what it
is now.

“In Kenya, when women are given the opportunity to make decisions in
areas that affect their lives, they do well,” said Obiero. 

One Kenyan women’s group that Church World Service has worked with as
a local Water for All partner is Yang’at, which has been instrumental
in bringing clean, new community water resources like sand dams to some
of the most water challenged communities in Kenya. 

World Water Week also focused on youth, with sessi
on presenters urging
people age 30 and younger to become involved in water advocacy and
development in their countries and communities. 

CWS's new strategic plan for East Africa includes a focus on engaging
and educating youth.   “They have the energy, they’re creative, they
have the time, and they’re enthusiastic about their own
communities,” Obiero said. 

With rapid global urbanization, it is estimate that 70 percent of
people moving to cities will be youths. “These are the people who will
benefit most from advances now in water programs. My children will be
the second generation.” 

The critical issue going forward, according to CWS's Weaver, is "water
and food security, particularly the amount of water used in agriculture,
which consumes about 70 percent of the world's freshwater supply.   

 “An astronomical amount of water is used to produce one pound of
beef. We all need protein, but do we need to use that much water to
produce the proteins we need?” Weaver asks.

"Cleaning up industrial processing and water for the poor all are
important, but the issue of food production and water use has to be
addressed.  It’s now about sustainable production,” he said.

World Water Week has been the annual focal point for the globe's water
issues since 1991.

Media Contacts
Lesley Crosson, (212) 870-2676, media@churchworldservice.org 
Jan Dragin - 24/7 - (781) 925-1526, jdragin@gis.net 

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