High-level Interactive Dialogue
of the UN General Assembly on World Water Day
United Nations, March 22, 2013
Mister
President,
Thank you
for the invitation to join you today, and Happy World Water Day.
WASH
Advocates is a nonprofit advocacy and lobbying group in Washington DC, entirely
dedicated to the global safe drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH)
challenge. We are independent and have been fully funded by four private
philanthropists: the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, the Howard G. Buffett
Foundation, the Wallace Genetic Foundation, and the Osprey Foundation.
A famous
American politician, Tip O’Neill, once said that all politics is local.
I would suggest that on World Water Day we recognize that all water and
sanitation solutions should be local as well. We at WASH Advocates are
pushing not simply for access, but for sustainable solutions that are appropriate
to local contexts all across the globe. This call echoes the Deputy Secretary
General’s remark earlier today that “Global is somebody else’s local.” In the
post-2015 context, we also look for solutions which lean forward into
tomorrow’s sustainability challenges and threat magnifiers, including
urbanization, climate change, and desertification.
This afternoon
session is about cooperative solutions, so I’d like take my time to highlight
three efforts of other organizations which push us in that direction:
-
Sanitation
and Water for All Partnership (SWA): SWA is a powerful platform from which to create and strengthen
the political will necessary to achieve zero open defecation by 2025, and
universal coverage of WASH by 2030. I am proud that the US has now joined. www.sanitationandwaterforall.org
-
Economics
of Sanitation Initiative (ESI) of the Water and Sanitation Program at the World Bank: one
country in Asia lost the equivalent of 6.4% of its GDP to inadequate sanitation
just a few years ago. ESI’s data shows a direct causality between sanitation
and GDP growth rates, and is likely to get the attention of Finance and Prime
Ministers, when little else will. On World Water Day 2013, let’s be sure we are
using this data.
-
End Water
Poverty has produced an Elections Toolkit that helps us get every
candidate for elected office around the world to prioritize water and
sanitation. On World Water Day, let’s redouble our efforts to make sanitation
and water a part of every election between now and the end of 2015 at the
least.
These are
uncertain times, but no one in this room is going to bed tonight worrying that
his/her daughter will die from waterborne diarrhea tonight. This is a solvable challenge, and we can do more.
I salute you; I applaud your efforts; and I look forward to doing what we can with
my colleagues in US civil society.
John Oldfield, CEO, WASH Advocates
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment