World Water Day at the United Nations General Assembly

Happy to share with you my remarks as delivers at the UN General Assembly today. Happy World Water Day! 
 

High-level Interactive Dialogue of the UN General Assembly on World Water Day

United Nations, March 22, 2013

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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.

http://www.wsp.org/content/economic-impacts-sanitation

-          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.

http://www.endwaterpoverty.org/campaign/election-campaign

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

USAID joins Sanitation and Water for All Partnership - great news

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 20, 2012
Public Information: 202-712-4810

www.usaid.gov

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah announced that the U.S. Agency for International Development has joined the Sanitation and Water for All (SWA) Partnership. The SWA Partnership brings together governments, donors, civil society organizations, and development partners to achieve sustainable sanitation and drinking water.

USAID and the U.S. Department of State are committing a total of $1 million to the World Bank's Water and Sanitation Program. The investment will support the SWA-led National Planning for Results Initiative, which promotes national planning efforts related to sanitation and water. The economic gains from investing in sanitation and water are estimated at $170 billion per year.

"The United States Government considers sanitation and water and our related partnering activities to be a critical component of our overall international development assistance effort," Administrator Shah said during remarks at the SWA High Level Meeting. "We look forward to maximizing the potential of this partnership, which brings together such a range of tools, experience, and approaches. Working together, we can not only reach full coverage, but we can also do it in the most effective, efficient, and collaborative way."

Established in 2010, SWA's biennial High Level Meeting brings together Ministers of Finance from developing countries, Ministers of Development Cooperation from donor countries, and high-level representatives from development banks and other donor institutions.

Last month, the United Nations announced that the Millennium Development Goal for a 50 percent reduction in the number of people living without access to safe drinking water had been achieved in 2010 - five years ahead of schedule. Even with that target met, more than 780 million people, particularly those in fragile states and poor communities, still live without access to safe water.

Progress in sanitation has been slower. Today, 2.5 billion people still lack access to improved sanitation and it is unlikely that the Millennium Development Goal target for sanitation will be met by 2015.

Water and sanitation become human rights, albeit turbidly

The Lancet gets it exactly right in the opinion piece below. The recent UNGA resolution enshrining water and sanitation as human rights is a step in the right direction. More importantly, it is not the enshrining of water and sanitation as human rights that is the end game, but rather the realization, the manifestation of those rights for the almost 1b without water and 2.6b without sanitation. 


Read on:

On July 28, the UN General Assembly adopted a nonbinding resolution calling on states and international organisations “to scale up efforts to provide safe, clean, accessible and affordable drinking water and sanitation for all”. Water and sanitation are now enshrined as basic human rights. However, of 163 delegates from member nations who voted on this resolution, 41 abstained and did not fully endorse this right. Why?


Some delegates felt the decision to hold the vote was pre-emptive, and all countries could have reached consensus—and thereby avoided the need for a vote—if more time was allowed to interpret legal outcomes of the move for public and private suppliers. Most delegates who abstained, and some who endorsed the resolution, were anticipating a report to be published later this year by an independent expert appointed by the UN Human Rights Council (HRC).


The Brazilian delegate, who voted yes, decried the absence of an “appropriate forum” to debate the resolution, and the UK’s delegate, who abstained, said that the resolution was not proposed “with consensus in mind”. Nevertheless, the justifications given by the 41 countries that abstained, including the USA, Japan, and Canada, were not convincing.


Irrespective of politicking at the UN, 884 million people worldwide do not have regular access to clean water, and 2·6 billion do not have access to basic sanitation. The 2010 Millennium Development Goal 7 report states that the target of halving the number of people without access to safe water is on course to be met by 2015, but provision of sanitation is not.


The practice of open defecation by 1·1 billion people is not only “an affront to human dignity”, but also the key source of faecal–oral transmitted diseases such as diarrhoea, which causes 1·3 million deaths per year in children younger than 5 years. A little more than 5 years through the UN General Assembly’s Water for Life Decade, adequate supply of water and sanitation is far from universal. When the HRC’s report is published, the hope is that no country obstructs a binding commitment to provide clean water and sanitation for all.


The Lancet

Informal Interactive Hearings of the General Assembly with Civil Society - April 16 deadline

APRIL 16 DEADLINE!

There are a few opportunities for civil society organizations to participate in the upcoming meeting of the General Assembly. We would like one or more of the few civil society representatives to come from the global safe drinking water and sanitation sector.  Please visit this website for more details.

Here is some of what you will find at that page:

Nomination Form for a Speaking Role at the Informal Interactive Hearings of the General Assembly with Non-governmental organizations, Civil society organizations and the Private sector, United Nations HQ, 14-15 June.

APPLICATION DEADLINE: 16 APRIL 2010

In order to provide input to the preparatory process for the 'MDG summit' (High-level Plenary Meeting) on 20-22 September 2010, the UN General Assembly, in resolution 64/184, has asked the President of its 64th session, H.E. Dr. Ali Abdussalam Treki, to convene 'Informal Interactive Hearings of the General Assembly with Non-governmental organizations, Civil society organizations and the Private sector'.

The Hearings will take place from 14-15 June 2010 at UN Headquarters in New York.

The GA President has recently formed a Task Force of representatives of civil society and the private sector to advise him on the format and participation at the Hearings. The UN Secretary-General has also established a Trust Fund to support the participation of non-governmental and civil society representatives of developing countries in the Hearings and at the summit itself. All Member States in a position to do so have been asked to contribute generously to the Trust Fund.

Outcome of the Hearings

The aforementioned resolution encourages Member States to actively participate in the hearings at the ambassadorial level in order to facilitate interaction between the Member States and the representatives of non-governmental organizations, civil society and the private sector. Furthermore, the resolution "requests the President of the Assembly to prepare a summary of the hearings, to be issued as an Assembly document prior to the High-level Plenary Meeting." (Paragraph 16) The outcome of the hearings will thus constitute a formal input into the political process leading to the summit itself.

Format of the Hearings

The exact format and substance of the Hearings are yet to be determined, but the resolution states: "The themes for the hearings will be based on the comprehensive report of the Secretary-General." (Annex III, Paragraph 4) This report is now available [link]. It takes stock of the status of implementation of the MDGs; emerging issues and challenges such as climate change and the global financial, economic and food crises; lessons learnt to accelerate progress at national and international levels; and an action-oriented agenda for the summit.

Among the themes identified for roundtable discussions during the summit that might be reflected in the hearing discussion are issues related to poverty, hunger and gender equality; health and education; sustainable development; emerging issues and evolving approaches; the special needs of the most vulnerable; and widening and strengthening partnerships. (Annex II, Paragraph 5)

The resolution also states that the informal interactive hearings "shall consist of a brief opening plenary meeting followed by four sequential sessions of the hearings on the basis of two sessions a day, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., and from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. Each session will consist of presentations by invited participants from non-governmental organizations in consultative status with the Economic and Social Council, civil society organizations and the private sector and an exchange of views with Member States." (Annex III, Paragraph 1).

The Task Force is currently discussing the themes and format of the hearings in greater detail and will provide more information in the coming weeks. Please visit www.un-ngls.org/mdg2010 for updates.

Speaker Nomination Process

The below Nomination Form serves as a way for you to nominate potential speakers at the event by 16 April at the latest. The Task Force will review all applicants and - using selection criteria that include ensuring regional and gender balance - will make a recommendation to the GA President on who should speak at the event. The entire membership of the General Assembly will have an opportunity to review the list as well.

World Humanitarian Day

Happy World Humanitarian Day!

From the United Nations media advisory:

Established by the General Assembly of the United Nations, 19 August 2009 is the first World Humanitarian Day. The designation of the Day is a way to increase public understanding of humanitarian assistance activities worldwide. The Day also aims to honour humanitarian workers who have lost their lives or been injured in the course of their work.

Why 19 August? - Six years ago, on 19 August 2003, the United Nations office in Iraq was bombed and 22 people lost their lives. Among them was Sergio Vieira de Mello, at that time the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Special Representative of the Secretary-General to Iraq. While there have been many other fatal incidents involving humanitarian personnel the General Assembly decided to use the anniversary of this incident as World Humanitarian Day.

So a quick shout out to some of our favorite humanitarians:

Clarissa Brocklehurst of UNICEF's Water and Environmental Sanitation program.

Chris Williams of UN Habitat.

Jamie Bartram, formerly of the World Health Organization, now at the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health.

Lots more where these came from, but let's start here and get the festivities rolling.