Thoughts from the World Water Forum

By Rebecca West, WEF President

During the World Water Forum V, held in Istanbul, Turkey, March 16-22, 2009, I was one of more than 25,000 participants who discussed themes including the following:

• Global Change and Risk Management;
• Advancing the Human Development and the Millennium Development Goals (MDG);
• Managing and Protecting Water Resources;
• Governance and Management;
• Finance;
• Education, Knowledge and Capacity Development.

The theme that struck me as most important was Advancing Human Development, which prompted discussions on the need to provide access to sanitation and clean drinking water in developing areas with growing populations and the resulting water scarcity and degraded water quality. It seems to me that once access to sanitation and clean drinking water is available--whether in developing or industrialized areas of the world--that communities and their residents can develop; then the other five forum water themes could be addressed.

For communities across this planet to survive and then thrive, access to basic sanitation and clean water is the first and most essential requirement. I’ve had opportunities to witness this first hand, most recently during a personal trip to Kidete, Tanzania. A small village of around 700 people, Kidete is located on the outskirts of Iringa, Tanzania (population around 180,000 people). It’s an area blessed with frequent rainfall, but access to water is a challenge due to changing weather patterns and an expanding population requiring water for living and for growing food.

As seen in this photo, Kidete residents must seek available water sources each day for their daily drinking, cooking, bathing, washing and crop growth. A consistent and ample water supply would begin to completely change this village: children could attend school, women could better attend to the daily chores of growing and gathering food for their families (or perhaps even begin a small business or go back to school), babies would be born with better birth weights and a greater chance of living beyond their toddler years. Once this happens, Kidete and villages like it could develop a better standard of living and focus on protecting their water supply because they understand the value of water and what it means for each day of their lives. Then water issues related to governance, management, finance, education, and capacity development will take shape and more complex water issues related to global change and risk management could be considered.

Basic access to sanitation and clean drinking water is a right of all people, and I offer these thoughts to show that human development really does depend on that right. So do global water solutions.