Blue Planet Network

About Us

Our mission is to exponentially increase the impact of safe drinking water programs for people around the world.

What We Do

Blue Planet Network connects funders, NGOs, the public and communities in need to improve the planning, selection, management and monitoring of water and sanitation programs.  This leads to more lasting impact at lower costs.

Our Results

The growth of our network and the impact it has had on the global safe drinking water crisis speaks to the strength of our approach and collective results:

• One million people in 1,600 communities have access to safe drinking water and the chance for more productive lives.
• 94 expert organizations working on water and sanitation access in 27 countries use our services to improve their impacts.
• Nearly 900 member water and sanitation programs, representing $40 million, being tracked and improved on Blue Planet Network

Recognition

• 2012 World Summit Award
• 2011 World Bank Water Hackathon Prize
• 2010 Intel Environment Tech Award
• 2009 California Association of Non-Profits Innovation Award

“I’ve seen nothing else like this network. It offers serious potential for improving transparency, information available to users, and the ability to understand what really works in the real world. This is a break-through technology useful for solving one of our most fundamental human issues.”
– Dr. Peter Gleick, President, Pacific Institute; MacArthur Fellow; Author/Editor, “The World’s Water”

“Blue Planet Network has created a real breakthrough approach, providing the coordination, information & evaluation critical for the success of water improvement projects. This community also provides easy access to best practices, helping water groups grow stronger & more effective through collaboration & peer review.”
– U.S. Congressman Earl Blumenauer, 3rd District, Oregon; Co-Sponsor of the Paul Simon 2005 Water For The Poor Act and 2009 Water For The World Act

“My strong hope is that other organizations see the potential of this network so that we all can do a better job.”
– Joe Madiath, Founder, Gram Vikas, Blue Planet Network member

“Blue Planet Network has transformed the global water sector through its award-winning technology. SV2 selected Blue Planet Network as its international grantee and will continue to support its long-term efforts.”
– Dave Meader, Board Member, Silicon Valley Social Venture Fund (SV2)

Our Story

Since our founding in 2002, it has been Blue Planet Network's ambitious goal to ensure that 200 million people in need gain access to safe drinking water. But gaining access to water is just the first step. Keeping it is as important.

In its early years, Blue Planet Network worked to build awareness and funds for water projects through epic undertakings. Blue Planet Run 2007, the first global relay run for safe drinking water, and Blue Planet Run: The Race To Provide Safe Drinking Water To The World, a powerful book that tells the human story of water through photos and essays, connected people around the world to the water crisis and what they could do to solve it.

Along the way, however, we realized that all the water crisis awareness in the world wouldn’t help if people couldn’t easily find great implementing organizations and water project plans, and be able to easily track the impact of their support. Likewise, the experience of those capable implementers would be wasted if they didn’t have a way to continuously improve through learning best practices and sharing their work with the world.

We saw that we could add real value to the fight for clean water by creating a scalable platform to 1) connect water project funders and implementers to create new, effective partnerships; and 2) manage the planning, funding, implementation and tracking of tens of thousands of water and sanitation projects for greater impact. We always work to be catalysts for positive change across the entire water and sanitation sector.

We launched Peer Water Exchange, our original online technology platform, in 2006 with five member organizations. This has grown into a vibrant community delivering real improvements to water and sanitation programs and projects around the world.

We changed our name to Blue Planet Network in 2010 to emphasize our mission and to welcome funders, as well as implementers, as members to help us expand our reach and collective impact.

blueplanetnetwork.org

Team World Vision Charity Grows with Grassroots Marketing

When some 1,600 runners take to the streets of the Windy City for the Chicago Marathon on Oct. 7, they will be doing so for a special cause — the charity Team World Vision.

Those 1,600 runners also will hold the distinction of being the largest single running group — among the more than 40,000 total runners — doing the marathon to support a single charity.

It’s am impressive accomplishment for a charity that was started only six years ago by Chicagoan Michael Chitwood. He wanted to create a charity to help raise awareness and money for clean water projects around the world, but especially in poverty-ridden third world countries where life is a constant struggle.

Chitwood’s charity has developed so many supporters in such a short time, in part, because he has had the help of fans in the local Chicago ad industry who have given of their time and talents to help market the charity itself and its good causes.

Chief among those helping market Team World Vision has been Chicago ad manNate Brown, who for each of the past couple of years has overseen the creation of a moving video to pique interest in the charity, as well as to interest people in running in the Chicago Marathon and other marathons nationwide to support Team World Vision.

Brown knows the value of marketing. He has worked at DDB/Chicago, one of the city’s largest ad agencies. Brown recently started working for Viscira, a San Francisco-based health care ad agency, but he will continue to live in Chicago.

A shortened version of the video Brown and his team developed last year ran as a public service announcement on the Fox and NBC TV stations in Chicago, as well as on Hulu. It was posted on YouTube as well.

A new video intended to begin rounding up fans for the 2013 Chicago Marathon is just going up on YouTube. “It’s been a very grass roots marketing effort,” said Brown. And it has worked.

By Lewis Lazare@bizjournals.com/chicago

Singer Smokey Robinson Raises Awareness for Clean Water Charity

Singer and songwriter Smokey Robinson is lending his voice to a very important cause in the hopes of helping millions of people around the world. This morning, Robinson joins “Starting Point” to discuss his new clean water charity that he has formed with President Bill Clinton. The partnership was announced on Sunday, as part of the opening session of the Clinton Global Initiative.

Robinson says he and his friends formed “Smoke Alarm” in order to address issues people around the world have and “they’re in position to do nothing about.” The songwriter adds he then says he contacted his friend – Bill Clinton to aid him with his new initiative.

Robinson says “Smoke Alarm” is a “social media thing.” “Rather than me calling on some of my friends in the entertainment business” to do a benefit concert, “it’s very simple. All they have to do is tweet. They tweet to their partners… and its snowballs,” says Robinson.

Some of Robinson’s entertainment business friends who have been helping spread the message are Elton John, Brandy, Eva Longoria and Hillary Duff.

When asked why he chose to front a clean water charity, Robinson replies, “because water is the source of life for everything. There’s nothing alive on earth that does not need water.” Robinson adds, “There are many places in the world where people don’t have clean water…so we thought that would be a good starting point.”

smokealarm.org

MapleWorld World: Charity Water

Play MapleStory and help bring clean water to Rwanda. It's fun, simple, and feels good. Shelly gives you the low down.


Donate to Charity: Water's campaign for Rwanda 

Agua para la Vida: Providing Potable Water and Sanitation to Rural Nicaragua

Since 1987, Agua Para La Vida has been helping rural Nicaraguan communities build their own drinking water and sanitation systems. As of this year, we have helped bring clean water to over 20,000 people.

Our projects include gravity flow drinking water systems,  latrines, community health education and watershed conservation.  This short video explains the mission of APLV. 
 

Our Mission

• To help small, rural communities of Nicaragua develop and maintain access to safe drinking water. We do this by providing engineering, technical expertise, and materials for development of a potable water system. The community does all of the unskilled labor.
• To help these communities derive maximum benefits from safe water through higher standards of hygiene. We do this by providing the materials for high-quality outhouses, or latrines, that families construct themselves.
• To preserve and protect the watersheds that provide water to these communities.
• To provide training and education to local people in all aspects of designing, building, and maintaining drinking water systems so that they can achieve autonomy in rural drinking water development.
• To measure the impact of safe water and hygiene education on the health of infants and children.
• To develop design tools and teaching methods for use by other groups involved in village water system construction.

aplv.org

Water For People Strives To Reach Everyone Forever

Mia Madrid interned at Water For People this summer, and she created a clever, compelling, artistic rendition of our EVERYONE FOREVER programmatic goals, which can be seen below. Enjoy!


And please join us as we continue to push the boundaries with Water For People’sEVERYONE FOREVER movement.

The Clean Water Access Initiative Project Indonesia

In addressing the global water crisis, Action Against Hunger believes in the power of partnership. To illustrate this, we invite you to watch a video of the first project in our three-year collaboration with Tyco International—a clean water system we're building in Indonesia's impoverished Nusa Tenggara Timur province:


The Clean Water Access Initiative is focused on providing safe drinking water and sanitation to impoverished communities threatened by malnutrition and water-borne diseases. Tyco has committed more than $2 million in resources over the next three years, as well as emergency funds to enable ACF to respond quickly to natural disasters, including earthquake-ravaged Haiti, flood-inundated Pakistan, and more recently, drought-stricken Kenya.

The Clean Water Access Initiative's first project, in Indonesia's Nusa Tenggara Timur (NTT) province, is already underway. Working with ACF staff and local community leaders, Tyco's regional teams are helping to plan and construct a new system to improve access to safe water for 40,000 people. In addition to providing technical expertise, Tyco contributed $250,000 in funding and donated 36 miles of polyethylene pipes and fittings from its facility in Jakarta while local Tyco engineers provide training and oversight during installation. At the same time, ACF is dedicating resources toward an educational program to improve local hygiene practices, training local authorities on the design and maintenance of water supply infrastructures, and monitoring the sustainability of the water system.

The need is great. NTT Province is among the poorest in Indonesia. While the rest of the country advances towards national and international development goals, NTT Province lags behind due to a difficult mix of isolation, limited natural resources, and poor local governance. In one of the NTT districts, a third of the households need more than 30 minutes to retrieve water by hand—requiring two or three trips by foot each day—and nearly two-thirds of water sources remain unprotected.

We're thrilled to be leveraging Tyco's industry-leading people, products, and services—in combination with our experience designing and implementing rural water systems—in this partnership.

Mobile Technology boosts Water Security for the Poor

A young girl pumps water from a well in ther village of Manugay in the Pech River Valley of Afghanistan's Kunar Province June 26, 2012. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

Information technology is a powerful tool for experts working to provide secure access to water for personal use, food production and business in developing nations.

Giving poor people proper access to safe water and sanitation would save  2.5 million people a year from dying from diarrhoea and other diseases spread by a lack of hygiene, according to charity WaterAid.

The widespread availability of mobile phones has enabled the development of low-cost solutions aimed at improving water security and reducing poverty.

Three quarters of the world's 7 billion people have access to a mobile phone, according to a World Bank report. There are 6 billion mobile subscriptions worldwide, of which almost 5 billion are in developing countries.

This is where mobile networks come in -- they have led to the development of communication services that aim to increase the transparency and reliability of water delivery.  For example, mobile technology has allowed service providers to monitor water supply to prevent theft and leakages, while offering more effective repairs and billing.

But these innovative efforts still face huge political and logistical challenges, complicated by the risks linked to climate change, experts say.

Here are five mobile strategies that are already helping people get better access to water and sanitation.

SUPPLY MAPPING

Timely data on the state of water infrastructure is key to implementing a secure water supply. Akvo FLOW (Field Level Operations Watch) is a mobile application that uses Android-operated devices, the internet and map-reporting tools in Google Maps and Google Earth to collect, analyse and report data for monitoring water supplies.

The system, which has been used in 17 countries in Africa, Asia, Central America and South America since 2010, was developed by two non-profit organisations: Water For People, which helps communities in developing countries access clean drinking water; and Akvo, which creates web and mobile software to improve the delivery of humanitarian aid.

In 2011, the Liberian government, assisted by the World Bank, used Akvo FLOW to map 10,000 water points in Liberia.

SMART-CARD TAP SYSTEM

Lifelink, developed by Denmark-based Grundfos AS, uses submersible borehole pumps powered by solar or wind power to deliver water to an elevated storage tank.

Gravity forces the water to flow into a tap unit in a small building, which also serves as a payment facility. Customers buy water credits that are stored on a "smart card", using mobile-phone banking. They insert the smart card into a slot at the tap unit to purchase water.

A percentage of the money goes towards service and maintenance. Lifelink staff can monitor water pressure, temperature and the amount of water tapped from anywhere in the world via the internet.

The company, which provides the service in urban and rural communities, says it has implemented drinking-water supply systems for 100,000 people in Kenya, and is expanding into other African countries and Asia.

WATER MANAGEMENT BY SMS

A mobile-to-web platform designed to regulate water management is improving water delivery in West Africa.

The mWater service - used by 240 small public-private piped water schemes in Senegal, Mali, Benin and Niger - allows water-service operators to share information with national authorities and financial institutions via mobile phone.

Text messages provide data about water production levels, account balances and service disruptions. mWater generates real-time reports, and also archives data to provide water-scheme managers with monthly reports, which can be emailed or downloaded.

Today, more than 25 percent of rural and small-town populations in western and central Africa are served by small piped water schemes, a proportion that is expected to rise to 80 percent by 2015, according to the Manobi Development Foundation.

SMART HANDPUMPS

Experts estimate that a third of handpumps supplying water to some of the world's poorest people are broken at any given time, according to Rob Hope, a researcher at Britain’s University of Oxford Mobile/Water for Development (MW4D) programme.

Hope is part of a team developing a mobile system that coordinates access to, payment for and upkeep of handpumps, which are often installed and then left for the local community to manage with varying success.

The "smart handpumps" automatically transmit water use and performance data over the mobile network, sending a text message to alert engineers of a breakdown.

Data provides water output estimates that show fluctuations in daily to seasonal demand levels. The mobile application is being tested in 70 villages in Kenya's drought-prone Kyuso district, as part of a year-long pilot project funded by Britain's Department for International Development (DFID).

HANDPUMP SERVICE CENTRES

More than half of India’s village handpumps are not working and remain out of use for more than 30 days due to a shortage of mechanics, according to WaterAid.

In response, the charity has set up handpump service centres, known locally as Public Panchayat Participatory (PPP) centres, operated by locally trained mechanics in two districts of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar states.

The condition of village handpumps is monitored by the centres and repairs coordinated by mobile phone.

Between January 2011 and March 2012, the centres oversaw the repair of more than 4,500 handpumps serving almost 338,000 people, according to WaterAid.

Only 6 percent of the repairs took longer than two days to complete, and this was usually down to remote location, the need for major work or a lack of spare parts, the charity says.

By Julie Mollins@AlertNet

Despite the influx of large amounts of international aid into Afghanistan, getting access to water remains a daily struggle for a large part of the country.

The government says almost three quarters of the population do not have access to clean water.

As Al Jazeera's Charles Stratford reports from Kabul, even drinking from wells built by aid agencies is no longer safe.

Family of Rachel Beckwith an Online Giving Hero Visits Ethiopia

For Rachel Beckwith’s ninth birthday, she launched an online fundraiser on Charity: water, hoping to raise $300 to bring clean drinking water to children in Africa.

Rachel fell short of her goal, raising just $220, by her birthday in June 2011. The following month, the 9-year-old was tragically killed in a car accident. In her memory, donations poured into Charity: water, to complete her attempt to build a well.

More than $1.2 million was raised in her memory. That money is now bringing clean water to 60,000 people in 100 villages.

A year after her death, her family traveled to Ethiopia, to see the impact Rachel had on local communities. The above video shares footage from their trip, and has been rapidly circulating around the social web since being posted this afternoon.

Are You Ready To Sit Down For What You Believe In?

Who says building a better world is all work and no play? Who Gives A Crap is a fun campaign created by three engineers/product designers who have developed a toilet paper that is made from 100 % post-consumer waste, without the dyes/ink/glue/chlorine that makes regular TP so bad for the planet. Apparently it’s also soft and fluffy, and 50% of its profits goes toward building toilets and improving sanitation in the developing world. The campaign is focused on raising the capital to help fund the first bulk production run of Who Gives A Crap toilet paper. The question that is posed is – are you ready to sit down for what you believe in?

By Christine@350 or bust 

WhoGivesACrap.org 

"Thirty Dollars"

BluePlanetNetwork.org

Water in Adina Faso, Ethiopia

The residents of Adina Faso used to walk four hours each day to gather unclean water, but after working together with Water.org, they now have twenty-four-hour access to clean water, right in the middle of their village.
water.org

Charity Group Warns Of Worsening Refugee Crisis In South Sudan

International charity organization, Save the Children, warned Sunday that the refugee situation in South Sudan is worsening steadily on a daily basis as the already over-crowded camps in the region are ill-equipped to deal with the continued flow of refugees.

The charity said up to 2,000 children are arriving daily at the already over-crowded and flooded camps set up in South Sudan's Unity and Upper Nile states. It added that some families have even been forced to abandon elderly and weak relatives along the way.

It said seasonal rains have turned the region into a quagmire, making the living conditions and the aid effort far more difficult. Further, aid agencies working in the camps are currently struggling to provide clean water, food and shelter to thousands of new arrivals due to the scale of the influx, funding shortages and adverse weather conditions, the charity added.

"Thousands of families are arriving in South Sudan hungry and terrified after walking for days to reach safety. People are coming just as heavy rains make it virtually impossible to access these areas to provide aid," Jon Cunliffe, Save the Children's South Sudan country director, said in a statement.

"The resources are not in place to meet the needs of everyone. The worst-case scenario is now a reality; we are witnessing a full-blown humanitarian crisis in one of the most remote places on earth," he added.

Save the Children has launched an emergency response in refugee camps set up in South Sudan, protecting vulnerable children and providing education to refugees. The aid agency is currently in the process of scaling up its programs in response to the recent influx of refugees.


South Sudan had declared independence from Sudan in July 2010 after it voted overwhelmingly in favor of separation from the North in a referendum. The January 2010 referendum was line with a 2005 peace agreement that ended 22 years of civil war between the Arab North and the Christian and animist South.


Talks between the two nations for resolving outstanding issues triggered by South Sudan gaining independence from Sudan two years ago were stalled in April after fierce border clashes broke out between the two neighboring nations. An estimated 150,000 people have been displaced by the conflict.


In a unanimously adopted resolution in early May, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) had determined that the situation along the Sudan-South Sudan border constituted "a serious threat to international peace and security." Calling on the two countries to immediately end hostilities and resume negotiations, the UNSC declared its intention to take "appropriate measures" if the parties did not comply to the demand by August 2.


The talks between the two neighboring African nations subsequently resumed in late May in the Ethiopian capital city of Addis Ababa, following the UNSC warning. The ongoing talks under the auspices of the African Union (AU) High-Level Implementation Panel are aimed at resolving disputes related to sharing of oil wealth as well as border issues.


RTTNews



Six months ago the Republic of South Sudan became the world's newest nation, officially separating from northern Sudan. But since independence there's been increasing violence in the resource rich border areas of Abyei, Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan and now the situation is worsening again. The United Nations warned that more than two and half million people in South Sudan will require food assistance and Doctors Without Borders says a series of humanitarian emergencies are unfolding as, this month, many thousands of refugees have fled across the border into South Sudan to escape conflict. Jean Pierre Amigo is MSF's Field Coordinator in Maban South Sudan, where they have established a refugee camp. He joined us on a satellite phone.

An Ironic History of Water Scarcity in the Land of the Lakes

                                                           A woman returns home after collecting well water in Ciudad de Dios

Called “The Land of Lakes and Volcanoes,” Nicaragua supposedly received its name from the Spanish Conquistadors: a hybrid of Nicarao, the chief of a local indigenous tribe, and agua, the Spanish word for water. How ironic then, that the country boasting the largest supply of freshwater in Central America suffers from a chronic scarcity of safe drinking water.

According to El Porvenir, more than two-thirds of Nicaragua’s rural communities lack access to clean potable water, with serious consequences for infant mortality, health, and even education – women and children are often forced to travel for hours each day to find water, leaving little time for school or work.

So if Nicaragua has such an abundance of water as a natural resource – with availability that is more than five times the average for the Central American region – then why do its citizens struggle to access it every day?

The answer lies, in part, in the country’s long water policy history. Under the Somoza dictatorship until 1979, much of the water system was owned and operated by the private sector, meaning that consumers had to pay full price for operation and maintenance of the system. This made the price of water inaccessible for Nicaragua’s poorest populations. Although today the country’s water supply and sanitation is a public good, pollution and service problems continue to restrict access. The city of Managua had been dumping untreated wastewater into Lake Managua for over 80 years, and the Nicaraguan Water and Sewerage Enterprise estimates that effective coverage is still less than 60% due to insufficient and unreliable service.

In attempts to fill this gap, local water committees and organizations such as Dos Pueblos and El Porvenir have undertaken water projects with local partners. With the generous help of the Cottonwood Foundation, Dos Pueblos’ potable water project works with local Nicaraguan communities, empowering people to come together to lay pipes, build wells, and ultimately develop community-owned small-scale infrastructure to guarantee sustainable water access. Over the past year, Dos Pueblos has transformed five rural communities, improving health, education and governance, and demonstrating just how important water is. But millions still lack access to this vital resource, and there is much to be done. See how you can make a difference – donate or volunteer today!

By Annie Shiel@tipitapa.org

People Water first well trip to Taquezal Nicaragua. One of the most beautiful experiences of our lives. This well that was built serves 150+ people daily.

For every bottle purchased People Water will give an equal amount of clean water to a person in need. DROP FOR DROP

Mawaada International Aid

Mawadda international aid is an international humanitarian organization committed to end world suffering, we work in extremely difficult locations to improve the quality of life of people suffering due to armed conflicts, disasters and poverty zones through developing education, local skills and available technologies.We are focused on war zones, newly formed governmental situations in middle east and north Africa and internationally where needed.

Middle East and Africa:Due to the civil unrest and official repression related to the Arab Spring many Arab nations are subjected to crimes and disasters, Mawadda international aid’s main goal right now is to respond to the urgent and immediate needs in North Africa and the Middle East as well as the African region as a whole initially Libya and to supply medical and other essential aids to help the Libyan people survive from massacres and crimes committed against them.With violent unrest arising in Libya, thousands are leaving the country looking for  security and stability. The Libyan- Tunisian borders and Libyan- Egyptian borders are flooded with people, desperate to get out of the country. Without sufficient food, water, housing and other necessary resources, the situation could be impossible for many civilians to survive.

Activities On Behalf Of People Affected By War:

We are dedicated to respond swiftly and proficiently to humanitarian needs of individuals by providing vital support such as water ,food shelter and medical aid whenever a disaster strikes due to armed conflicts, hostilities environments, natural catastrophes or any disastrous situation deemed to require immediate relief. We exert all our efforts to bring hope and solidarity to Oppressed communities, standing side by side to end poverty and injustice.Mawadda International Aid is known as an efficient charity for its capability to deploy speedily into many situations around the world. Our main goal is to support North African countries and follow the situation from our UK head quarters, Tripoli-Libya base and international offices.We are working  to raise the standards of humanitarian aid and ensure that the funds raised are spent  effectively to finance humanitarian relief and are headed to the right destinations in the aim of delivering effective and timely relief to people most in need and providing equal access to essentials such as clean water, education and healthcare.

Mawadda International Aid


An overview of our goal to create a repository of skilled individuals who see a need for change and are prepared to help by sharing their knowledge and skills remotely by utilizing today's technology. Help however you can, email, phone, virtual.

Catalytic Philanthropy vs. Charity

Which approach will be most effective to tackling our water conservation and shortage challenges in the years ahead? 

At least 840 million people - the majority of them poor - do not have access to water around the world. Tensions between countries such as India and China over water resources increased in recent years as both populations and economies grew and water resources were stressed. 

There are thousands of charity organizations dedicated to solving the problem of water access around the world, but charity may not be the best way to solve the crisis of water accessibility and prevent it from becoming a next global security threat.

The key is actually creating self-sustained markets, according to Gary White, co-founder and CEO of Water.org.  Water.org is currently creating a program to give micro-loans to the poor in India that will help them connect to the existing water infrastructure in the country, rather than pay up to seven times as much for water sold by vendors. 

"The solution there lies with the poor themselves and trying to unleash this tremendous power they have as customers and citizens," said White during a panel at the Aspen Ideas Festival on the question "Is Water the Next Global Security Threat?" 

"The fact is that the water utility is there," he said. "Hundreds of millions could get access to water given the right financial tools and access to capital." 

White added that charitable organizations may dig wells that give water for free, but they are often unusable after more than a few years because they dry up or lack capital to be maintained. "We do need philanthropy and catalytic philanthropy as opposed to charity," White said. 

Panelist Steven McCormick, president of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and former president and CEO of The Nature Conservancy, agreed that markets need to be harnessed in order to solve the world's water crises, saying that they could drive behavior that results in water conservation. 

He warned against the risks of privatization, however. "Privatization and ownership of water needs to be very, very carefully managed," he said. "That could lead to a lot of unintended consequences." 

Sylvia Lee, water manager for Skoll Global Threats, said that private sector involvement in water management around the world had increased in the last five years and was encouraging. She also said that greater government involvement around the world in designing better water policies is occurring.  

"I am optimistic because, personally, I believe water is too important for us not to cooperate over," said Lee. "Everyone understands that without water, we will die."

The Atlantic

Drop in the Bucket

Drop in the Bucket (Drop) is a Los Angeles based, 501(c)(3) water and sanitation charity with field offices in Uganda and South Sudan.

Since 2006, Drop has worked with hundreds of villages in East Africa to drill wells, construct sanitation facilities and introduce social programs such as Village Savings and Loan Associations, Girl’s Clubs, Health Clubs, Community Hygiene Promoters, and Community Sanitation Initiatives.

Because education is one of the most effective ways of moving a country out of poverty, we work to provide schools and communities with tools they need to improve child heath, increase school enrollment rates and promote gender equality.

The best way of addressing these issues has always been to go directly to the people and work alongside them to find suitable solutions.   Utilizing our “boots on the ground” approach, we employ teams of local field officers and hygiene trainers to engage the communities and help address the complex issues associated with the developing world’s water and sanitation crisis, in which 783 million people lack access to safe water, and where one in every three people lack access to an adequate toilet.

Drop In The Bucket believes we can help create a world in which children are safe, healthy, educated and free from fear. And we believe that the key to achieving those ends is clean water and sanitation.

 Aweil North – Water Flowing

Aweil North is located in the Northern Bahr el Ghazal State, in northwestern South Sudan. It is close to the border with the Republic of Sudan and just below Darfur. According to some statistics it is also the poorest and most underdeveloped region of South Sudan, which in turn is also widely recognized as one of the most underdeveloped countries on the planet.

Since South Sudan gained its independence back in July 2011, the UN estimates that around 328,000 people have returned back there from their former homes in the Republic of Sudan. In the majority of cases this repatriation was not voluntary. It is estimated that the final destination for 100,000 of them was Northern Bahr el Ghazal State and its two neighboring states. This huge and sudden influx of people is creating a major strain on the areas already limited resources. With little food and access to safe water, experts are saying the area could be on the verge of a massive humanitarian crisis.

Drop in the Bucket arrived in Aweil late last year and has pledged to build as many wells as we can there over the next 12 months. Our intention is to drill 20 wells at schools in Aweil North and Aweil East this year. The first two of these wells have been drilled and we are currently on the third.

This area often suffers from major water shortages, but this year has been particularly bad with many parts of Africa suffering the effects of what is being called the worst drought in over 70 years. 

Ethiopia: Safe Water - A Glass Half Full

More than half of all Ethiopians have access to an improved source of drinking water, but the country still has much work to do if it hopes to achieve its goal of providing access to safe water and sanitation for its 83 million people by 2015, experts say.

"Despite an increase in coverage, the number of people that require access to sanitation and hygiene, for instance, are still the highest in Africa, if not the world," said Kebede Faris, water and sanitation expert for the World Bank's Ethiopia office. "As a result, a significant number of Ethiopians are still facing WASH [water, sanitation and hygiene]-related health problems and also losing their lives."

A recently released study by the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) shows that some 271,000 Ethiopian children under the age of five died in 2010 alone, with pneumonia and diarrhoea causing more than one-third of those deaths.

The authors said "basic steps" such as hand-washing with soap, expanding access to safe drinking water and sanitation, along with providing other medical services, could have saved their lives. The problem remains: "An overwhelming majority, nine households in every 10, does not treat their drinking water," leaving them susceptible to various health problems.

Ethiopia is seeking to meet the UN Millennium Development Goals' targets on water, sanitation and hygiene through its Universal Access Plan II, which seeks to provide 98.5 percent of the population with access to safe water along with 100 percent access to sanitation by 2015.

Nationally, the proportion of Ethiopian households with access to an improved source of drinking water - categorized as a public tap or stand pipe, borehole, a protected well, spring water and rainwater - has reached 54 percent, according to the Demographic Health Survey 2011. However, there are significant disparities between urban households, where 95 percent of people have access to an improved source of drinking water, and rural areas where just 42 percent access safe drinking water.

Rural-urban divide

Like access to water services, government data shows a wide gap in access to sanitation between urban and rural households. According to the country's Growth and Transformation Plan 2010, the national coverage of sanitation stands at 60 percent, with rural coverage at 56 percent, compared to 88 percent for urban households.

"Building latrines is not enough. A systematic approach that focuses on quality or building to minimum standards, maintenance and use are equally important," said the World Bank’s Kebede, adding that there was a need "to invest now to save more future lives and impairments of many kinds".

Other water-borne diseases are also common as a result of poor water and sanitation. "With more than 65 million people living in the trachoma endemic parts of rural Ethiopia, we need to reach out to more people and fast, with proper sanitation and hygiene practices, as most of the cases are happening in areas where water supply and sanitary conditions are poor," said Menebere Alemeu, country representative for NGO International Trachoma Initiative.  

The organization reports that more than 75 percent of visual impairment in the country caused by trachoma is related to the lack of sanitation and hygiene.

The government has expressed its ambition to achieve the set targets. "Our eyes are on our own Growth and Transformation Plan targets, but globally we are also committed to achieving the MDGs [UN Millennium Development Goals]," said Minister of Health Tedros Adhanom.

Finding the money

However, the government's budgetary allocation to the water sector has been decreasing over the years, "declining almost by half - from 4 percent in 2006 to 2.5 percent in 2010", according to international NGO WaterAid. The inadequate budget for the water sector and the growing cost of establishing water and sanitation services could also see the country pay more for services, according to another recent study by the Ministry of Finance and the UN.

"The budget is calculated based on the current and future cost investment this sector requires and we are on [the] right track of securing the financing," said Yohannes Gebremedhin an official with the Ministry of Water and Energy. “We are now working on issues related to sustainability of the systems we set up with communities," he said, adding that this would cut down on the costs of repairing systems.

Recent updates to Ethiopia's universal water access plan and a new hygiene and sanitation Strategic Action Plan suggest that the cost of meeting the national WASH targets is now closer to US$2.4 billion, with $1.75 billion dedicated solely to the rural water supply.

"With this plan…we need to work on innovative, cost-effective sector-wide approaches along with securing the necessary budget on time so as to meet the target set," said Daniel Gelan, UNICEF's WASH expert. "We, along with the government, are working strongly to find the budget sources and are doing well so far." 

IRINNews.org 


The living standard of the majority is beyond imagination. Poverty and disease are the main problems of the Ethiopian population. The supply of clean and safe water in Ethiopia is the lowest in Sub-Sharan African countries. Shortage of skilled labor in technical and vocational fields is a bottle neck for country's development. ESCO wants to intervene on these areas to help alleviate these social problems.

Orphans and fatherless above 15 years of age are in need of short term technical trainings this summer. School is closed for the coming three months and this is sufficient time to acquire technical knowhow like computer training and wood work and this will benefit orphans and fatherless to get job.

The number of widows and orphans under 15, looking for assistance to their basic need is increasing from time to time. Recently we received requests from Chilga woreda for 180 orphans and fatherless.

El-Shaddai Charity Organization (ESCO) is a registered non-government and non-profit organization established to implement social projects that benefit the impoverished community in Ethiopia. ESCO has implented four water projects so far. 

Water Changes Everything

Almost a billion people live without clean drinking water. We call this the water crisis. It's a crisis because it only starts with water -- but water affects everything in life.

Health. Education. Food security. And the lives of women and children, especially.

We can end the water crisis in our lifetime. But first we have to let everyone know it's happening. Learn how water changes everything -- and share this with everyone you know. 

By charity: water Animation by Jonathan Jarvis, Voiceover by Kristen Bell, Score and sound effects by Douglas Kaufman

Mike Butcher interviews Scott Harrison of Charity: Water

A girl from a village outside Kigali, Rwanda, collects drinking water from an open well. Shallow wells like this are often contaminated but they’re the only source of drinking water for people in need. (photo: Esther Havens)