Check out this post from Erin Swanson of Water.org:

Remember playing the Oregon Trail game growing up? You chose your companions, forded rivers with your oxen, went hunting, and occasionally had a brief funeral for someone on your team lost to measles, a snakebite, dysentery, typhoid, cholera, and diarrhea.

Would you believe that MILLIONS of people are suffering from some of those same diseases today? Yes: dysentery, typhoid, cholera, and diarrhea. And what do they have in common? They are the result of unsafe drinking water and no safe place to defecate, no toilet. This is why these preventable diseases kill millions of people, mostly children, in the developing world today.

This is why today, November 19, is World Toilet Day. To raise awareness of the fact that one in four people on this planet don’t have access to a toilet. To raise awareness to the face that lack of sanitation is the world’s biggest cause of infection. And In India alone, the number of people who practice open defecation is double the population of the U.S.

Just as you were in that wagon with your companions on the Oregon Trail, risking your life for the promise of a better one, so we invite you to hop on our wagon today. Our vision: global access to safe water and sanitation. We have been working steadily towards this vision for 20 years. Join us and many other organizations on World Toilet Day to acknowledge the life-saving power of the toilet and appreciate the toilets in our lives. Join us as we raise a stink about the global lack of sanitation that causes not only embarrassment, concerns for safety, and lack of dignity, but preventable disease, illness, and all too often, death.

Seeing these diseases eradicated is possible, today. Will you “ford the river” with us?

Sign this online petition demanding action from global leaders to urgently address the sanitation crisis.

Learn more about World Toilet Day and sign up for monthly updates from Water.org here.

You may recall that last year, right around this time, we commemorated World Toilet Day. Time has flown, and November 19th (Thursday) marks the next annual World Toilet Day. This is a chance to “give voice to the 2.5 billion people who lack access to a toilet and the 1.8 million people who die annually as a result.”

If you live in Washington, DC, you’re invited to meet on Capitol Hill for the “Sanitation is Dignity” exhibit with speeches on the crisis & solutions by invited guests. It’s a great opportunity to spotlight a major– and solvable– health crisis. Details below:

WHAT: World Toilet Day event: “Sanitation is Dignity” exhibit and speeches on the crisis & solutions by invited guests

WHEN: Thursday, November 19, 2009, 12:30pm-1:00pm

WHERE: United States Capitol, West Front Grassy Area (north panel); West side of Capitol Building (facing Washington Monument). Near corner of 1st Street NW & Constitution Ave. NW. Take the metro to Union Station

WHO: Senator Durbin (Invited), Representative Blumenauer (Invited), Representative Payne (Invited), Water Advocates, WaterAid, CSIS, Water For People, National Resources Defense Council, Earth Day Network and others

Contact John Sauer at jsauer@wateradvocates.org if you would like to volunteer.

John Sauer, Communications Director for partner organization Water Advocates, has a column in today’s Huffington Post studying all of the attention and traction clean water efforts have been getting recently (including the Dow Live Earth Run for Water which we’ve covered here on the ONE Blog). It’s a pretty good recap of some of the big initiatives currently at play, leading Sauer to ask: “Will this”buzz” result in substantially more people getting access to water and sanitation?”

Excerpts below, full piece here:

With over 2 million people dying of preventable illnesses linked to lack of access to water, sanitation and hygiene every year, it is critical that the response to this crisis be as large as the need. At present this is not the case—the response is abysmally below the need. Let’s take a look.

Annually about $6 billion in development aid goes to water and sanitation programs globally, but $18 billion is the estimated amount required each year to meet the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target for water and sanitation. This is a significant gap that only a coordinated global strategy can address.

The U.S. is not the global leader that it needs to be on this issue. It trails Japan and Germany in development aid to water and sanitation issues, spending only about $432 million in 2007 according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). By contrast, Japan spent $1.9 billion and Germany $593 million.

Efforts have been made to increase U.S. leadership but they have not been successful yet. The most notable push is from Senator Durbin and 24 other senators (a quarter of the Senate) who are hoping to pass legislation (S.624) that aims to reach 100 million people with first-time access to safe drinking water and sanitation by 2015. Water and sanitation organizations suggest that the U.S. government contribution should be $1.5 billion per year.

As we reported earlier, our friends at the Global Water Challenge made news last week when they announced the Dow Live Earth Run for Water, which promises to be the largest event ever of its kind. Sweta Daga gives us a behind-the-scenes look at the announcement and more details about the Dow Live Earth Run for Water:

On Tuesday, October 13th, I had to get up at 5:15 a.m. To be clear, that’s not my normal wake-up time. It’s more my idea of slow torture. But that morning something important was happening. The organization I work for, Global Water Challenge, was going to be announcing its partnership with Live Earth and Dow to combat the drinking water crisis. I was excited because the Dow Live Earth Run for Water benefiting Global Water Challenge will be the largest event ever of its kind — on the scale needed to deal with the crisis. On April 18th, 2010, thousands of people around the world will participate in 6 km run/walks (the average distance many women and children walk every day to secure water), followed by featuring concerts and water education activities.

I wasn’t the only one up early on Tuesday — the students at Mott Hall Science and Technology Academy were also making their way over to The Early Show to represent kids all over the world. The students have committed to participate in the global event on April 18th and were helping us tell the world about the event by appearing on The Early Show. It was cold, but the kids from Mott Hall realized that there were kids like them all over the world who didn’t have water in their schools. In fact, half of the world’s schools lack access to clean drinking water and safe sanitation.

The official press conference was later that day at the Chelsea Piers in New York. GWC President Paul Faeth was joined on stage by Jessica Biel, Alexandra Cousteau, Pete Wentz and others to talk about how important the drinking water issue is around the world. In this day and age, there are still close to a billion people who lack access to clean water. Our hope is that the Dow Live Earth Run for Water will create a tipping point in the water crisis.

Funds raised in the U.S. will go to water and sanitation projects around the world that GWC is supporting. Every person who runs/walk on April 18th is not only helping by providing funding for these projects, but also by showing their commitment to the issue, and bring this issue to the forefront of people’s minds.

Senator Edward Kennedy, the “Lion of the Senate,” was a stalwart champion for ending extreme poverty in the poorest parts of the world. He lent his powerful voice for human rights, for an end to child poverty, and for freedom. From Bangladesh to South Africa to Ireland, Sen. Kennedy’s fingerprints remain on the movement against global poverty, and the world is better off for it. Most recently, he signed onto the reauthorization of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), a bill that authorized $48 billion over the next 5 years to improve global health for the world’s poorest people. He is already missed.

Senator Paul Kirk, a longtime Kennedy aid and friend, is temporarily filling the late senator’s seat. Sen. Kirk recently cosponsored the Durbin-Corker Water for the World Act (S. 624), bringing the total number of cosponsors of that bill to 25. We thank him for his support, and look forward to working with him in the fight against extreme poverty.

-Arjun Mody

Today our friends at Global Water Challenge announced that they’ll be joining with Live Earth and Dow to create the “largest-ever worldwide event to raise awareness and funds to help solve the global water crisis.”

The event is called the Dow Live Earth Run For Water and will take place on April 18th, 2010. Here’s a slide-show from the Live Earth announcement:

GWC will also be hosting a conference call and webinar this evening at 7:30 PM EST.

Here’s the call-in info:

Dial-in number: (218) 862-1000
Access code: 495650#

Gary White and Matt Damon of water.org just formally announced a new commitment to extend their great work around water and sanitation to Haiti.

Haiti which has suffered several hurricanes recently has had particular trouble bringing clean water to rural communities. Water.org will commit to helping bring water to a minimum of 50,000 people by investing at least 2 million dollars in work with local NGO’s.

We’ll have more on this and President Obama who will be addressing the meeting shortly.

-Chris Scott

UPDATE: Here’s video of the entire opening plenary.

Thanks in part to the efforts of more than 107,000 ONE members, we’ve hit our target of 20 cosponsors for the Durbin-Corker Water for the World Act — which would provide 100,000,000 people with first-time access to safe drinking water and sanitation on a sustainable basis by 2015.

Our thanks to Senators Harry Reid and Dianne Feinstein, who signed on to cosponsor the bill last week. Here’s the full list of cosponsors:

Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL)
Sen. Bob Corker, Bob (R-TN)
Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA)
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME)
Sen. Roland Burris (D-IL)
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH)
Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA)
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA)
Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI)
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH)
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)
Sen. Byron Dorgan D-ND)
Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA)
Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT)
Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO)
Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT)
Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD)
Sen. Bernard Sanders (I-VT)
Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV)
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)

ONE’s Government Affairs team is following the bill’s progress closely, and we are hoping for a hearing this fall. We’ll post another update when things get moving.

Meanwhile, let’s not stop at 20 — this bill and the 884 million people globally who lack access to clean water deserve more attention. Sign the petition here, and don’t forget to share it with your friends.

Thank you,

-Emily Stivers

There’s been a lot of great momentum lately about providing clean water for the nearly one billion people in the world without it. In 2005, Congress passed the Paul Simon Water for the Poor Act, and from 2007 to 2008, US funding for water, sanitation, and hygiene programs went up 45%.

So what’s missing from this picture, you ask? The system to implement it. If we want to make a difference in helping poor families around the world access clean water, we need a modern and efficient aid agency to deliver on our promises. USAID needs an overall plan for fighting poverty in order to get the most out of this amazing infusion of resources for providing clean water. The best way to make a long-term difference in water and sanitation is to integrate water – and all other the other life-saving assistance that ONE members fight for – into a single strategy for fighting global poverty.

The current system is broken. There’s not even a single place in the US government to find out what the US is currently spending on water & sanitation and in what countries. In the Water for the Poor Act of 2005, Congress mandated an annual report on the government’s progress. But because there are fifteen different US agencies implementing water or sanitation programs overseas, the report does not capture all our efforts. The Millennium Challenge Corporation provided $429 million to help countries upgrade their water delivery systems and connect more households to clean water last year. But that investment is not even reflected in the Water for the Poor Act Report country data, which only reports USAID and State Department activities.

A scattered bureaucracy may not sound like such an urgent problem, but lives hang in the balance: without a clear direction, our water and sanitation assistance simply isn’t going where it’s needed the most. In 2008,

• Jordan received over $41 million from USAID for water and sanitation programs in FY 2008, even though 98% of its population already has access to improved drinking water.
• Niger, where only 42% of the population has access to improved drinking water, received only one-fiftieth that amount.

Learn more about why lending your voice to the fight for foreign assistance reform can also mean improving access to clean drinking water and improved sanitation for the world’s poorest.

-Porter McConnell, Aid Reform Campaign, Oxfam America

Earlier this year we included an article in our daily “What We’re Reading” feature about an effort by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and others to boost programs in Africa that allow consumers to access financial services through their cell phones.

Now, in an interesting new development, the communications company Safaricom is working to implement a solar-powered, pay-for-use water vending system that could be accessed and controlled through the use of cell phones.

How would it work? The New York Times describes it like this:

The solar-powered well is activated using a smart card, which permits water to flow until either the card is removed or the user’s account runs out of credit. Villagers can use the M-PESA system to add more credit to the smart card via their mobile phones.

According to the Times, “the system is being tested across Kenya, and by the end of the year at least 20 communities will be combining mobile banking and solar powered wells.”

For more background and details on the initiative, you can read the full article here.

-Chris Scott