Brooks Keene, policy adviser for CARE’s Water Team, makes the argument that foreign aid should benefit the poor first and foremost.
In 2005, Congress passed the overwhelmingly bipartisan Water for the Poor Act, sending a strong signal to the Administration that both parties believe that water and sanitation for the poor is a strategic priority for US foreign policy. The Administration was to come back with a strategy within 180 days.
Photo credit: Josh Estey/CARE
As we approach World Water Day on March 22, CARE, NRDC and WaterAid have published a report card on how well the Act has been implemented seven years down the line. The bad news is that a strategy has still not been released. The good news is that there are signals that it could be released soon. Leadership from Secretary Clinton and USAID Raj Shah has given new life to solving one of the world’s great crises.
Lisa Schechtman, head of policy and advocacy at WaterAid in America, celebrates the Water for the World Act and its bipartisan commitment to saving lives.
These days, it seems Americans have come to expect partisan stalemates in Washington, and foreign aid certainly hasn’t been immune. But a bipartisan group of congressmen, led by Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., and Judge Ted Poe, R-Texas, has shown that there is still commitment to US leadership on global health and development.
This month, they introduced the Water for the World Act of 2012, a companion to the Senate version (championed by Senators Durbin, D-Ill., and Corker, R-Tenn., and reminded us that meeting basic human needs and saving lives is a fundamental value of Congress.
This piece from ONE Mom Jennifer James was originally published on her blog earlier this week.
When I was in Kenya this past July on the ONE Moms trip, I had quite a rude awakening when we traveled to rural areas -– a lack of toilets. There were not very many places for us to use the bathroom, unless we wanted to go in the bush or use one of the local latrines.
On the first day in Kisumu, in the western part of Kenya, I was forced to choose between using a latrine or waiting to get to a local hospital. Deciding I couldn’t wait, I walked to the latrine with a few of the other moms. Upon stepping in, I could barely breathe — the latrine smelled entirely of feces and urine and I absolutely could not overcome the smell to use the bathroom. Little did I know that it was one of the more sanitary latrines I would encounter during our time in rural Kenya. In Kibera, the lack of access to proper toilets was noticeable as well with bags of feces lining the streets. It’s no wonder cholera outbreaks are frequent.
John Sauer of Water for People shares the story of a man living in one of the poorest areas of Cochabamba, Bolivia, who — against all odds — made the choice to add a toilet to his home.
One of the challenges facing peri-urban areas (areas just outside the city center where growing numbers of poor are settling) of Cochabamba, Bolivia is a growing population with little access to basic water and sanitation services. This results in diarrhea and other sickness and sometimes death.
The legal barrier is that many of the peri-urban areas are only marginally recognized by the government. This means that a water and sewage connection is probably many years away at best. In the meantime families have no choice but to purchase their water from water trucks, which is costly at $1 per barrel (26 gallons). Their toilet option is also undesirable: often the side of a wall or a nearby riverbed.
Imagine if you could be the spokesperson for your favorite nonprofit for a few moments. What would you say? How would you mobilize their audience to take action against the world’s injustices? What issues would you focus on?
Water.org, in partnership with Twitter, is giving one lucky person the opportunity to do just that. During the month of August, water and sanitation activists can enter their competition to take over — or “twakeover”– their Twitter handle, @water, for an entire week.
Poop. Yep, you read that right. Today’s blog post is about poop, a topic I’m pretty sure no one wants to discuss. But before I begin, take a look at this hilarious and informative video compiled by the Gates Foundation to get the conversation going about a not-so-appetizing, but very important issue.
Could Rwanda become a hot travel destination like Italy, the Bahamas and Thailand? Well, it’s certainly on its way. People from all over the world are flocking to Rwanda for their award-winning gorilla trekking tours, national parks, cultural activities and bird-watching.
ONE is campaigning to ensure that the Congressional budget does not cut foreign assistance programs like Feed the Future that help people break the cycle of poverty and hunger.
The Horn of Africa is experiencing its worst drought in 60 years. More than 11 million people, mostly nomadic pastoralists and farmers in south-central Somalia, north-eastern Kenya, and south-eastern Ethiopia, are severely lacking access to food.
2011 marks 30 years since the first cases of AIDS were documented. Take a closer look at the specific, achievable goals we must hit by 2015 to make this year the beginning of the end of AIDS.
As aid agencies warn more than 9 million people could be affected by a food crisis in East Africa, world leaders are failing to keep their 2009 promises to tackle the causes of chronic hunger and support farmers in the world's poorest countries.
