Indian sanitation innovator and social reformer receives Stockholm Water Prize
Inadequate sanitation and its devastating
effects on the world’s poor comprise humanity’s most urgent, yet
solvable crisis, according to international leaders and experts
convening at the 2009 World Water Week in Stockholm.
“The correlation between sanitation and disease is dramatic and
unmistakable,” said Anders Berntell, Executive Director of the
Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI). “Yet, at the current
rate of progress, we are going to miss the Millennium Development Goal
for sanitation by more than 700 million people, leaving still 2.4
billion people without adequate sanitation by 2015, about the same
number as today. By any standard, this is unacceptable. We need the
political will to translate our intentions into meaningful action.”
In seminars, workshops, and side events during the week,
participants have explored the causes, health impacts and possible
solutions to inadequate sanitation that currently affects more than 2.6
billion people across the planet, kills over 5000 children daily, and
causes the illnesses that fill half of the hospital beds in the
developing world. The topics include manual scavenging, sanitation for
the urban poor, financing of sanitation, and the effects that climate
change could have on sanitation, among many other subjects.
Tonight’s Award Ceremony and Royal Banquet for the 2009 Stockholm
Water Prize Laureate Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak, highlighted the urgency and
international importance of the sanitation challenge. The founder of
Sulabh Sanitation Movement in India, Dr. Pathak is known around the
world for his wide-ranging work in the sanitation field to improve
public health, advance social progress, and improve human rights in his
home nation and other countries. His accomplishments span the fields of
sanitation technology, social enterprise, and healthcare education for
millions of people, serving as a model for NGO agencies and public
health initiatives around the world.
“If water is honoured by the Prize being named after it, the
importance of sanitation, its sibling, cannot be left far behind,” Dr.
Pathak said in his acceptance speech. “The two complement rather than
compete with each other. Provision of sanitation provides dignity and
safety, especially to women, and reduction of child mortality. As a
matter of fact, safe water and sanitation go hand in hand for
improvement of community health.”
Dr. Pathak received the award tonight from H.R.H. Prince Carl Philip of Sweden.
“The
sanitation problem has a complex solution,” said Jon Lane, Executive
Director of the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council
(WSSCC). “If it was easy it would have been done by now. It needs a
systemic intervention. This involves politicians, educationalists,
marketers, entrepreneurs, technologists, financiers and
philanthropists. Each has a particular role to play.”
Contact information |
Michael McWilliams
(email: michael.mcwilliams@siwi.org) Phone: +46 (0)8 522 139 89 |
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News type | Nomination |
File link |
http://www.siwi.org/sa/node.asp?node=695 |
Source of information | SIWI |
Subject(s) | DRINKING WATER AND SANITATION : COMMON PROCESSES OF PURIFICATION AND TREATMENT , SANITATION -STRICT PURIFICATION PROCESSES |
Geographical coverage | Sweden |
News date | 26/08/2009 |
Working language(s) | ENGLISH |