WSH at the Singapore International Water Week
28 June 2010 - 2 July 2010
Singapore International Water Week (SIWW) was a joint event with the World Cities Summit this year, hence the focus on sustainable cities – clean and affordable water.
WHO Water, Sanitation, Hygiene and Health raised its profile at this year’s event through participation in SIWW programme components as well as through a number of back-to-back side events and meetings.
Dr Maria Neira, Director, Public Health and Environment gave a well-received keynote address, placing the priority area of water, sanitation and health in the context of efforts to reduce the impacts of global climate change and to “green” the economy, including the health sector. She called on all managers of water utilities and urban planners in the audience to become “ministers of health” and ensure health issues are effectively included in their plans, programmes and projects.
A seminar on the economics of drinking-water and sanitation focused on costing methods and procedures, with Guy Hutton (WB/WSP), Catarina Fonseca (WASHCost, IRC, the Netherlands) and Fabrizio Carlevaro (University of Geneva – author of the WHO Manual on Costing of Options for Improved Drinking-water for Low-income Communities) introducing the subject from different perspectives. A lively discussion ensued.
Of the various meetings organized in conjunction with this year’s SIWW, the kick-off meeting for second phase of the AusAID-supported capacity-building programme for water safety planning was the most important. The meeting was attended by WHO staff from HQ, Regional Offices (Delhi and Manila) and Country Offices (Bangladesh, Bhutan, Lao PDR, Nepal, Philippines and Viet Nam). It reviewed the blueprints for activities over the period 1 July 2010-30 June 2011, clarified the project management approach, agreed on communication and reporting mechanisms and tried to tackle the challenges in distributing the funds. A report of this meeting will be available soon.
Linked to this, the options for the establishment of an Asia-Pacific WSP Network were discussed with a group of regional stakeholders.
During SIWW2010 the Un Secretary General’s Advisory Board on Water and Sanitation (UNSGAB) also met in Singapore, and WHO was invited to attend sessions on monitoring and on links with UN-Water (see picture). Frank discussions explored the way evidence collected through monitoring activities (JMP and GLAAS) could be used to lift the profile of the drinking-water and sanitation target at the forthcoming MDG Summit in September.
For next year’s SIWW preliminary discussions with the Singapore Public Utilities Board resulted in commitments to schedule the launch of the 4th edition of the WHO Drinking-water Quality Guidelines as part of the programme, and to explore options for a technical session on household water storage and dengue vector control.