World Water Week Daily 27 August 2015

STOCKHOLM
waterfront
world water week daily | THURSDAY 27 AUGUST | 2015
Stefan Mikaelsson
Sarek National Park
indigenous people feel left out
TEXT |andreas karlsson PHOTO | mikael ullén and istock
Around the world indigenous people
see their livelihood and way of life
changing dramatically due to lack of
sustainable water management. Yet
they are often left out from the decision
making processes around water.
Indigenous people make up five per
cent of the world’s population and
50 per cent of the world’s poor
population, making them an
especially vulnerable group.
Speaking over video link at a
session yesterday, the UN
Special Rapporteur on the
Rights of Indigenous People,
Victoria Tauli-Corpus, pointed
out that ironically, indigenous
people are in many places practicing
water management very
close to what the international
community is aiming for with
the SDGs.
“It’s in many indigenous peoples’
history and tradition to treasure
water and manage it in a sustainable
way. Water is not considered as an
economic commodity or something
published by stockholm international water institute
that can be monopolized, but rather
a social and common good that we
should share and respect,” she said.
One of the key messages during
the session was that water and human
rights are interlinked and that they
cannot be separated. It was suggested
by several speakers that lack of access
to water for indigenous people is
indeed part of a much wider discrimination
that has to be addressed.
Represented at the session were
the Sami people of northern
Scandinavia. They do, in a way,
stand out as indigenous people,
since they live mainly in some of the
most well-off countries in the world,
Sweden, Norway and Finland, and
also have their own parliament in
these countries, serving as advisory
bodies to their respective governments.
Still, as Stefan Mikaelsson,
Chairman of the Sami Parliament in
Sweden, pointed out, many of the
Sami people’s concerns are shared
with other indigenous peoples around
the world.
“For the Sami people, clear cutting
of forests has drastically affected our
water, and
“It’s in many indigenous
peoples’ history and tradition
to treasure water and manage
it in a sustainable way.”
personally
I believe
that we have
passed the
tipping point
where the
devastation is
irreversible,”
he said.
He also indicated
that
a life style change is happening within
the Sami community, and many are
abandoning traditional ways of life.
That, he said, is a factor that also has
to be taken into account.

THURSDAY: WORLD WATER WEEK DAILY
NUMBER OF THE DAY
2%
GLOBAL PPI
INVESTMENT
IN WATER,
2010-2014.
SOURCE: WORLD BANK.
At yesterday’s Vision Speaker
event, 100 Resilient Cities’
Urban Expert and UNDP
advisor, Cristiana Fragola
outlined the decisive role
urban populations and city
networks can play in reaching
SDGs on cities.
“We need to tap into
people power to drive behavioural
change. I see cities
2015 STOCKHOLM WATER PRIZE LAUREATE
Yesterday evening,
Rajendra Singh received
the 2015 Stockholm Water
Prize, for his “innovative
water restoration efforts,
improving water security
in rural India, and for
showing extraordinary
courage and determination
in his quest to improve the
living conditions for those
most in need.”
H.M. King XVI Gustaf
of Sweden awarded the
prize to Singh during a
ceremony at Stockholm’s
City Hall.
Cristiana Fragola
After receiving the prize,
Singh said “I want to thank
all in this world who work
for water. I spent the last
31 years with a spade in my
hand, down in the earth,
but now, this prize gives
authority to my work.”
VISION SPEAKER: PEOPLE POWER, CITY NETWORKS
POINT THE WAY TO UPBEAT URBAN FUTURE
As part of the workshop
programme, 32 abstract
presenters have been selected
to produce an interactive
poster to showcase
their work. The posters are
on display at Folkets Hus
where delegates
Rajendra Singh receives the prize from
H.M. King XVI Gustaf of Sweden.
as the implementing actors
of the SDGs. That’s where
the action will take place,”
Fragola said.
Fragola described a “green
collar” initiative in New York
that actively engaged with local
residents, which resulted
in greater reductions in water
use than buildings using
smart metering.
INTERACTIVE POSTERS MAKE ABSTRACTS COME TO LIFE
Pamela White discussing FCGs work in rural Nepal
can mingle with the
authors during coffee
breaks to learn more about
the projects behind the
posters. The winner of the
Best Poster Award will be
announced at the closing
plenary session.
One of the exhibitors is
Pamela White from FCG
International in Finland.
“The pictures in our
poster are important to
give people an idea of the
environment we work in.
Our focus is very much in
the field and our key issue
is to get water and sanitation
to everybody,”
she said.
LOCAL INVOLVE-
MENT KEY TO
WATER METERING
An example of water pricing
driven by democratic,
multi-stakeholder involvement
was the focal point
of a session entitled Democratizing
water through
accountability – from norms
to reality yesterday.
Moses Mwangi Gatura
from the Muungano Support
Trust detailed a recent initiative
in Molo county in Kenya
which, through involvement
of local residents, local
officials and water providers,
established a water-metering
and charging scheme for
local people.
“The company sits with
local people and they reach
an agreeable tariff, and we
[the Board] oversee the
process, as observers,” Eunice
Wanjiru Kamau, Water
Services Regulatory Board,
Kenya, told Waterfront.
“The Regulatory Board
then sets conditions, and
once the company meets
those conditions, they are
licenced to provide water at
the agreed tariff.”
“We also look at the
company’s development
in terms of operations and
maintenance: do they improve
infrastructure? Is the
water clean? Is it safe? Then
we protect consumers from
being overcharged,” Wanjiru
Kamau said.
The programme also
includes a built-in amount
of non-revenue water that is
closely monitored.
Wanjiru Kamau said that
legislation was currently before
the Kenyan parliament
that would further improve
consumer protection on
water issues, building on the
principle of water as a basic
human right for all Kenyans
enshrined in the constitution
since 2010.

© SuSanA/World Bank WSP (2014)
SHIT DIAGRAMS FOR CLARITY
TEXT | andreas karlsson PHOTO | mikael ullén
Shit Flow Diagrams, (SFD), aim
to map the hazards of existing
sanitation chains. They are
designed to assist in looking
beyond the general focus of
the MDG-era, instead looking
at the entire sanitation chain,
including emptying, transporting,
treating and disposing
of human waste.
Yesterday the Sustainable
Sanitation
Alliance and
its stakeholders
launched a website
introducing SFDs
to a broader public.
These very specific
kind of diagrams
sort the various stages of
waste handling into safe and
unsafe ways, summarizing
the hazards into handy percentage
figures. During the
session it was pointed out
that SFDs should be understood
for what they are. They
are based on population,
QUOTE OF THE DAY
Suresh Kumar Rohilla
not volume, and rather than
being a precise and scientific
analysis, they are tools for
giving an overview that can
support communication,
planning and prioritising.
SFDs are already in action
around the world and
speaking about their use in
practice, Suresh Kumar
Rohilla from Centre for
Science and Environment in
India, said that 51 SFD projects
are currently in
progress in his home
country. He went on
to praise their clarity
as being a valuable
source of information.
“Our experience is
that when presenting
numbers in columns,
decision makers sometimes
aren’t that interested. But
when we started using SFDs
we found that they created
a wow-experience that leads
straight onto the next step,
which is to form actual
strategies.”
“A country is only as developed
as the person with the
least opportunity to benefit
from that development.”
Catarina de Albuquerque, Executive Chair of the Sanitation
and Water for All Partnership
THE GUARDIAN GUEST COLUMN
BY KARL MATHIESEN
RESILIENT ISLANDERS
WORK HARD TO BEAT
BACK THE SEA
Earlier this year I was sent to Kiribati and the Marshall
Islands to report for the Guardian from the frontlines
of climate change. Images of villages and seawalls
overwhelmed by what were once harmless, regular
tides are catnip for journalists searching for ways to
bring climate change out of scientific papers and into
people’s lives.
But arriving in Tarawa, Kiribati’s capital, I found
these euphemistically-termed ‘nuisance inundations’
were just part of a much wider, climate crisis – one
wholly centred on water.
The rudimentary paediatrics ward of the hospital
was filled to overflowing with children suffering from
diarrhoea and kwashiorkor. Open defecation is the
norm for the atoll’s 50,000 people and the only access
to fresh water for 40 per cent of them is through open
wells dug down to the thin water lens. A few months
before my trip, a rotavirus outbreak killed seven
children and infected 2,513.
Atolls are improbable landscapes, strung as they
are like filaments of hair on a blue bed sheet.
As Christopher Loeak, the president of the nearby
Marshall Islands, told the plenary on Monday, their
fragility seen from the air “takes your breath away”.
Like many island leaders, Loeak was sombre about
the future of his nation: “I cannot in good conscience
look my people in the eye and tell them “things will
be okay”.”
Scientists and leaders now talk about evacuation
within decades. But inundations alone will not drive
the people of Kiribati and the Marshall Islands from
their islands. They are resilient and deeply connected
to their land. They will continue to rebuild after high
tides and use every resource they have to beat back
the sea.
But as the world continues to warm, wildly fluctuating
El Niño cycles are causing record-breaking
droughts, the rising salt table poisons wells and
regular inundations make even the basic crops they
have impossible to grow. More and more people are
already fleeing to overcrowded capital islands where
they are exposed to disease and poor sanitation.
Nowhere is the link between climate and water
stronger or more urgent. These nations are not
drowning, but desiccating.
Karl Mathiesen is a journalist specializing in
environment issues.

MAKING WATER “LOW HANGING” FRUIT FOR FINANCIERS
TEXT |nick chipperfield PHOTO | mikael ullén
Ways of effectively commercializing
water was the subject of a keynote
speech at the Financing for development:
innovative financial
mechanisms for the post-2015
agenda session yesterday.
While the public sector is set to
continue to provide a large proportion
of capital and operating subsidies for
the water sector, Richard Mc. George
of the World Bank said that the pool
of commercial finance available to the
sector needed to be expanded in the
long term.
He acknowledged the “natural
tension” between consumers and
investors, but urged its “redefinition”,
by identifying non-revenue water
supplies, setting appropriate tariffs,
billing and metering models.
“Commercially disciplined
organizations will attract commercial
finance. We need to make water low
hanging fruit for financiers,” he said.
“[Financiers] are looking for
commercial organizations that operate
with the discipline they see in other
sectors. Where risks are transparent,
identified and well-managed,”
he added.
For markets lacking the investment
profile that the financial sector
considers viable, other financing types
– regional finance and export credits –
are two ways of mitigating risk to help
mobilize commercial capital.
Mc. George also suggested that
financing mechanisms used in the
sustainable energy sector could be
applied to the water sector. In the
field of benchmarking, however,
he noted that water was “years ahead
of the energy sector” – a key factor in
obtaining commercial financing.
Richard Mc. George
world water week voices
why did you get involved in water issues?
Kusum Athukorala,
NetWwater, Sri Lanka
“I got involved
through my work
in rural development
and irrigation in
Sri Lanka.”
Marjon Verkleij, Women
for Water Partnership,
The Netherlands
“Because the voice
of women needs to
be heard and women
need to be involved in
the decision-making
process, not only in
carrying water.”
Joséphine Amédée
Ouedrago, Ministry for
Agriculture, Hydraulics
and Sanitation, Burkina
Faso
“I work with sanitation,
a subject that is taboo
in my country. People
don’t understand the
link between hygiene
and health, so there
is a lot of work to
be done.”
“I was looking for a
greater purpose in my
work life and I found
it as a communication
officer for Water Aid.
Without clean water
nothing can live.”
“Early in my childhood
I understood the
importance of water.
Then I started to work
with desert irrigation
in the Sahel.”
“I am from the state
of Maharaja, a very
drought-prone place.
For 32 years I’ve been
teaching farmers how
to use minimal water to
get maximal yield.”
Anna Schön, WaterAid,
Sweden
Wataru Teramae,
World Bank, Japan
Aniket Lohiya, Manavlok,
India
C = 55,86
M = 80,86
Y = 0
K = 0
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stockholm waterfront daily • 24-28 AUGUST, 2015 • CIRCULATION: 700
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