WATERAID: TRANSFORMING THE LIVES OF MANY WITH CLEAN WATER
Vincent Casey, Technical Support Manager- Water Security, WaterAid
Clean water is one the primary needs of human living and it’ s devastating to see that there are still some communities in the world who do not have access to it. These are the poorest and most marginalized people that are deprived of the most basic service. This is what drove WaterAid to bring clean water, good sanitation, and proper hygiene to these communities. GineersNow conducted an exclusive interview with Vincent Casey, Senior WASH( Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) Advisor of WaterAid.
THE COMPANY GineersNow: Tell us about WaterAid. Describe your mission, vision, values, and where the company is headed. What are your future expansion plans? Vincent: WaterAid is an international non-governmental development organization based in the UK with federation members in the United States, Canada, Sweden, Australia, India and Japan. We were founded in the UK in 1981 by the water companies to bring clean water to poor communities. Today, we have over 200 full-time staff in the UK, and work in 37 countries across Sub- Saharan Africa, South Asia, Latin America and the Pacific to bring clean water, good sanitation and hygiene promotion to the world’ s poorest people. We work with local partners in communities, at household level and in schools and healthcare facilities. Over the next five years to 2020, we will strengthen our partnerships and focus on accelerating progress towards everyone, everywhere having access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene by 2030.
INTRODUCTION GineersNow: How does your company define clean water and wastewater? Vincent: WaterAid aims that the quality of drinking water delivered to consumers by the programmes that it supports should:
• Be such that no significant health risk arises from its use
• Conform to at least the broadly accepted quality standards of the region or the country where the installation is located( or be better if this can be achieved at reasonable cost and effort)
• Be acceptable in appearance, taste and other local aesthetic aspects
Wastewater is generally taken to mean runoff from domestic, agricultural or industrial processes that is contaminated in some way, and unfit for human consumption.
GineersNow: How do people gain access to clean water? Vincent: Usually, and ideally, people get access to clean water through government or utility investment in improved water supply services that are able to capture, store, treat if necessary, convey and deliver water to people as close to their homes as possible. Groundwater is a big source of water for domestic supply – over half of the global population depends on it for drinking. Tapping into it requires a good understanding of hydro-geology to ensure that there is actually water present, and a good understanding of the social and political context in each setting, as well as governance and financing issues. Once services are introduced, they need to keep running, and this requires a functioning in-country government, community and private-sector institutions.
GineersNow: Do we have limited access to clean, drinkable water? Are we running out of it? Vincent: Some 650 million people in the world today do not have access to clean water. However, water is a renewable resource-- we are not running out of it. The issue is that water cannot always be found where and when it is needed most. There are also situations where demand for water outstrips available supply or where available water is unfit for human consumption. In situations where demand outstrips supply, careful management of water resources is required to allocate between different water users and the environment. Water resource management is going to become increasingly important in the years to come, as climate change and extreme weather patterns exacerbate existing challenges. At least 2.7 billion people live in basins where water scarcity is severe for at least one month each year. And competition for water is increasing – from population increases, a lack of political and economic power behind water management infrastructure, and freshwater pollution and alteration.
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SEPTEMBER 2016 Clean Water Technologies