Archived GAC Evening Events

World Health Organizations take on water as a global Issue

One of the goals of MSR Global Health is to provide fresh water to places like Nairobi. This article talks about the challenges of villages like this one.

Japan's Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has estimated 1.4 million households in Japan's 14 prefectures currently have no access to water.

Climate Change agreement to have public health impacts.

The United Nations on Water scarcity

Approximately 1.1 billion people in developing countries are currently living without an adequate supply and access to water [3]. In a world with slightly over 7 billion people, this is an outrageously high fraction of people. In order to ensure the water security of the world as a whole, it is vital to start with these 1.1 billion impoverished people whose governments lack the funding necessary to help them. Throughout this article, we will discuss what it means to be a developing country and what needs to be done to ensure water security to those who need it most.

Privatization of water resources, promoted as a means to bring business efficiency into water service management, has instead led to reduced access for the poor around the world as prices for these essential services have risen. This article looks into this issue in further detail

Every day, millions of people across West Africa experience water shortage, lacking access to clean, safe drinking water. The World Health Organization estimates that more than 1,000 people in the region, who are denied clean water access, die each day from illnesses related to unsafe water. Along with causing hygiene and sanitation issues, the water shortage is hampering development. In two of the biggest and richest nations of the region, Nigeria and Ghana, pollution, political unrest, and corruption have contributed to water shortages for decades. What's different today is that a new generation of West African journalists is trying to hold government officials accountable for the failures. Pulitzer Center grantee Steve Sapienza teamed up with two of them, Nigeria's Ameto Akpe and Ghana's Samuel Agyemang, as they did their jobs, reporting on failing water projects in the region.

n a one-year-long expert consultation process, UN-Water's 31 Members from the United Nations system and 36 international Partners have come together to analyze what role water could have in the Post-2015 Development Agenda. The result is a consolidated technical advice from the UN system to Member States to prioritize water through a dedicated global goal with five interlinked targets. The proposed goal builds on and extends existing commitments such as the Millennium Development Goals and the priorities agreed at Rio+20. Its overall framework universally applicable but responds to particular national circumstances.

A discussion about how governments, business and consumers can create solutions to save the stuff of life.

Imagine a country with abundant power -- oil and gas, sunshine, wind (and money) -- but missing one key essential for life: water. Infrastructure engineer Fahad Al-Attiya talks about the unexpected ways that the small Middle Eastern nation of Qatar creates its water supply.

ater affects everything. That’s why high school student Deepika Kurup has committed most of her young life to finding solutions to the been recognized worldwide for her dedication to finding global solutions to the lack of clean water. Named “America’s Top Young Scientist” in 2012, and the recipient of international accolades, Kurup created a safe, cost-effective and environmentally-friendly technique to purify water using solar energy. She speaks to the global connection of water, and what it means to a culture, and its health and safety, when clean water is lacking and how we can find resolve these critical issues.