Health and education a new priority in the End Water Poverty strategy
Barcelona, January 31st, 2011 - From the 10th to the 14th of January, New Delhi hosted End Water Poverty's annual strategic planning meeting, which was attended by its members from Africa, Asia, Europe and the United States. The Global Movement for Children, that recently joined the coalition, was present at the meeting for the first time.
The meeting affirmed End Water Poverty's vision of being a global and open-source campaign with national and international members of civil society organisations working together in a movement for change. A number of brainstorming sessions held throughout the meeting focused on mapping out key political processes, scrutinizing the economic and political environment and defining objectives. After a series of intense group discussions, participants agreed that EWP's campaign from 2011 to 2013 should focus on its three underlying aims, namely: ensuring that national governments and donor countries place water and sanitation high on the agenda and that WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) funding is allocated to the most marginalised countries; building on the Sanitation and Water for All (SWA) partnership to become an effective mechanism for better access to safe and sustainable sanitation and water services for a larger number of poor and marginalized people; and guaranteeing that WASH objectives are included in health and education initiatives as these are tightly entwined.
Mr Rajagopal P. V., President of and founding member of the Ekta Parishad movement in India, was keynote speaker. His campaigning philosophy, vision for social change through non-violent direct action, mobilisation ability and use of ‘dialogue and action’ to bring change socially and politically has already inspired many.
After assessing last year's successful World's Longest Toilet Cue initiative, EWP presented the World Walks for Water event, this year's mobilisation campaign which hopes to engage a great number of people both in developed and developing countries to walk six kilometres - the average distance people in developing countries need to cover to have drinking water - to demand greater accessibility to water and sanitation.
The meeting initiated the strategy formulation process by marking out the road to follow. To set the objectives and draft the campaign's strategy, a number of task teams were formed, which will be supported by the already existing policy forum and a recently created communications forum.
Participants also raised the issue of the challenges still remaining, among which capacity building, adapting the different political contexts, keeping the momentum throughout the year and enabling members to take part in EWP despite time, financial and language barriers were pointed out.
End Water Poverty is a coalition that unites over 175 organisations worldwide to push Governments to take further action to halt this basic sanitation crisis. The Global Movement for Children joined End Water Poverty in June 2010 to help strengthen the global coalition working to improve access to clean water and basic sanitation in the most impoverished parts of the world.
The meeting affirmed End Water Poverty's vision of being a global and open-source campaign with national and international members of civil society organisations working together in a movement for change. A number of brainstorming sessions held throughout the meeting focused on mapping out key political processes, scrutinizing the economic and political environment and defining objectives. After a series of intense group discussions, participants agreed that EWP's campaign from 2011 to 2013 should focus on its three underlying aims, namely: ensuring that national governments and donor countries place water and sanitation high on the agenda and that WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) funding is allocated to the most marginalised countries; building on the Sanitation and Water for All (SWA) partnership to become an effective mechanism for better access to safe and sustainable sanitation and water services for a larger number of poor and marginalized people; and guaranteeing that WASH objectives are included in health and education initiatives as these are tightly entwined.
Mr Rajagopal P. V., President of and founding member of the Ekta Parishad movement in India, was keynote speaker. His campaigning philosophy, vision for social change through non-violent direct action, mobilisation ability and use of ‘dialogue and action’ to bring change socially and politically has already inspired many.
After assessing last year's successful World's Longest Toilet Cue initiative, EWP presented the World Walks for Water event, this year's mobilisation campaign which hopes to engage a great number of people both in developed and developing countries to walk six kilometres - the average distance people in developing countries need to cover to have drinking water - to demand greater accessibility to water and sanitation.
The meeting initiated the strategy formulation process by marking out the road to follow. To set the objectives and draft the campaign's strategy, a number of task teams were formed, which will be supported by the already existing policy forum and a recently created communications forum.
Participants also raised the issue of the challenges still remaining, among which capacity building, adapting the different political contexts, keeping the momentum throughout the year and enabling members to take part in EWP despite time, financial and language barriers were pointed out.
End Water Poverty is a coalition that unites over 175 organisations worldwide to push Governments to take further action to halt this basic sanitation crisis. The Global Movement for Children joined End Water Poverty in June 2010 to help strengthen the global coalition working to improve access to clean water and basic sanitation in the most impoverished parts of the world.