WASH: Talking the Water, Sanitation, and Health Dilemma at World Water Week

Circle of Blue director J. Carl Ganter reports from World Water Week in Stockholm.

Photo courtesy of Peter Gleick

Circle of Blue director J. Carl Ganter attends a session on water stewardship at the 2013 World Water Week in Stockholm, Sweden. Click image to enlarge.

STOCKHOLM, Sweden — It’s one of the world’s greatest failings. How do we bring safe water, sanitation, and health to the billions of people around the world who live on the edge of basic survival?

Here at World Water Week, the annual summit of summits on water, the conversation is about partnership and moving toward systemic responses to the water and sanitation (WASH) crisis. But what will it take to really reach water and sanitation for all?

From Skoll World Forum, here are provocative perspectives from six preeminent do-ers in the field.

At an April press conference, the president of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, held up a handwritten number and announced, “2030. This is it. This is the global target to end poverty.” That historic moment also served to underscore some of the dilemmas [that] actors in the WASH sector grapple with. How do we establish audacious, yet realistic goals? How do we announce an ambitious goal, such as full water and sanitation coverage in a number of countries and have confidence that we have a reasonable chance of achieving it?

• Financial Innovation Essential to Tackling Safe Water and Sanitation Crisis
  –Gary White, Water.org
• Getting to 100: Politicians, Water, and Universal Coverage
  –John Oldfield, WASH Advocates
• How to Get to Full Water and Sanitation Coverage
  –Eduardo A. Perez, World Bank Water and Sanitation
• Marrying Ambition With Action: Everyone Forever in Water and Sanitation
  –Ned Breslin, Water for People
• The Dream: Full Water and Sanitation Coverage for India
  –Joe Madiath, Gram Vikas
• The Global Sanitation Crisis: Together We Can Solve It
  –Sanjay Wijesekera, UNICEF

Did you attend World Water Week? Do you work in the WASH field? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Send a tweet to @jcganter or comment below.

–J. Carl Ganter, director