GLOBAL WATER CHALLENGE PARTNERSHIP DECLARES 22 MARCH 2008 WORLD WATER DAY

By Culturekiosque Staff

NEW YORK, 17 MARCH 2008—While our preoccupation at Culturekiosque Cyberchef is usually haute cuisine , we remember also that many of our fellow global citizens struggle to come up with even the basics: food, fuel, and especially clean, safe water.

A problem long before global warming (but certainly exacerbated by it), limited access to water supplies can be seen as one root cause behind tragedies like the current crisis in Darfur.

To call attention to this problem and push for change, the Global Water Challenge (GWC) has declared 22 March 2008 to be World Water Day.

Seeking to catalyze transformational change in the water and sanitation sector, a diverse coalition of corporations, foundations, and aid organizations, launched this partnership to build healthy communities and provide sustainable solutions to ensure the availability of potable water for those in need.

From their website:

...for more than 1.1 billion people around the world, water is a constant concern. Where will their next drink come from? Will it be clean? Will it last?

Suitable sanitation facilities are in even shorter supply. Basic human privacy and dignity are lost to 2.6 billion people who have no place to use the bathroom.

And these problems will get worse. In the near future, water scarcity will lead to even greater suffering for the world's poorest.The goal of the GWC is to bring safe water and sanitation to millions by identifying and multiplying the solutions that work.

Solutions exist today to tackle this challenge. Scores of dedicated aid organizations are working throughout the developing world on the crisis but lack the resources and pathways necessary to scale-up effective approaches. That is why GWC is committed to Learning from past projects, Connecting those who can help each other, and Investing new resources and time.

A related competition, "Tapping Local Innovation: Unclogging the Water and Sanitation Crisis," is underway at Changemakers.net, which seeks to develop and give away as "open source" a range of solutions to problems in the area of social innovation and social entrepreneurship.

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