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Karachi ‘water mafia’ leaves Pakistanis parched

tracy — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 19:18:02 +0000

Karachi ‘water mafia’ leaves Pakistanis parched and broke (Los Angeles Times) KARACHI, Pakistan – Corrupt politicians allow businessmen to siphon off as much as 41% of the city’s water supply and turn around and sell it at exorbitant rates to residents, generating an estimated $43 million a year.

Read full Los Angeles Times article.

Harvesting rainwater needed in the Philippines

tracy — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:29:29 +0000

Harvesting rainwater (Business Mirror) Philippines – El Niño continues to scourge the country, and has already caused P1.4 billion worth of damage to agriculture. This could balloon to P8 billion to 20 billion, depending on how long the weather phenomenon will last.

The current drought, however, is just a manifestation of a bigger, silent crisis affecting the Philippines: a water crisis. Rapid urbanization has contaminated our surface and groundwater resources. According to a 2007 study by the Asian Development Bank, only about a third of our river systems may be used as suitable sources of clean water, and more than half (58 percent) of groundwater sources are now contaminated.

A cost-efficient and effective means to address both the water shortage and recharge our groundwater is through rainwater harvesting, a practice already in existence 4,000 years ago, in the Negev desert of Palestine, where rainfall is short and seldom. It is also an ancient practice in India, where rain falls like a deluge, short but torrential.

Read full Business Mirror article.

Ghana: Local Women Still Marginalized

tracy — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:03:28 +0000

Ghana: Local Women Still Marginalized (Public Agenda) ACCRA – Miss Kyerewaa Asamoah, Programme Officer, Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) /Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP), Ghana Chapter, has stressed that Ghanaian women are still marginalized in terms of educational, economic and political opportunities.

According to her, the lack of access to potable water and decent sanitation facilities has a major impact on women and girls especially when they are forced to spend greater parts of their time fetching water.

Read full Public Agenda article.

Proper sanitation out of reach for third of world

tracy — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 18:35:39 +0000

Proper sanitation out of reach for third of world’s population – report (Reuters) LONDON – Almost 39 percent of the global population have no access to adequate toilet facilities, contributing to poor hygiene which kills hundreds of thousands of people every year, a report showed on Monday.

Unsafe water, sanitation and hygiene kill an estimated 1.5 million children under the age of five each year, the two world bodies said in a statement.

Read full Reuters article.

Climate change and gender inequality go hand in hand

tracy — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 18:28:31 +0000

How Climate Change and Gender Inequality Go Hand in Hand (UN Dispatch) – In sub-Saharan Africa, women are responsible for collecting water and firewood. Decreased rainfall brought on by climate change will undoubtedly make these resources more scarce. Women will need to spend more and more time searching for these items, meaning they’ll have less time to engage in money-making activities or attend school. In Kenya, poverty brought on by drought has been linked to a decrease in school attendance, and parents are more likely to withdraw girls from school than boys.

Read full UN Dispatch article.

Water crisis in Doda district of Jammu and Kashmir

tracy — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 19:21:56 +0000

Doda water crisis, a cause of worry for locals (ANI) JAMMU and KASHMIR – The acute water crisis in the Doda district of Jammu and Kashmir has added to the worries of local residents, who have been forced to face numerous problems due to it.

More than sixteen villages of the district are facing problem due to the acute shortage of water in the area.

The villagers are the major sufferer, as they have to walk for around 3 Kilometers one side to fetch water for their daily chores. Women folk, children have to stand in lines for several hours to cumulate water.

Read full ANI article.

Water – A piped dream in Jamaica

tracy — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 19:07:08 +0000

Water – A piped dream (The Gleamer) JAMAICA – A decade into the 21st century and Jamaica still remains the land of wood and no piped water for more than 800,000 Jamaicans who are still not being served by the National Water Commission (NWC), the parish councils or private providers.

Read full The Gleamer article.

Water crisis to worsen in Bangalore, India

tracy — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 19:11:51 +0000

Water crisis to worsen in City (Deccan Herald) BANGALORE, India – The City is getting 900 million litres of water per day (MLD) as against the demand for 1,125 MLD. Water crisis is accentuated due to frequent power cuts. Unless water conservation measures like adopting rain water harvesting and recycling of waste water are undertaken, the future seems bleak for Bangalore. In order to tackle the water crisis both the State government and the public should make joint efforts, he added.

Read full Deccan Herald article.

Typhoid kills five people in Harare

tracy — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 18:34:08 +0000

ZIMBABWE: Typhoid kills five people (IRIN) HARARE – Typhoid fever has killed five people in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, and 30 others were being treated for the bacterial disease, the city’s health director, Stanley Mungofa, told a media briefing on 9 March 2010.

The epicentre of the outbreak is the high-density suburb of Mabvuku. In the past two years the township has rarely experienced a reliable supply of water, forcing residents to dig shallow wells, which are easily polluted by ablutions and waste.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), “Typhoid fever is a bacterial disease, caused by Salmonella typhi. It is transmitted through the ingestion of food or drink contaminated by the faeces or urine of infected people.”

Read full IRIN article.

Kampala’s government to boost sanitation

tracy — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:28:43 +0000

Government to boost sanitation (The Observer) KAMPALA, Uganda – Mutagamba was reacting to questions raised about Kampala’s unbecoming hygiene as a result of poor sewerage and water systems, which expose city residents to a big risk of water borne diseases, at the Second Eastern Africa Sanitation Conference.

The National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC), the body responsible for the city’s water supply and sewerage treatment, has always warned that their systems are overwhelmed because they were planned to handle a small number of dwellers in the early post colonial years. Kampala’s population has grown to 3million people over the past five years.

Read full The Observer article.