3. About ¼ of world’s population exists in water-scarce
areas
By 2050 ¼ of population will be affected by chronic or
recurring shortage of fresh water
• Climate change will
lead to starvation, mass
human migration and
conflict
4. Big problems of poverty, AIDs and other diseases,
education, water, famine
Large NGOs – charities are challenged
• Millions of dollars
thrown at problems by
government, corporations
and individuals
• Problems still exist
5. Africans aren’t involved in delivery of aid
Giving creates dependency on aid
• Crisis assistance vs
preventative
• No buy-in from
community, no
maintenance
• Wait for next hand-out –
disempowers people to
help themselves
6. Many NGOs wish to attach their name to an actual
piece of hardware
But many wells fail to provide water within
months/year after installation due to improper
placement of wells (location/depth), pump problems
or a lack of maintenance
Many NGOs use the driller to do the hydrogeological
assessment (if its done)
7. Easy targets are prime targets for NGOs
Easy targets tend to be over-exploited, and often
aren’t drilled for dry season fluctuations in water
table
• Often ‘problems’ are
identified by people
wishing to help, but the
local people haven’t
identified it as needing
help
8. Established in 2000 by United Nations with timeline
of 1990 to 2015
8 goals, each with specific targets
Access to safe drinking water underlies each of the
goals
9. 1. Eradicate extreme poverty & hunger
- halve # earning less than $1/d
- full & productive employment for all
- Halve proportion of people suffering from hunger
2. Achieve universal primary education for boys and
girls
10. 3. Promote gender equality and empower women,
particularly in education and employment
4. Reduce child mortality
- Under 5 years, reduce by 2/3
- Not on target due to pneumonia, diarrhea, measles
5. Improve maternal health
- Reduce by ¾ mortality
ratio
- Universal access to
reproductive health
11. 6. Combat HIV/AIDs, Malaria, other
diseases
- Halt spread by 2015, begin reversal of spread
7. Ensure Environmental Sustainability
- Integrate principles of sustainable development into
country policies and programs, reverse loss of
environmental resources (deforestation, climate change)
- Reduce loss of biodiversity
- Halve proportion without access to safe water and basic
sanitation
- By 2020 significant improvement in lives of slum dwellers
12. 1.7 billion (2010) people
have gained access to safe
drinking water since 1990
but 884 million are left
2.6 billion (2006) people
lack access to adequate
sanitation, projected to
increase to 2.7 billion by
2015 (69% of SSA)
13. 8. Develop Global Partnership
for Development
- open, rule-based, predictable, non-discriminatory
trading and financial system
- special needs of least developed countries
- special needs of landlocked developing countries
- debt problems of developing countries
- affordable pharmaceuticals for developing countries
- make available benefits of new technologies,
especially in information/communications
14. Native Kenyan, educated in USA
Biologist
Founder of Green Belt Movement – raise
awareness of environmental degradation
in rural areas and demonstrate how this
was leading to unsustainable economic development
Goal: plant 40 million trees in her lifetime from 1977
Deputy Kenya Minister for Environment and Natural
Resources (2002 to 2007)
Nobel Peace Prize Laureate in 2004 for her global work
Awarded Legion d’Honneur (France)
Order of the Rising Sun (Japan)
15. Pre-Colonization (before late 1800s)
advanced civilizations in
Kongo,
Songai (University of Sankore at Timbuktu, one of oldest
universities in the world was very active)
Ashanti of West Africa
Mali Empire
Kingdoms of Benin,
Dahomey (Ghana and Benin)
Zulus and Boers
city of Great Zanzibar
16. Berlin Conference (1884-1885)
- Britain, Spain, France, Belgium,
Italy and Portugal carved Africa up for strategic
purposes, and to develop the raw materials to support
industrialization; sought to Christianize population
- Continent known for supply of humans, rubber, gold,
diamonds, cacao, timber and fertile land
17.
18. Social problem-makers in African society became
Administrators for the colonizers – many were
more brutal than the colonizers. They became the
new African elite.
• Confiscated livestock and land –
degraded sense of local ownership,
honesty, honor and local economies
Primitive spears/knives no match
for guns
19. Slave trade in 18th
/19th
centuries – 25 million people
removed
In time, dictatorial regime was cultivated,
imposed and eventually tolerated
Deliberate move to keep Africans from being
educated
• Destroyed heritage and culture
…labeled the Dark Continent by
Europeans
20. Native religion was oral
Missionaries brought written ‘word of God’
Long term Effect: An outside force would help them,
that they were incapable of helping themselves
21. Native Africans
drafted to fight on
behalf of colonizers
Returned after the
war with knowledge
of guerilla warfare
Contact with other
colonized nationals
where independence
was actively being
pursued
23. New leaders were often good orators, but didn’t have
the skills or motivation to run a country
Often put personal gain ahead of gain for the
betterment of all
Corruption ensued as
gov’t officials took kick kick-
backs
24. Approx 1945 to 1991 between USA and Russia
Many African countries needed to take sides,
resulting in distrust and a lack of co-operation
between African countries
Friction resulted between neighbours – both on a
micro or macro scale
25. Many coups, civil unrest
1965 – Chad, southern Rhodesia, Burundi
1966 – CAR, Upper Volta (Burkina Faso), Ghana and
Nigeria
1967 – Nigeria – Biafran war,
killing 3 million people
1956 – 2005 – civil war in Somalia
26. Independence has taken 40+ years yet problems still
exist, such as
1. poverty is still rampant - in 2005, 380 million people
(1/2 of total SSA population) live on less than
$1.25/day, same proportion as in 1981)
2. ¼ of African children under
5 are underweight (UNICEF, 2006)
27. 3. Life expectancy – effect of
HIV/AIDs
rose from 40 (1960) to 47 (2006)
in SSA, in Botswana it dropped
from 65 (1995) to 40 (2005) due to
HIV/AIDS
4. Cost of civil war $64 billion
28. Establish in 1963 to work together (north and SSA) for
collective independance , economic/social
development – huge task
29. African’s are capable of taking charge of their own
affairs
Current ‘definition’ of Africans: poverty-struck,
corrupt, always at war
Civil frameworks need to be strengthen by leaders
30. Revolutionized to macro-nation focus
People need to believe that they have the resources to
solve their own problems
International community needs to support this
change to ensure that natural resources are developed
responsibly, in an equitable manner, and sustainably.
31. For Development efforts to succeed, three legs needed
Democratic space – respect for women, children and
men;
Environment, sustainable use of resources
Peace – where fairness, compassion, forgiveness and
justice is valued
32. From 1970 to 2002 the IMF, World Bank and wealthy
countries loaned Africa $500 billion. This amount was
repaid, but the interest equals $300 billion.
African countries were not made
accountable and much was ‘lost’
33. New loans taken out to pay interest – with conditions
imposed by lenders.
Foreign banks charge higher interest rates for African
countries
Africa has 5% of world’s income, but 2/3 of the world’s
debt. As of 2007, $255 billion remains, paying it off at
$14.5 billion/year
34. Cheap imports sold for less than locally- produced
1960 – 1980 the mix of commodity exports remained
the same, but their competitors expanded their
markets so Africans are at a disadvantage
Prices for raw materials are set by other countries
35. Today’s economies are
unstable
Cash crops don’t feed
local people, prices set
externally
Most industries are
foreign owned
Raw materials exported
because Africans lack
knowledge, education and
skills to manufacture
goods.
36. No ‘rainy day fund’ for when resources run out
One way trade imposed on bank loans – tshirts can be
made in Kenya, but USA insists that American cotton
is used, even though Kenya produces cotton
37. Add value to manufactured items
Make chocolates from cacao
Coltran added to capacitors
Electricity generated from foreign-manufactured solar
panels
Manufacture cell phones/TVs in country
International community could make education in
science and technology available and cost effective
38. Need buy-in from local community for longterm
solutions
Need Africans to believe that they are to source of
their solutions
Need to feel what culture means
Need good leadership
Need three legs of the stool
- democracy
- protection of natural resources
- peace
39. Sach’s “Big Five” for economic sustainability:
Agricultural inputs
Invest in basic health
Improve education
More efficient power, transportation and
communication
Provide clean water and proper sanitation
40. New Non-profit
Established to focus on starting MSc programs in SSA,
water resources for domestic purposes
Facilitates north-south and south-south exchange of
talent and skills
Works with government to ensure
graduates have jobs
1 year MSc to maximize graduates
Working on starting 3 to 5 programs
per year, starting with 2013
41. Program outline being reviewed
18 modules proposed
Next step to create justifications/outlines
Write lecture notes (including references, diagrams,
field camps)
Class set: binders/CDs
Approval process 6 steps
42. UniWater is looking for partners
Technical – to help build the
curriculum
Funding – corporations who
support development, water, education
Established NGOs to partner with to access funds from CIDA
Matrix
Contacts with corporations who share vision
Technical help (writing curricula on oil & gas, field sampling
methods, ?)
Spread the message
43. Thanks for your time and attention
www.UniWaterEd.org
UniWaterEd@gmail.com
Editor's Notes
¼ of world’s population lives in water scarce areas – I planned to show this on a map, but couldn’t find it when I wanted it. The fact comes from the UN World Water Development Report.
In less than 40 years, ¼ of the earth’s population will be affected by chronic water problems, including the developed world – in fact some areas of Europe are already in water-stressed.
Drought will have impacts on humanity – more starvation, more migration of people in search of water and food, and more conflict between groups of people. This in turn will have a negative affect on economic stability of these countries.
Traditional = approach used today
It is acknowledge by the learned community that there are big problems when it comes to AIDs, education, poverty, water. The large NGOs of the world are certainly doing their best in trying to address these problems, but things in the charity sector aren’t all rosy. There are restraints put on charities by the donors by expecting people to volunteer their time, insisting that all donations be put towards ‘the cause’ for which they stand for or are raising funds for, they can only look ahead as far as the next fiscal year because that is when they do their next fund-raiser, professional executives don’t last very long at the head of charity if they are only making 1/5 of their normal salary – so again there’s short term vision, and people don’t want their donations to be spent on advertizing.
For example, since 1960 the org. for the economic cooperation and development has provided $650 billion to SSA for malaria, yet millions still die each year. Due to lack of education on standing water, plastic bags, bed nets.
Most NGOs only do work that is visible – by drilling a well or installing a water treatment system there is a visible ‘thing’ to photograph and attach their name to. This looks good in reports or on their websites. Another problem is that there isn’t enough technical skill used by many NGOs – in fact I was at a conference a few months ago where a rep from UNICEF was advising people to NOT conduct hydrogeological assessment ahead of time if they can at all avoid it – he said it was a waste of money. Granted, in some instances it may be a waste of time if there isn’t any information to collect, but you and I know that if a hydrogeologist does an assessment that there is still important information that can be gleamed from clues in the environment or from regional maps. Many times the driller sells himself as a hydrogeologist, and he may well have some great information, but unfortunately he doesn’t have the education that a hydrogeologist has.
At the same conference, Ned Breslin, the CEO of Water for People spent 6 years in Malawi fixing wells that other NGOs had installed
Easy targets like alluvial aquifers are selected by NGOs because they have a good chance of drilling a wet well – and that looks good on their financial balance sheets. But this often means that too many boreholes are drilled into one aquifer, which naturally can’t keep up with the demand. In the end, wells go dry, or only have water during the wet season, and communities are worse off than they were before the extra wells were drilled. Not only that, but sometimes aquifers are harmed due to over-exploitation. Often, when there is a good supply of water, more people are drawn to it, but when the supply fails, it creates conflict between the people that wasn’t there before. Also, this means that the tougher targets – like areas of hard-rock in the centre of the African continent – don’t get NGO attention.
In general, the 2015 target for access to safe drinking water across the developing world will be met but sanitation target is out of reach. Number expected to grow to 2.7 billion by 2015. 69% of SSA
I’m not going to go into a lot of detail about each goal – my whole talk could be on this topic – but I do wish to draw your attention to how they relate to water.
By having safe water accessible, time is freed up to be able to work, thereby improving standard of living
Children will be able to go to school instead of collecting water
Girls and women are charged with the chore of providing water for the family. By having water accessible, they will be able to contribute in a more resourceful way to the benefit of the family.
Clean water, free of disease will reduce child mortality. Unfortunately, diarrhea is still a major problem, which is of course related to sanitation standards falling behind the targeted goals.
Many women die in child birth due to unsanitary conditions, including having enough clean water to flush their wounds, particularly in many areas where female circumcism is prevalent – infections are the problem here.
Clean water reduces cholera, typhoid, diarrhea – all diseases that compromise the immune system, which makes HIV/AIDs more effective in killing people. Education of how diseases spread (including things like the effect of discarded plastic bags has on collecting puddles of water which then become cesspools for mosquitoes to breed, spreading malaria).
Goal #7 is big one pertaining to water and sanitation, but it incorporates all environmental sustainability – deforestation is huge, as is the loss of biodiversity. There has been a big push on to increase access to water and many NGOs have supported it by throwing money at the issue. Unfortunately, sanitation – the disposal of human waste – is not as popular, and so the goals are lagging. There has been a renewed focus on this aspect of the goal. As you can imagine, access to water and sanitation are major concerns in the slums of the world.
To give you a picture of how the UN is doing on Goal 7 – here are some numbers. We are on-target generally for access to drinking water – but that is over the world. There are still issues in rural areas because the urban ‘fixes’ affect a higher density of people, and in particular the people in areas where water is hard to find, like the hard-rock environments of central Africa, nothing has changed. Also, there are areas of the developing world that have seen more activity than others, which brings the average up, so places like SSA and Asia are still behind the target.
Then, there is the issue of sanitation – when we talk about ‘adequate’ sanitation….this means access to a basic latrine – something that is the barebones minimum of what we expect when we go camping. Most people rely on open defecation, which has many implications for the safety of women, and the health of women, since many will not relieve themselves in daylight. Naturally, when young girls hit puberty, they tend not to go to school because of issues associated with sanitation.
The UN sees the need for collaboration between governments, multilateral and bilateral institutions, industry and education to solve the big problems of the developing nations. I’ll talk more about these issues later in the talk.
So I’ve given you some ideas of why traditional funding methods aren’t always a good model. This next part of my presentation is taken from a book written by Wangari Maathai called The Challenge for Africa. After reading this book I was so enthusiastic about her approach that I wanted to start to correspond with her. Unfortunately, I discovered that she died last autumn so I figured the best thing I could do is adopt her strategy and try to make it work! To give you a bit of her history – she was born in 1940 in Kenya, grew up there and as part of the USA supporting education of upcoming national leaders she was sponsored to be educated in the USA. She specialized in biology and was gone from Kenya for a total of 6 years. When she returned to Kenya she taught at the University of Nairobi, and started the Green Belt Movement. GBM’s focus was to raise awareness of environmental degradation that was occurring in the early ‘60s. She felt it was at the world’s peril to continue on this course. In the 40-odd years that she was involved with GBM, she was responsible for the planting of 40 million trees in Kenya. She also was the deputy minister for Env. And Nat Resources from 2004 to 2007. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, as well as two other awards from France and Japan for her work. Wangari Maathai’s approach was to look at where Africans have come from in order to understand how they function today. Also to look at what stressors they have that influence how they perceive aid.
So, the first step is to look at the history of Africans. When I was going through this, I was amazed at the similarities of what happened to Africa is also reflected in our First Nations people – maybe you’ll see the similarities too.
If we start with what existed on the African continent before the late 1800s. Here is a list of some of the societies that existed – I found this interesting…I have the impression that Africa was very backward, a bunch of savages without societal norms or education. This list doesn’t suggest that to be the case.
Then came colonization by the Europeans. They decided that Africa was ripe for conquering for their own gain, afterall, there were plenty of resources they could use, and the people there didn’t know what to do with them.
This was devastating to the culture of the African people. The colonizers typically would hire the social out-casts to be their administrators – afterall they weren’t liked by the local Africans, and they tended to be cooperative with the colonizers. They also tended to be much more brutal than the colonizers. These administrators tried to convince the locals to cooperate, and when they didn’t, they had livestock or land confiscated, they were put in jail, tortured or murdered. Any sense of structure was decimated, honor, pride stripped from people. In fact they had their culture stolen from them. Those communities who resisted were rounded up and put onto reservations (sound familiar?) where their activities were restricted. One tribe in Kenya, the Maasai, are one group of people who managed to retain their heritage by surviving the reservation situation – these people are what tourists flock to see in Kenya when they want to see a typical ‘African’ tribe. I was one of those tourists…
By keeping Africans from getting educated, the colonizers eliminated competition for power. In fact in 1964 Zambia gained independence from Britain, with only 100 university graduates in the entire country.
(Africans were told by outsiders who they were/weren’t, they were backwards, religion sinful, agricultural methods primitive, system of governance irrelevant, barbaric cultural norms)
The native people eventually became dependant on the colonizers. They looked to them for their sense of who they were supposed to be.
Now the effect of missionaries on the native population created another factor that prevails in their society today. The written word of God was suggested by missionaries as literally either being written by god, or god dictated it to someone else. Because of that, it must be much more valid that their oral religion. Consequently as time progressed, the concept of an external force will help them solve their problems and that they are total unable to solve their problems themselves. This attitude prevails today – you see it all the time when Africans opt to wait for someone else to fix their problems, even though they might be able to do it themselves. I saw this in Kenya when I was there last year – there was a well that had been drilled by the gov’t in 2006 – it had been drilled, tested, water tank and generator were all there. The only thing it needed was either a tap or some pipes to get the water where they needed it. Instead, the local people opted to walk 3 km each way to collect their water. Amazing…
As a consequence of WWII, native Africans left the continent and subjected to things in the outside world that changed their lives after the war.
Independence movements sprouted and many people thought that if they were independent, they would be able to continue ‘as normal’ economically. Unfortunately, they didn’t have the skills to do that due to a lack of educated people.
In the five or six years that Wangari Maathai was in the USA for school, this list of countries had gained their independence from their colonizers
New leaders were selected from those people who could inspire action because they were good speakers. Like Patrice Lumumba – he became president of Congo even though he only had 4 years of elementary school and 1 year at a technical college. He was in his mid 30’s. His ‘buddy’ became the head of the military when he was only 29!
The climate for corruption to proliferate was ideal.
In the years following WWII when the Cold War was festering between the capital West and communist Russia, African countries needed to show their allegiance to either side.
Because of a lack of good leadership, many coups broke out. If you look at this sample list, its not surprising that we westerners have the view that Africans are always fighting!
Central Africa Republic
Life expectancy rose 40 to 47 years due to impact of AIDS in SSA – of particular note was in Botswana where it dropped from 65 to 40 (1995 to 2005.
Any time civil war breaks out, it costs the country about $64 billion on average – influences low income and low domestic growth. Once the cycle of violence starts, it is hard to stop as can be seen in Darfur and the Congo.
Finally, in 1963 it was decided that to work together was far better than being antagonistic towards each other. This prompted the formation of the OAU, which later became the AU.
This definition needs to be changed by Africans at a grassroots level
Currently leaders focus on micro-nations based on their ethnic groups – this needs to be changed (‘revolutionized’) to focus on macro-nations’ needs
In essence, it is only when there is a culture that supports education and creativity, with a mantra of doing what is ‘good for everyone’, and where the society is free of corruption will development improve.
Ultimately, this needs good leadership.
As far as development potential goes, this is a big one.
When new loans were taken out the lenders attached major restrictions, like reducing gov’t spending and opening up domestic markets to foreign goods. This meant major cut backs were necessary in education and health, which had a huge impact on the people. Also, there was now a influx of cheap foreign products, which did nothing to support the local economies.
Foreign banks charge higher interest rates for African countries – state officials often on Board of banks and they want a good return on investments, at expense of ordinary citizens
Here is another big factor..
When cheap imports are sold for less than locally made goods, the local economy doesn’t feel the benefit. The profits all go out of the country. Also, when commodity providers
Today’s economies are dominated by aid, tourism, and the export of raw materials and cash crops (tea, coffee, sugarcane and nuts). They are heavily influenced by foreign powers. Also, cash crops can’t be used to feed families, so when the prices are low, farmers get little money and in fact sometimes they loose money. But by farming cash crops, they are allowed a small amount of land to grow crops for feeding their families.
Buy-in by local community and African taking control of their destiny – these are hand-ups and not hand-outs.
By feeling what culture is Africans will take pride and ownership of their futures
Without the three legs of the stool, economic development cannot proceed. Before western aid organizations work with African nations, these three basic requirements need to be fulfilled if we are to succeed in reaching their goal of economic prosperity.
by Prof Jeffrey Sachs a US economist
Typically refers to leopard, lion, rhino, elephant and buffalo
Where does UniWater Education fit into this new way of helping Africans? Last November I decided that I wanted to work on something more tangible than what I was doing at HWB. So I started this new organization – its a non-profit but not a charity. It uses the model that CARA has used in starting MSc programs in Latin America where new MSc hydrogeology programs are started at existing universities with the assistance of another university where a program is currently taught. But our goal is to do this in a big and bold manner. My feeling is that the water crisis is a huge problem, so if you want to make a real difference you need to think big and be creative in your approach. So I started with an invitation to various universities in SSA to see if there would be interest in this kind of collaborative effort – to see if it had value. What I found was that many people think it is a good initiative. So I thought if we could develop a curriculum based on water resources for domestic purposes, taking parts of existing programs and tailoring the program for the university, that we could come up with something that could be adapted to different locations. There would be a core program with electives that the university would select based on local issues like mining impacts, oil and gas, saline intrusion of coastal aquifers, the hydrogeology of the Rift Valley – that kind of thing. I sent out about 600 emails, and in January I was satisfied that I had a good response – with 10 universities interested in hosting the program, and another 12 willing to help mentor those new programs. This was without much contact with university folks in Europe or North America.
Our timeline consists of having our justifications and outcomes for each module spelled out by the end of June as these will form the basis for starting the approval process. Depending upon whether an MSc is already offered in that particular department will help speed up the approvals process. By, essentially, we need to have the approval completed on Jan of 2013 in order for the university to advertize the program properly to prospective students, and to get funding in place.
