Delivering Big: Translating Knowledge Into Action Through Internet Action
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Ladies and gentlemen,
One billion people in the world have no access to safe drinking water, and more than two and-a-half billion lack access to basic sanitary facilities. As a result, one point eight million children die each year from diarrhoea and other illnesses, and a total of four hundred forty million days of school are missed.
These numbers represent the challenges that water management faces worldwide. We need to respond to these challenges by improving the access to drinking water and sanitary facilities for substantial proportions of the world population. Of course, costs are an important factor here. But transfer of water knowledge and matching supply with demand are at least as important as finding the financial resources.
Securing access to water and sanitation is a challenge we are facing together. Therefore, we need to work together and chair our knowledge. We can learn a lot from each other, because there is so much that we still don’t know. This is also true for the Netherlands, despite the fact that virtually the entire population is connected to the water supply, sewage and water purification systems. We have a thousand years of experience in managing our water resources. Our experience has taught us, however, that there is always still something to learn. We still gain new insight about water every day.
Knowledge can be shared in many different ways. To date, our approach was to send professionals abroad, who would share their knowledge and expertise with the local population. However, now that knowledge can also travel via the Internet, we have a valuable – and viable – alternative. If this means that there is less need for professionals to go on these type of missions, this will save us costs for salary, airfare and accommodation.
The session we have here today will prove us that Internet can contribute significantly to exchanging knowledge about water. This will be demonstrated by three case studies. I would like to briefly highlight one of these projects, namely the new website ‘ Akvo’, which I have the honour of launching here today.
Akvo – which is Esperanto for ‘water’ – was inspired by the websites Wikipedia, eBay and YouTube. These sites have in common that they enable us to share knowledge, communicate with people from all over the world and draw inspiration from each other. Akvo links financiers to projects through reliable intermediaries and ensures that the results are transparent.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Poverty is largely due to a lack of information. Living conditions can be improved by information about how to dig a well, build a dam or develop an irrigation system. People will use the Akvo website to find this type of information.
For small organisations, however, information about funding is just as important. I’m glad Akvo’s website offers this type of information as well. It contains a matching system for organisations and donors. An added advantage of this system is that it allows people like you and me to fund small projects directly. In this way, we can be sure that our money goes directly to the project of our choice.
Finally, it is important that we don’t devote too much time and resources to reporting so that we minimise bureaucracy. This allows organisations to focus on the actual water management activities. The project-reporting platform on Akvo website is very useful in this regard.
After all, we need to bear in mind that water professionals do not work for the benefit of the contributors, but for those who lack access to safe drinking water and are forced to live without basic sanitary facilities. For these people, the new website represents hope for a better future.