Thursday, December 4, 2008

Toilets and Taps: Leading Organisations Commit to Improve the Lives of Millions Around the World
New York (September 25, 2008) - Today, the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) announced a "Water and Sanitation Mega-Commitment" which will help millions of people to gain two of life's most fundamental necessities: clean water to drink and a safe, private toilet to use.

The announcement, made at CGI's 2008 Annual Meeting, included commitments to action by an alliance which includes the Global Water Challenge (GWC), WaterPartners, and the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC). Collectively, the $60 million in commitments in which they are involved will improve the quality of life for some 6 million of the world's poorest people.

The scale of the challenge is huge, as nearly 900 million people lack access to safe drinking water and 2.5 billion to safe sanitation, with disastrous health, social, economic and environmental consequences. The alliance believes that the new, specific and measurable approaches embodied in their commitments can both deliver results and generate momentum for even greater progress.

The $25 million commitment from Global Water Challenge will help fund new innovative projects, found through the Changemakers.net competition. This online, global, collaborative competition co-hosted by Ashoka inspired 254 local entrepreneurs and organizations working in the developing world to send in proposals to provide safe drinking water and sanitation for their communities.

“We believe that these projects will start a ripple effect in their communities and around the world to create scalable, replicable and sustainable models that address the global water and sanitation crisis,” said Paul Faeth, Executive Director of Global Water Challenge.

GWC (www.globalwaterchallenge.org) is a Washington, D.C.-based coalition of 22 companies, non-profits, health organizations, and foundations, who are committed to reaching the goal of universal access to clean drinking water and safe sanitation. read on

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