CBI Brownbag Series: "Community Action, Water Governance and the MDGs" (23 April, 2004)

The Community-Based Initiatives Group continued its brownbag lunch series with “Community Action, Water Governance and the MDGs”. This lunch was the third in a series of seminars on community based approaches to sustainable development and the MDGs. With an audience of approximately 30, including UN staff, NGO representatives, and members of the public, speakers presented material that highlighted local level action towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals for local water management, sanitation and human settlement issues. The event featured presentations by David Satterthwaite of the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), Francis Chachu Ganya of the Pastoralist Integrated Support Program (PISP) and Ron Sawyer from Sarar Transformacion.

Dr. David Satterthwaite, a senior fellow with IIED’s Human Settlements Programme and a member of the teaching staff at the University College London and the London School of Economics, began the seminar with a focus on the vital role for local processes in delivering the MDG’s. He drew particular attention to the limitations of a top-down approach to development aid and stressed the need for a shift in donor focus. Most importantly, Satterthwaite called for the creation of innovative funding mechanisms capable of serving the many and diverse local actors and organizations that drive development on the ground.

Francis Chachu Ganya, director of the Pastoralist Integrated Support Program, followed Mr. Satterthwaite with a presentation on his organization’s work managing local water resources and providing drought relief in the Marsabit region of northern Kenya. PISP works with over 11,000 pastoral people in the region to reduce drought vulnerability through community water harvesting and to protect dryland biodiversity from over-grazing through the strategic management of herd movements around vulnerable water points. Chachu described the challenges one faces in providing adequate water resources in one of the driest and, seemingly, most inhospitable habitats on Earth. He then outlined PISP’s success in utilizing traditional water harvesting methods to overcome many of these challenges in order to aid the pastoral communities in water acquisition and conservation.

Ron Sawyer, director of the international consulting group SARAR Transformación SC, based in Tepoztlán, Mexico rounded out the discussion with a presentation on local action to improve sanitation. Sawyer spoke specifically about the work his organization is currently doing in Mexico to implement the TepozEco urban ecosan pilot program and similar work performed in various communities throughout the world. These programs employ ecological dry sanitation systems which revolve around the installation of dry toilets. Sawyer emphasized the benefits of dry waste systems in their ability to conserve water resources while capturing and reusing nutrients in waste to improve soil quality.