Private Sector

UNDP and The Coca-Cola Company (TCCC)

UNDP works with TCCC, the world's largest non-alcoholic beverage company, to provide rural schools and villages with sustainable access to water and sanitation services. This partnership is currently active in China, Thailand, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Croatia, Romania, Kazakhstan and Turkey.

• Water Resources Management and Drinking Water Safety in Rural Regions of China
• Every Drop Matters – Improving Access to Safe Drinking Water in Eastern Europe and the CIS
• Post-tsunami recovery

 

Water Resources Management and Drinking Water Safety in Rural Regions of China

Students from China's Sichuan and Xinjiang’s remote rural areas will soon be able to wash their hands after using newly installed sanitary toilets in their local schools. This is an example of what a joint initiative titled “Water Resources Management and Drinking Water Safety in Rural Regions of China” wishes to achieve.

Launched in March 2008, the project (on-going) is the first public-private partnership to improve water access and sanitation between the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Ministry of Water Resources (MWR), China International Center for Economic and Technical Exchange (CICETE) under the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) and The Coca-Cola Company.

This four-year, $6.792 million joint project aims to improve policy mechanisms by demonstrating a series of sound water resource management approaches on water rights management, water resources allocation as well as drinking water safety technologies, such as rebuilding of drainage pipelines and ecologically sustainable agricultural technologies for water conservation.

By August 2008, the project will set up pilots in four primary schools in rural Sichuan and Xinjiang provinces, where basic sanitation such as clean toilets do not yet exist and students must cope without access to safe and sufficient drinking water. Significant efforts will be made to improve conditions in schools, in forms of installing sanitary toilets and applying health education and technical training on school health management in hopes of reducing the incidence of waterborne diseases and raising hygiene awareness and education amongst primary school students.

For more information, please contact: Ms. Liying.Luan, Private Sector Coordinator, UNDP China, liying.luan@undp.org, tel. (86-10) 8532 0715

 

Every Drop Matters – Improving Access to Safe Drinking Water in Eastern Europe and the CIS.

Countries: Croatia, Romania, Kazakhstan and Turkey.

This $5-million, five-year project aims to provide the framework for water-related programming in the countries of Europe and the CIS.

UNDP for Europe and the CIS, TCCC and national and local communities partner in this project.

In Croatia, the main objective is to mobilize local communities, including schools, municipalities, NGOs, and businesses, to organize collective cleaning activities for Croatian rivers. These will include activities like promotion of sustainable tourism and planting vegetation that promotes self-cleaning of water.

In Turkey, the project will improve access to water in the country's poorest areas, by investing in infrastructure and new technologies for water treatment and quality improvement.

In Romania, it seeks to energize local municipalities to work on sustainable access to water solutions as part of local development planning.

In Kazakhstan, it focuses on widening access to water infrastructure in the country's poorest areas.

A regional initiative based in Bratislava promotes clean industrial technologies for small and medium sized businesses operating and using the Danube River basin for industry (water treatments solution, collective plants) working with GEF/ Clean Production Centers. Solutions aim to improve environmental sustainability and industrial productivity.

The project was launched in November 2006 and is expected to run for 5 years and expand to new countries in Eastern Europe and Western CIS.
For more information, please contact project coordinator, Bogachan Benli, at bogachan.benli@undp.org or tel + 90 312 454 1120. Website of the project, visit http://www.everydropmatters.com/en/

Post – Tsunami Recovery

Countries: Thailand, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and the Maldives

To support the longer-term tsunami recovery effort in Asia, The Coca-Cola Company and the United Nations Foundation forged in 2005 a collaborative partnership with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and local communities.

Supporting community-based water and sanitation reconstruction efforts in tsunami-affected areas of Thailand, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and the Maldives.

In Thailand, this UNDP-led project focused on the sustainable management of water resources in Koh Lanta, Krabi Province in Southern Thailand. Existing water reservoirs and wells did meet the water needs of the island’s population, particularly during the dry season. Implemented in collaboration with the Chumchon Thai Foundation, a local NGO, the project built upon and is part of a broader partnership between UNDP and the Government of Thailand to bolster the post-tsunami recovery of Koh Lanta.

The project helped the tsunami-affected communities of Sanga-U, Che Li, Hua Laem and Koh Por to plan, implement and maintain a series of activities to alleviate water shortage problems in their villages. This included constructing 10 community check dams along the stream that run through the fishing village of Sanga-U on the southern tip of the island, providing 117 village households with a long-term supply of water; constructing a gravity-fed water system in the village of Hua Laem; drilling of artesian wells on the nearby island of Koh Por where communities are facing serious difficulties in terms of water access and availability; and constructing an organic farming irrigation system in Che Li village on the western side of the island for enhanced livelihoods security. For more information please click here.

In Indonesia, this partnership supported the rebuilding of the hard-hit Aceh region. The freshwater system in this area was severely damaged by the tsunami. Most of the shallow water wells and parts of the deeper wells were flooded by salt water or otherwise ruined by the preceding earthquake. The collaboration among UNDP, UN-HABITAT, Coca-Cola, UN Foundation, local communities, and PDAM (the municipal water provider) provided long-term water supply and public sanitation facilities to tsunami-affected villages in the districts of Pidie and Aceh Besar, Aceh.

The project rehabilitated water treatment plants and extended the water supply network to six of the most decimated villages in the districts of Aceh Besar and Pidie. Households were connected to the new water distribution network, and the efforts eventually reached approximately 7,700 people and greatly improved sanitary conditions. This was the first time these villages have ever had access to tap water for household use. Villagers were closely involved in the project design and directly involved in the construction and implementation. The project also promoted hygiene and sanitation awareness through community training sessions. For more information please click here

In Sri Lanka, this public-private sector partnership project provided essential water infrastructure and sanitation services to two separate tsunami-hit areas of the country: Kattankudi in the east and Kalupe in the south. A sustainable sanitation and wastewater management system, including septic tanks, soakage pits, bio-cells and a chlorine tank, was implemented through local community-based organisations and provided to 19 of the most vulnerable households as part of a larger project targeting 7,000 people within Kattankudi township. A 2-km pipeline was built to connect the village of Kalupe to the Greater Galle Water Project to deliver safe drinking water to tsunami-affected people in and around the village. For more information please click here

In the Maldives, provision of adequate sanitation was identified as a pressing national challenge and an integral component of the post-tsunami recovery efforts of UNDP, UN-HABITAT, Coca-Cola, the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID), as well as local authorities, community leaders, and the Dhambidhoo Island Development Committee. The new sanitation system has been managed by the community and has achieved environmental and financially sustainability. Today, the system is being provided to all the 866 residents of Dhambidhoo Island, Laamu Atoll. The “Dhambidhoo model” has been designed so that it can be replicated in other island communities across the Maldives. For more information please click here

For more information, please contact Arun Kashyap, arun.kashyap@undp.org, Private Sector Division, UNDP.