Water for Life Decade >> UN Video library >> Latin America and the Caribbean

UN Video library: Latin America and the Caribbean

2011

Argentina: Dreaming of a Clean River
UNTV 21st Century
Place: Argentina
Duration: 6min27sec
One of the world's most polluted rivers flows through Argentina's capital Buenos Aires and threatens the health of the city's poorest people. Now, one determined nine-year-old girl and her tenacious mother have decided enough is enough.

Brazil Drylands: The Promise of Water
UNTV 21st Century
Place: Brazil
Duration: 4min40sec
Desertification threatens almost half of the world's land. If left unchecked, its effects are disastrous. But in the drylands of Brazil, new hope is emerging: a project is educating farmers on a number of low cost time-proven methods of land cultivation and thus preventing desertification.

Colombia: Wayuu "Gold"
UNTV 21st Century, 2011
Place: Colombia
Duration: 8min46sec
Desert conditions have been exacerbated in recent years in Northern Colombia. The indigenous Wayuu women are struggling to ensure their community's very survival despite dwindling water resources. This video shows the initiatives they have taken to improve the situation.

2009

Haiti: From Storm Recovery to Sustainable Development
International Labour Organization (ILO)
Place: Haiti
Duration: 2min51sec
In 2004, Hurricane Jeanne swept through the historical port city of Gonaïves in Haiti, sending walls of water and mud down the surrounding slopes and changing the face of the city forever. A project managed by the International Labour Organization (ILO) has been helping local residents organize themselves to build erosion control networks to protect the city from future mudslides and heavy run-off.

Bolivia's Glacier: A vanishing future
UNTV 21st Century
Place: Bolivia
Duration: 8min11sec
In South America, many Bolivians are victims of a warming planet. High up in the Andes mountains a disaster is in the making as many of the glaciers are melting at rates surprising even the experts. At risk are tens of thousands of people who rely on the water as a source of life.

Sanitation: A Perfect Deal!
World Bank Water and Sanitation Program (WSP)
Place: Peru
Duration: 6min58sec
This film represents a good example of how a personal initiative can grow into a community movement to improve sanitation in several regions of Peru, by finding the right financing for the projects and collaborating with local authorities.

2008

Melting glaciers affect farmers in Peru
UNTV: UN in Action
Place: Peru
Duration: 2min17sec
Peru is one of the nations worst affected by climate change in the world. Farmers and herders depend on the seasonal water supplied by glaciers, which are vanishing at an alarming pace. According to experts, they might disappear almost completely by 2015, threatening the livelihoods of entire communities.

2007

Peru: Retreating Glaciers
World Bank
Place: Peru
Duration: 5min18sec
This video communicates the crucial importance of freshwater for Andean communities. Climate change impacts are already being felt in Pucarumi, a small community in southern Peru, as the Ausangate glacier melts and reduces the flow of the river upon which the community relies.

2006

Mexico struggles to save its watery past
UNTV: UN in Action
Place: Mexico
Duration: 3min19sec
Mexico City traditionally relied on its vast network of lakes and canals to preserve its landscape. With modernization and urban sprawl on the rise, the city's water quality has been reduced by pollutants and other unregulated activities. It now depends on an old treatment plant instead of fresh springs for its water supply. This situation is making agriculture difficult and is posing a threat to animal and plant life as well.