Elsa Sanchez
SODIS
"I remember very well students in Tiquipaya; how they worked with their parents in promoting handwashing practices and safe water consumption. Children taught their own families to practice. The father of a boy said: "Thank you, my son, no one has taught me to wash my hands as you have taught me." It was a source of pride for father and son."

The initiative ‘A communication strategy for social and behavior change through the promotion of three key practices and the adequate use of services in four municipalities of the Department of Cochabamba, Bolivia’ was awarded with the Category 2 'Best participatory, communication, awareness-raising and education practices' Water for Life’ UN-Water Best Practices Award in 2012.

George Madhaven
Director (3PN), PUB (Singapore’s National Water Agency) on NEWater
"Singapore is the second densest country in the world. We have 5.4 million people in 716 km2. There is not enough land for us to rely on groundwater sources. We have always had to collect rainwater and import water from Malaysia, but this left us vulnerable to the weather and events beyond our borders. Our masterplan was the 4 Taps program. In the last decade we have introduced the last two of these ‘taps’ – NEWater and desalination facilities. These are not dependent on weather conditions. We are classified as a water stressed country by the United Nations, and this allows both industry and people not to worry about water, to focus on their lives."

NEWater was awarded with the Category 2 'Best participatory, communication, awareness-raising and education practices' Water for Life’ UN-Water Best Practices Award in 2014.

Leo Saldanha
ESG, Bangalore, India
"We had a wonderful system of lakes for centuries. For the last 50 or 60 years we forgot to maintain them. It reached a stage where the lakes might be privatized; they would have put floating hotels on them. If we could have urbanization with an organic spin the environment could take care of itself. But the elite-promoted urbanization was negative. The higher up in society people were, the less they saw what was happening on the ground, they were removed from it. What we needed was to develop without compromising life and health. It was easy to talk with the poor about protecting the lakes – they rely on the commons for the livelihoods and they value them like something sacred."

The initiative ‘Protection of Bangalore Lakes for Posterity’ was awarded with the Category 1 'Best water management practices' Water for Life UN-Water Best Practices Award in 2012.

Natalia Dejean
ORMAX Safe Water and Sanitation for All, Republic of Moldova
"I was born in Moldova. For me it is very important to see the people. Like anyone, these people don’t like to be told what they should do, what is good for them. If you don’t speak the language you don’t see the sincerity. Something has changed in people’s lives here [since ORMAX began the project in Moldova]. We are not building roads or houses. But we empowered people to change their own lives by educating them. They have become the drivers of the work and that is very positive. We ask people if their perceptions of waste management and water have changed but they give us what they think are the correct answers. Not necessarily their own opinions. But what they say is unimportant. What they do is important."

ORMAX Safe Water and Sanitation for All initiative was awarded with the Category 2 'Best participatory, communication, awareness-raising and education practices' Water for Life’ UN-Water Best Practices Award in 2013.

Seio Utsunomiya
International Affairs Office, Tourism, Culture and Exchange Bureau, Kumamoto City, Japan
"Kumamoto is Japan’s number-one pure groundwater city: the biggest city where all the water is supplied by groundwater. This is a very unique and precious thing. We use water for agriculture, industry and for daily use. The economy depends on it. Preserving it is our top priority. It will continue to be the most important issue. People didn’t appreciate how lucky they were to have this pure source of groundwater, or the seriousness of water issues. The most difficult aspect was the first step. Citizens took water for granted and didn’t think about it."

The initiative ‘Basin wide groundwater management using the system of nature’ was awarded with the Category 1 'Best water management practices' Water for Life UN-Water Best Practices Award in 2013.

Teddy Gounden
eThekwini Water and Sanitation, Durban, South Africa
"We couldn’t look to the past even if we had wanted to. The processes were different, as were the challenges. Several hundred informal settlements had sprung up, essentially communities in transition. One million people living in shacks. As an interim solution we had to put in shipping containers with showers and toilets. This was a unique solution for a unique situation. Durban has hills and valleys with a sparse population. Neighbours lived some 500 metres from one another. There were no roads. Part of our challenge was to build roads to bring the vehicles in. There were no water or sewer networks. We had to dig reservoirs in rough terrain and maintain water pressure far from the city."

The initiative ‘A Participatory and Learning Based Approach to Raising Awareness on Water and Sanitation’ in Durban, eThekwini Municipality, South Africa, was awarded with the Category 2 'Best participatory, communication, awareness-raising and education practices' Water for Life UN-Water Best Practices Award in 2011.

Tushaar Shah
IWMI-Tata Water Policy Programme, Gujarat, India
"Industry and urban centres are increasingly competing with agriculture for water sources. We must grapple with energy, which is water intensive, especially with continued urbanization. Freshwater will be a vital resource as long as the population is growing and we need agriculture to feed it! Freshwater is vital for food security. I would say water management will be a key issue for the next two to three decades, and then hopefully we will see new solutions and technologies being implemented".

IWMI-Tata Water Policy Program, India, was awarded with the Category 1 'Best water management practices' Water for Life UN-Water Best Practices Award in 2014.

NOTE: Click on the names to read full testimonies.