World Water Forum

Written March 29th, 2022

Last week Dakar hosted the World Water Forum bringing together leaders from all over the world to discuss water equality. Mom actually met someone on the plane who was going to the conference which was a fun coincidence. The conference took place about 40 minutes outside of Dakar and because it was our first week of internship, we didn’t have time to go there. However, On Wednesday our program attended the Alternative World Water Forum of (FAME). This conference took place at the same time but spoke out against the privatization of water (against the World Water Forum). I don’t have enough knowledge and exposure to compare the issue, however, the stories shared by some of the speakers were touching. One lady shared her experience in South Africa where there are water management systems that restrict the amount of water each household gets. She brought up that there is absolutely no substitute for water… you can drink other beverages (juice, soda, ect.) but you can’t clean yourself, flush the toilet, etc with anything but water. Something that I continually take for granted.

There is a company called Aquatech that is privatizing wells in rural parts of Senegal. Again, I don’t have an equal understanding of both perspectives, but at one point everyone started chanting, « Aquatech dégage ».

There was a speaker from Brazil at the conference. The atmosphere of this conference was very laid back. A theme seemed to be that they wanted everyone « to have a seat at the table ». At the beginning of the panel session, the group did some icebreakers and stood in groups by their native languages. There was a speaker from Brazil, and we have a student in our program from Brazil. It ended up that he needed a translator for the panel, so our classmate, Tayna, translated for him! It was crazy because she translated directly into English, and then someone was translating from English to French in a whisper microphone and then French to Wolof so lots happening at once.

Our classmate on the right

Overall, it was interesting to hear all of the stories and gain more insight into an issue that plagues a large portion of the world’s population.

Some statistics shared by the conference :

- 1/3 of the world’s population doesn’t have access to clean drinking water

- 2/3 of the world’s population doesn’t have control over water sanitation services

- ½ of the world’s population doesn’t have proper hand hygiene