AMREF cited by Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) in his remarks about the "Water for the Poor" bill as it passed the Senate
20th September , 2010
In February 2010, Senators Durbin and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) visited an AMREF program in Kechene Slum, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. That experience and the visits to his office by AMREF made an impression. Clean water is a top priority of AMREF’s work in building better health in African communities and we are proud to play a role in bringing more support to fill the need for clean water. The bill now goes to the House for ratification. Read his full statement below.
SENATE PASSAGE OF PAUL SIMON WATER FOR THE WORLD ACT: Statement by Senator Richard J. Durbin
September 20, 2010
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, today, with the passage of the Paul
Simon Water for the World Act, the Senate has taken an important
step in fighting poverty and saving the lives of the world’s poor by
increasing access to the most fundamental human need – clean
water.
I introduced this bill in honor of my friend and mentor, the man
whose seat I now occupy in the Senate, the late Senator Paul
Simon. Solving the global water crisis was his last great campaign
and the topic of a book he authored called “Tapped Out: The
Coming World Crisis in Water and What We Can Do About It.”
If he were here today, he would be proud of the Senate’s action.
I was joined in this effort by Senators Bob Corker, Patty Murray
and 31 other cosponsors from both sides of the aisle -- and would
like to thank all of them for their support and commitment to
addressing one of the defining challenges of the 21st century.
I would also like to thank Senator Tom Coburn for working
constructively with me to advance legislation that we both could
agree upon. And finally, I’d like to express my appreciation to
Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry and Ranking
Member Richard Lugar for their critical support of this bill.
While we have made progress in recent years on clean water and
sanitation, tragically nearly 1 billion people around the world still
lack access to clean, safe water. More than 2 billion people lack
access to basic sanitation. Most of these people live on less than
$2 a day. They are the voiceless and the powerless of the world, but today the US Senate sent a clear message to them, “We hear you, we see what you’re going through, and we want to help with this most basic of human needs.”We want to help because the global water crisis is not just a problem for Africa or the Middle East, but rather a problem for all
of humanity.
Mr. President, competition for water is often at the heart of
international conflict – just look at the conflict in Darfur.
The burdens of water in the developing world fall most solidly on
the women. So many thousands of women in Africa spend hours
every day carrying water back and forth. Young girls are often denied the opportunity to go to school because they have work to do. They have to carry water, often walking several hours both ways.
And sick children miss nearly 300 million school days a year from
water-related causes. An estimated 320 million productive work
days are lost to illness resulting from unsafe drinking water and
lack of access to sanitation.
Quite simply, the global water crisis is a quiet killer. In the
developing world, water-related diseases claim the lives of 5,000
children every day.
During my trips overseas, I’ve seen the hardships that befall
populations without clean water and sanitation, and I’ve also seen
the transformation that gaining access to these basic human needs
creates.
Earlier this year I traveled to Africa with Senator Sherrod Brown
where we visited a number of countries, including Ethiopia. We
visited a slum outside Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa, where we
were greeted by two beautiful little girls who gave us flowers and
invited us to a coffee ceremony.
The 380 inhabitants of this area lived without running water until a
nongovernmental organization called AMREF installed a simple
but critical water kiosk that now provides safe drinking water,
showers, toilet facilities, and even jobs to the community.
The same two girls who greeted us beamed with pride as we
looked at the source of water and sanitation that did not exist
before. What seems so ordinary to us in the developed world,
access to water and sanitation, changed the lives of these two
young girls living in squalor outside Addis Ababa.
But you do not have to travel halfway around the world to see the
devastating consequences of a lack of clean water and sanitation –
travel just 90 minutes from Miami to Haiti.
There are no public sewage treatment or disposal systems
anywhere in the country. Even in the capital, Port-au-Prince, a city
of two million people, the drainage canals are choked with garbage
and sewage.
And this was before the earthquake.
It is no wonder that Haiti has the highest infant and child mortality
rate in the Western Hemisphere. One-third of Haiti's children do
not live to see the age of five.
The leading killer? Water-borne diseases: hepatitis, typhoid and
diarrhea.
The goal of the bill passed today is to reach an additional 100
million of the world’s poorest people with sustainable, first-time
access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation over the next six
years.
This would represent the largest single commitment of any donor
country to meeting the Millennium Development Goal on water,
which is to reduce by half the proportion of people without access
to safe drinking water and sanitation by 2015.
I believe American leadership in helping provide the world’s poor
with such a fundamental human need as clean water is not only the
right thing to do, but the smart thing to do.
In fact, for every $1 invested in safe drinking water and sanitation,
an estimated $8 is saved in work time, productivity and health care
costs in poor countries.
Throughout history, civilized nations have put aside political
differences to address compelling issues of life and survival.
Today, on this issue, by passing the Paul Simon Water for the
World Act, the Senate did just that.
I now urge my colleagues in the House to work with
Representatives Earl Blumenauer and Donald Payne, House
Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman and
Ranking Member Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, and Speaker Pelosi to do
the same.
