On Tuesday, a comprehensive handbook for aid workers involved in emergency relief to provide water to people in need was published for the first time. It is a major project: the German WASH Network, the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland and the Sustainable Sanitation Alliance (SuSanA) collaborated on the publication. The project was funded by the German Foreign Office and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). And right in the middle: arche noVa.
„The new compendium is a milestone for humanitarian work", Mathias Anderson, executive director of arche noVa, says about the publication. In this context, he is also pleased about arche noVa's contribution to the new standard work. "We are very proud that we, as co-authors, were able to contribute our expertise on the topic of water supply in humanitarian aid to this important handbook.“
Water is the core topic of arche noVa's work. Due to the many missions in crisis areas around the globe, arche noVa has decades of experience and a lot of knowledge in the field. "Without water, there is no life," Anderson says with regard to the importance of water supply in emergency situations. "That's why there is an urgent need to share our knowledge," Anderson says.
As a founding member of the WASH Network Germany, arche noVa has long been committed to sustainable knowledge sharing and the development of new technologies. This long-standing work is now bearing fruit.
„In the future, the compendium will help all people in the humanitarian world to ensure fair, holistic access to water", says Lorenz Ewers, who accompanied the project for arche noVa.
Access to safe drinking water is more important than ever, especially with climate change and increasing humanitarian disasters with their consequences. Still, 785 million people lack even a basic drinking water supply and at least 2 billion use contaminated drinking water sources. With the new compendium, an important handbook now exists to facilitate our work and help us provide water to these people.
The WASH Network (WASH = Water, Sanitation, Hygiene)
is a network of 25 German non-governmental organizations. The network was founded in 2011 and is based in Berlin. The members of the network are mainly active in development cooperation or humanitarian emergency and transitional aid and are active in the WASH sector. The vision of the network is that all people have access to sustainable and safe water and sanitation and practice basic hygiene principles on their own responsibility. The just-published Compendium of Water Supply Technologies in Emergencies is an important step in this direction. It forms the second part of a trilogy consisting of a compendium on sanitation and a pending one on hygiene education.
