This section explores the nuances of global water challenges, featuring insights by our researchers, collaborative pieces with our partners, and Q&A styled dialogues with industry experts. It complements our work by providing context, commentary, and a deeper understanding of our research findings.
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Environmental Health and Justice
October 9, 2012
Who profits from our use of environmental resources? Who suffers the consequences of pollution and environmental degradation? Creating and sustaining healthy and thriving neighborhood environments is a challenge, particularly in low-income neighborhoods and communities of color, who carry disproportionate environmental burdens.
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Empowering People and Communities
October 9, 2012
Fundamental needs for environmental health, including safe water and sanitation, justice, and sustainability in poor and low-income communities around the world are not being met because of underinvestment, poor investment decisions, inappropriate technologies, ineffective systems of operation and maintenance, poor governance, and the failure to involve local residents in the decision-making process.
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Notes from the Field: Mobile Phones Within Reach
September 26, 2012
Due to their ubiquity in low- and lower-middle income countries, mobile phones are being used throughout the developing world to connect the poor with a range of information and services that can transform their lives...
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Notes from the Field: Resident Says He Would Use Information from Community Choices for Water Tool to Be an Agent of Change
August 13, 2012
Jean Zoundiis a 51-year-old man from Bissighin, a community located in the Commune of Saaba, which is about 25 km East of Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso.
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The Human Right to Water
July 13, 2012
The human right to water is the fundamental right to life, health, and livelihood. The imperatives to meet basic human water needs are more than just moral, they are rooted in justice and law and the responsibilities of individuals and governments.
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Notes from the Field: Pilot Testing the Community Choices for Water in Ghana
May 16, 2012
Over the past 12 months, the Pacific Institute – in partnership with its West Africa partners NewEnergy, World Vision, Rural Aid, Pronet North, and Water and Sanitation for Africa...
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Notes from the Field: Gofal Sahi Gets Excited with Community Choices for Water
May 8, 2012
“When you arrived from Wa at our community, we thought you were another group coming to deceive us,” said Ms. Barakisu Yusuf. Though Gofal Sahi community has received several promises of a borehole, the government officials have never returned to fulfill the promises. She added, “We never knew we could ever get clean water in our community.”
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Notes from the Field: Household Water Treatment Could Improve or Maintain Access to Water Coverage
May 7, 2012
I heard the good news from the Director of Water and Sanitation for Africa, Mr. Idrissa Doucoure, at a sustainability framework workshop in Acrra, Ghana, on April 3, 2012: Ghana had achieved its Millennium Development Goal for water supply.
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Cadiz Groundwater Plan
April 20, 2012
Imagine a lake half as large as Lake Tahoe, containing 17 million to 34 million acre-feet of water. That is what lies under the Cadiz and Bristol valleys in the Eastern Mojave Desert in San Bernardino County. Cadiz Inc., a privately held company, owns 34,000 acres that overlie this vast groundwater basin. The company plans to extract 2.5 million acre-feet of the water, a public good, over the next 50 years and sell it back to the public at a profit.
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Notes from the Field: Pilot Testing the Community Choices for Water in Ghana and Burkina Faso
April 12, 2012
After 12 months of conducting learning sessions in Ghana and Burkina Faso to develop the Community Choices for Water (CCW) tool, an alpha version of the tool has been tested in Cheshei community.
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Notes from the Field: Alpha Version of Community Choices for Water Decision-Support System to be Piloted in Ghana
March 12, 2012
Over the last year, the Pacific Institute has been conducting learning sessions in Ghana and Burkina Faso in the development and dissemination of a decision-support system to empower communities and water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH)...
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Notes from the Field: Multiple Use of Water Allows Disabled Man to Live Comfortably
December 12, 2011
Abdulai Ibrahim lost his leg during an accident several years ago. Like many disabled persons in Ghana, Mr. Ibrahim could have been forced to beg on the street or depend on his extended family members for support.
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Notes from the Field: Waterways
December 5, 2011
Indonesia is a beautiful place full of people with ready smiles. It is a democratic country with a rich cultural history. Given it is identified as one of the rising Southeast Asian economies, I was excited to see the state of water here.
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Notes from the Field: Sustainability of Supply: The Story of Community Water Associations (HIPPAMs) in Malang
December 4, 2011
Imagine if the water you were being supplied with regularly to your home suddenly began drying up?
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Notes from the Field: Sanitation Task Force Should be Introduced in Burkina Faso Says Womens Group
December 3, 2011
Imagine if the water you were being supplied with regularly to your home suddenly began drying up?
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Notes from the Field: Multiple Uses of Water
November 26, 2011
The Amprong River in the city of Malang in Indonesia provides a truly rich example of the power and the challenges of multiple use water systems.
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Notes from the Field: How Can We Promote Sustainable WASH Facilities at the Community Level? Naba Kuliga in Burkina Faso Joins the Discussion.
November 14, 2011
I took a recent trip to Burkina Faso to conduct a learning session on the WASH decision-making tool (www.washchoices.org) currently being developed by Pacific Institute.
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Notes from the Field: The “We are Coming Syndrome” Calls for Community-Decision-Making Tool
November 2, 2011
In Ghana, there is a saying that goes like this: “the world changing does not mean the sky will be on the ground but only that people will shift away from doing things the way they used to do them.”
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Notes from the Field: DIY: Do-It-Yourself as a Way of Life
September 17, 2011
DIY is one of those terms that is at once so familiar to me and seems universally used and understood, but in reality it takes on a very different meaning in different contexts, cultures or countries.
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Notes from the Field: Urban Water Sources in Malang and Makassar, Indonesia
September 10, 2011
In a tropical country like Indonesia water is available everywhere -- pouring down in torrents onto city streets, hovering as mist in rainforests and along the coastline, snaking as rivers from countryside to city, and bubbling up from beneath your feet where you least expect it.
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