Water

Improving access to water services in Metro Manila through an output-based approach

Last month, during a visit to the Philippines I had the opportunity to meet some of the 28,000 families* whose lives have been changed by the Manila Water Supply Pilot Project.

We visited Southville in Barangay San Isidro in the Rodriguez Municipality. This neighborhood was built from a government-financed housing project that resettled about 10,000 poor households. They used to be informal settlers, some living along the Manggahan floodway or Pasig River that were affected by the flood caused by typhoon Ondoy (International name: Ketsana).

More information on the World Bank-AusAID partnership in worldbank.org/unlockingpotentialreport

Making a difference for people, he

Available in English

今年世界水日（3月22日）前夕，一些公众健康方面的消息称，人的健康与患病后的医疗保健无关，而是与可提高人们尤其是贫困人口健康水平、生产能力以及生活质量的关键投资有关。

2012年联合国儿童基金会和世界卫生组织联合报告《饮用水和环境卫生方面取得的进展》指出，2010年年底，全球有61亿人（占全球总人口89%）用上了更清洁、更安全的饮用水。这意味着与此相关的千年发展目标较之2015年这一最后期限已大幅提前完成。该报告还预测说，到2015年，全球92%的人口将用上更清洁、更安全的饮用水。

但是，不太好的消息是，全世界只有63%的人口用上了条件更好的环卫设施。预计到2015年，这一数字将仅会增加到67%，大大低于千年发展目标中设定的75%这一分项目标。目前，全世界有25亿人缺少条件更好的环卫设施。该报告重点指出，这些数字显示，全世界各地区和各国之间以及各国国内各地方之间存在巨大差距（如撒哈拉以南非洲地区仅有61%的人口用上了安全饮水）。

Rainfall is essential to recharge the freshwater lens that lies beneath coral atolls in Kiribati. Without it, the i-Kiribati people would not be able to grow plants and crops vital to their livelihood.

Freshwater can be extremely scarce in the Republic of Kiribati, home to over 100,000 people scattered across 22 islands in the Central Pacific. Each year after a long dry season, significant rainfall is generally expected to arrive during November or December. Yet over the last few months only a tiny amount of rain has fallen. The islands are dry.

This is consistent with forecasts that predict La Niña conditions will result in below normal rainfall during the 2010-11 wet season across the Gilbert Islands of Kiribati.

With the recent MDG summit in New York, I think it’s a good time to stop and take a look at the big water and sanitation picture. We know the numbers of people without access are daunting: 2.5 billion with no sanitation, 887 million without access to safe water. But more and more people are indeed gaining access. Since 1990, 1.6 billion have gained access to safe water. The world will likely even reach the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) set in 2015 to halve the number of people without access to clean water, according to the UN.

This is no small feat, and the world should take a moment to celebrate this success, and learn from challenges encountered along the way so that we continue beyond 2015 until everyone can access clean water and sanitation.

Rows of solar collectors line the roofs of many buildings in China.

Driving through Jiangsu and Anhui provinces adjacent to Shanghai, China, last month, I was struck. Not by the sheer number of people and vehicles, or by the seemingly endless number of new buildings under construction with their distinct bamboo scaffolding, but by what was on top of those roofs: continuous rows of solar collectors.

China’s increasing emphasis on renewable energy on a large-scale level can be seen by wind farms in Inner Mongolia and several other green World Bank projects in the country. However, the most pervasive example for the public and individuals has been the explosion of the use of solar water heaters.

The new site www.fightingcorruption.org, is a collaboration of a number of stakeholders from the NGO sector, the business community and other stakeholders: the World Bank, the UN Global Compact, the Center for International Private Enterprise, the