africapractice joins Partners for Water and Sanitation (PAWS)
Author: Camilla Flatt
Date: 19/12/2008
To strengthen effective water and sanitation delivery across Africa
18 December 2008
africapractice, a strategic communications and corporate citizenship consultancy, today announces a formal partnership with PAWS, a not-for-profit organisation supporting the water and sanitation sector in Africa. africapractice will provide skills and expertise for free to local African PAWS partners .
PAWS aims to enhance institutional, technical, professional and human resource capacity in the water and sanitation sector in Ethiopia, Nigeria and South Africa. In line with national sector priorities, PAWS matches the demand for skills, advice and expertise articulated by in-country managers with those of UK partners. Most UK PAWS partners provide technical water expertise and come from government, the private water sector, civil society and the trade union movement. africapractice will provide support through media relations, advocacy, public affairs and stakeholder engagement, free of charge.
More than 1 billion people globally lack access to clean water and about 2.6 billion are estimated to have no sanitation. The situation is most dire in Africa, where despite having enough water to meet the needs and demands of its current population, an estimated 400 million people in sub-Saharan Africa still lack access to a sustainable supply of drinking water. It is also critical to achieving the Millennium Development Goals – a least 20% of the success of each Goal (excluding Goal 8) relies on adequate access to water, according to a UN study.
Water is one of the key enablers of the creation of wealth in Africa, enhancing agricultural production, energy generation and industrial processes. africapractice is working to address the effects of water scarcity and development in Africa by assisting companies to formulate and implement their water strategies on the continent. The africapractice Water Advisory Panel strengthens our service to clients on issues ranging from water efficiencies, community water supply and sanitation provision and advocacy.
africapractice has implemented and supported a range of initiatives to help businesses achieve responsible water use through strategic communications, working with clients such as Nestle and Diageo. ‘Having advised businesses on how to integrate water issues into corporate citizenship strategies and corporate communications strategies, we wanted to apply our expertise to help national governments and communities. The partnership with PAWS allows us to do this, responding to their specific needs and demands’, Camilla Flatt, Corporate Citizenship Consultant.
Notes to Editors:
africapractice
africapractice provides strategic communications, corporate citizenship and environmental consulting services and works with clients to enhance their performance and communicate their commitment to African development. We are headquartered in London with offices in Accra, Johannesburg, Lagos and Nairobi, each coordinating a network of regional affiliates.
africapractice has worked with multinationals in Africa on the issues of supply chain and watershed management, collective action and advocacy, and community engagement. We focus on being able to measure a company’s impact on the social and economic benefits derived from their water and sanitation activities.
Partners for Water and Sanitation (PAWS)
PAWS is a not-for-profit partnership supporting the water and sanitation sector in Ethiopia, Nigeria and South Africa. PAWS was established following the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002 and is hosted by the Water, Engineering and Development Centre (WEDC) at Loughborough University. Funded by the Department for International Development (DFID), PAWS is looking to expand into another three African countries in 2009.
UK partners provide staff on a voluntary basis to match the demand of PAWS in-country partners for skills, advice and expertise. In-country partners are mainly government ministries, departments, authorities and utilities in the water and sanitation sector.
For further information please contact Camilla Flatt
Tel 020 7462 7877