2014 Symposium on Water, Sanitation and Hygiene in Asia (WASH) Hiroshima: Global Changes

“When the well’s dry, we know the worth of water” penned Ben­jamin Franklin over 250 years ago to not only under­score the essence of water for life but also to por­tend the hor­rors of its absence. Water, declared a basic human right essen­tial to the enjoy­ment of life and all other human rights by the UN, is inex­tri­ca­bly linked to a nation’s health, econ­omy and envi­ron­ment, yet today over 780 mil­lion peo­ple lack access to clean water and nearly 1.9 bil­lion lack ade­quate san­i­ta­tion. The stark con­trast between devel­oped and devel­op­ing nations ampli­fies the cur­rent water and san­i­ta­tion cri­sis. Mul­ti­ple fac­tors, most notably poverty, inequal­ity and unequal power rela­tion­ships, place devel­op­ing regions like sub-​Saharan Africa and South­ern and East­ern Asia in a strug­gle for sur­vival. Fur­ther­more, social and envi­ron­men­tal chal­lenges like rapid urban­iza­tion, cli­mate change, increas­ing agri­cul­ture water con­sump­tion, ris­ing pol­lu­tion lev­els, and the deple­tion of water, exac­er­bate the prob­lem and inten­sify the com­pe­ti­tion for avail­able water.

In addi­tion to the lack of safe and potable water, inad­e­quate access to improved san­i­ta­tion facil­i­ties com­bined with poor hygienic prac­tices con­tributes to impov­er­ish­ment and spawns dev­as­tat­ing health effects, espe­cially in rural areas and urban slums in devel­op­ing coun­tries. With­out effec­tive san­i­ta­tion sys­tems, untreated human waste con­t­a­m­i­nates ground water, com­pro­mises other water sup­plies, and allows infec­tions and dis­eases to spread.

Over 1.5 mil­lion chil­dren under the age of five die each year as a result of diar­rheal dis­ease, and in India alone, approx­i­mately 600,000 chil­dren fall vic­tim to diar­rhea or pneu­mo­nia annu­ally as a result of toxic water and poor hygiene. Regret­tably, many of these inci­dents are pre­ventable by using clean water tech­nolo­gies such as con­nec­tions to pub­lic sew­ers or sep­tic sys­tems, toi­lets and latrines, and basic hygiene habits like hand wash­ing with soap at crit­i­cal times.

With­out sus­tain­able access to safe drink­ing water and san­i­ta­tion, the well-​being of the human race is threat­ened, par­tic­u­larly in devel­op­ing coun­tries. As the world pop­u­la­tion increases, so does the demand for water. The tech­nolo­gies exist to rec­tify the water cri­sis, but progress is ham­pered by the lack of infra­struc­tural invest­ment by both the pri­vate and pub­lic sec­tors. Decision-​makers at all lev­els must be involved to ensure the lives and dig­nity of the mil­lions who depend on the rest of the world to inter­vene on their behalf.

Hiroshima, Japan, the City of Peace, is proud to host the 2014 WASH Con­fer­ence. The three-​day con­fer­ence in August will pro­vide an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary plat­form for aca­d­e­mics, researchers, pol­icy mak­ers, stu­dents and pro­fes­sion­als. With the theme Global Chal­lenges: Uni­ver­sal Water, San­i­ta­tion and Hygiene, it is hoped that today’s water cri­sis can be met with viable global solutions.

• Achiev­ing Health Out­comes for WASH
• Aer­o­bic and Anaer­o­bic Treatment
• Cli­mate Change
• CSR
• Eco­log­i­cal Sanitation
• Equity Issues for WASH
• House­hold Treat­ment and Safe Storage
• Hygiene and Behav­ioral Change
• ICT for Water
• Indus­trial Hygiene
• Inno­va­tions in Water Sup­ply and Waste Water
• Low Tech Treat­ment Systems
• Mea­sure­ment and Risk Management
• Nutri­ent Removal
• Oper­a­tion and Main­te­nance of Water Sup­ply Systems
• Pre­ven­tion and Treat­ment of Water­borne Illnesses

• Pub­lic Health Education
• River Restora­tion
• San­i­ta­tion and Health
• San­i­ta­tion: Urban and Rural
• School San­i­ta­tion
• Soil Qual­ity
• Sus­tain­able Development
• The Mil­len­nium Devel­op­ment Goals
• Waste Man­age­ment
• Waste Water Recla­ma­tion and Reuse
• Water and San­i­ta­tion Services
• Water Eco­nom­ics
• Water Pol­icy and Governance
• Water Qual­ity
• Water Source Protection
• Other (please specify)