WaterAid Chief Executive Barbara Frost's review of the year, from the WaterAid Annual Supporter's Meeting in London on 14 October 2011.

1. Annual Supporters Meeting 2011- Barbara Frost, CE
Good afternoon ladies and gentleman – friends old and
new. It is indeed a great pleasure to welcome you to our
Annual Supporters Meeting and to this very special 30th
celebration. There is no doubt we have much to
celebrate together – however, as you all know, there still
a great deal still to do.
This afternoon we will look back at what we have
achieved in our three decades and over our last year, as
well as look forward to our aspirations for the future.
In 1981 David Kinnersley encouraged the National
Water Council to help set up WaterAid – a great
example of truly inspirational leadership – and so we
were born - with the support of the public and the UK
Water Industry:
I have the image of our founding fathers in my office and
it reminds me of those who took it upon themselves to
set about changing the lives of people living in water
poverty. They demonstrated great passion and
determination to do whatever they could to help people
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2. in developing countries to live healthy and productive
lives through safe water to drink and improved hygiene.
It is this same passion and determination of our
supporters – many of you here in this room – that has
driven forward and inspired WaterAid’s success.
In our first year David Collett was appointed as founding
director and £25,000 was raised through the generosity
of water industry employees. David had a very clear
vision – which was well ahead of its time – which he set
out in the ‘Ethos’ document of 1985.
This described WaterAid’s focus on water, health and
hygiene in developing countries – not by going out and
digging wells for others but by investment in local
organisations that could manage the work themselves
and serve poor communities.
WaterAid was going to invest in sustainable long term
development using appropriate and affordable
technology – assisting local organisations to develop
their own technical and managerial competencies. And,
as you can see, in this early edition of Oasis David
aimed to raise £2m to do this:
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3. Since this time WaterAid has developed and grown,
responding to the changing environments in which we
work.
We are now a global organisation and last year we
launched WaterAid international to allow new WaterAids
to be formed to join existing independent WaterAid
Members in Australia, America, Sweden and the UK,
enabling us to extend our coverage and impact.
When we developed our 2009-2015 Global Strategy we
revisited the Ethos document and its essence – which is
both visionary and humble – is still deeply embedded in
our work today.
I am often asked about the global situation and whether
it is getting better or worse. You will be pleased to hear it
is improving with a larger percentage of the world’s
people having safe water to drink than ever before –
despite population growth – as a result of the actions of
communities and the investments made by
governments, the private sector and NGOs.
In 1990, 23% of the world’s population did not have
access to clean water and the current figure is nearly
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4. half that amount with 13% lacking access to clean
water. Still a huge number – but it shows what can be
done when the willingness is there.
WaterAid’s own direct investments over our three
decades – in the organisations we partner with – have
resulted in nearly 16 million people getting water, and
since 2004, just over 11 million people have improved
sanitation.
However, while the situation is improving globally and
our own results are significant, the scale of the problem
is still critical – with 884 million people still living without
drinking water and 2.6 billion without decent toilets.
A situation that, as you know only too well, leads to
children’s deaths, poor health, lost working days and a
burden for women to carry.
For this reason – and with your support – we have
increasingly used our local knowledge and our research
to advocate and campaign for more and better
investment in water and sanitation by governments,
donors and the private sector – pointing out that without
this, social and economic development will be held back
and people will be unable to move out of poverty.
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5. Our advocacy work is going from strength to strength –
we are campaigning both nationally and globally and
you will hear from Ambassador Jan Eliasson who Chairs
WaterAid in Sweden about his work at the UN level to
promote water and sanitation as integral to achieving the
world’s poverty goals.
Last year we worked hard to make sure that the
criticality of investing in sanitation was recognised when
the UN reviewed progress against the Millennium
Development Goals at the 10 year point.
We also took part in the long awaited and historic first
meeting of the global compact – the Sanitation and
Water for All initiative – where donor and developing
countries demonstrated their commitment to increased
and better investment. In fact, the Ghanaian
Government pledged an additional 350 million US$ a
year for five years to water.
Next month we are launching a report called Off Track,
Off Target looking at investment in sanitation and will be
looking for your support in a new campaign.
In the UK, you have helped us raise the importance of
water and sanitation with your MPs and I know many of
you made sure you did this before the recent party
conferences.
One of our younger supporters, Myron Wenden-Hadley,
presented a petition to our Secretary of State, Andrew
Mitchell, in July calling on our government to commit to
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6. lifting 100m people out of water and sanitation poverty
by 2015:
Myron said: "When I heard that 4,000 children die every
day because they don't have any clean water or a toilet,
I felt very upset. It's not fair that some children are born
in a country where they can't use a toilet and drink clean
water, it's just lucky that I ended up in a country where
we can. I really believe that this is wrong and that we
should be doing everything we can. 24,000 people
agree with me and WaterAid and that's why they signed
this petition."
Well done and thanks Myron, and lovely to have you
and your Mum with us today.
We are highly supportive of the UK government’s
stalwart commitment to its investment in overseas aid.
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7. Our role is to encourage them to do more in terms of
water and sanitation as a highly cost effective response
– 63 MPs signed an Early Day Motion in this regard and
the Dept for International Development has announced
a review of their work.
This was World Water Day and shows Pat Spry – one of
our most committed volunteer campaigners – and our
Secretary of State:
When we tell people the facts their response is typically
of shock and disbelief; but yet the fact remains that
every day millions of people are drinking water that
could potentially kill them; typically because it is polluted
by human waste because people don’t have toilets.
In addition to our advocacy work being heard and acted
on, I am really pleased to announce that last financial
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8. year WaterAid’s investment in our partners saw 1.5
million people getting safe water to drink and 1.6 million
people with improved sanitation – lives transformed
across 23 countries of Africa and Asia.
Thanks to your incredible support we raised £48 million
last year – 5.5 % up on the previous year – an amazing
achievement, thank-you so much. The money you
raised enables us to do so much and changes so many
lives.
During the year we piloted new work in Rwanda and
Liberia and returned to work again in Sierra Leone. You
will be hearing more about this from our colleague Nash
later this afternoon.
We have expanded our urban work - over 20% of the
people we reached live in cities or small towns.
While we seek to increase our coverage and get more
people services the sustainability and quality of our work
is critical to us and we monitor the functionality and
accessibility of the facilities, the management practices,
hygiene behavior changes and of course the suitability
of the technology and value for money.
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9. We have done much more over recent years with our
partners to help them include the most marginalised
people such as disabled people and people living with
HIV/AIDs and have also worked with others working to
promote improved eye care through clean water.
Over the years our hygiene promotion work has
expanded as without improved hygiene practices the
benefits of improved water and sanitation are simply
lost.
Menstrual hygiene is also a crucial element for the good
health of women and girls and in many cultures a taboo
subject. In Bangladesh last year 20,000 children across
over 750 schools were part of a menstrual hygiene
programme supported by WaterAid.
Currently in Nepal we are hosting an exhibition featuring
local artists called Dropping in on Development to raise
awareness and break down the taboos.
We estimate that nearly two million female students in
Nepal have no access to toilets in school and every
month adolescent girls miss days of class and in some
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10. cases drop out of school altogether because of a lack of
decent toilet.
As climate changes grip the world we are witnessing
increasing numbers of natural disasters and when these
affect areas where we are working with local
organisations able to respond on the ground, we take
action.
In Pakistan we assisted more than 150,000 people
affected by the devastating floods last year – and, as
you may have read, we are currently responding to the
latest floods there.
Elsewhere we helped communities introduce secondary
water sources to supplement wells, including rainwater
harvesting and sand dams.
As ever, we strive to ensure that everything we do
transforms people’s lives. And for anyone visiting areas
where we work you will have seen for yourselves the
incredible changes that can take place once people
have water and sanitation available.
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11. Earlier this year I visited Ethiopia which, as you know, is
experiencing drought and I was really shocked at what I
saw.
As we arrived at the dry river bed in Dendi we came
across a long line of women waiting patiently in the hot
sun with their yellow jerry cans.
As we got closer to the front of the queue we saw
women in deep pits up to their knees in muddy water
collecting the cleaner water as it seeped out of the sides
of the rock.
And then the scene got even worse as we came across
narrow tunnels down into the river bed where we could
just see the tops of women’s heads deep in the ground.
Some of the women were standing on the shoulders of
others collecting water as it seeped out of the rock - cup
by cup.
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12. It took all day to fill their jerry cans - which they then
strapped to their backs to walk home - 5 miles, bent
double up steep hillsides. It was shocking. As you can
imagine squabbles broke out as tempers frayed and we
heard how women had died when the tunnels had
collapsed and they were trapped underground.
We went to see what was being done to alleviate this
awful situation and found men and women involved in
the construction of a gravity flow scheme. Rocks were
being hacked up for the construction of a tank platform,
channels cut down the mountainside for the pipes and
the community engaged in setting up the management
committees.
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13. These ambitious gravity flow schemes while costly to
install has proved sustainable and effective elsewhere in
Ethiopia and transform the lives of women like those I
met and their families.
The stories I heard of what people were prepared to do
to change their lives were inspiring and yet so many
communities are still living without these most basic
needs. Our work is far from done and, with your ongoing
support, we want to do much more.
Hopefully many of you have met colleagues from our
country programmes at the stands in the hall and have
heard directly from them about our work. Our team of
global leaders from across WaterAid have been in the
UK this week and together we have been checking our
progress against our Global Strategy. It has been really
inspiring to hear the success stories and humbling to
hear the challenges faced.
We are making good progress – however we do have
some big challenges ahead in particular to raise the
funds needed and to keep building the momentum
needed to deliver our work well. I for one have come
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14. away from our meetings feeling inspired and energised
– we have a great team – and with your help I am sure
we can indeed realise our ambitious targets.
We are so very lucky to have so many supporters
helping us in our campaigning and fundraising – not just
here but also in Australia, America and Sweden – and
our country programme colleagues have said to me that
they had never realised how much hard work and
commitment goes into this.
Thousands of people have taken parts in events for us,
running marathons, climbing mountains, jumping the
puddles at the Glastonbury music festival, selling cakes,
growing chili peppers and generally doing energetic or
wonderfully creative and sometimes very silly things to
raise awareness and funds.
This year a record number of walkers took part in
another really successful Coast Along – here is Bob and
his dog Bertie who I gather was also sponsored to do
the walk:
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15. This is a wonderful family event and we plan to keep
extending this to make it even bigger and better!
I do believe that WaterAid is really unique in being set
up by individuals from a specific industry and we are all
so grateful that we still have such fantastic support from
the UK water companies to this day. Water companies
help us to reach the UK public through the customer
appeal that goes out with millions of water bills every
year - and in addition the companies raise funds and
support of our cause in so many different ways:
We are very proud of this 30 year partnership which has
raised awareness of the issue and around £115 million
for our work - £76 million of that from the customer
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16. appeal. What’s more even some of the CEOs take to the
Thames on rafts or even get on their bikes for us:
We now have nearly 225,000 individuals who support
our work, through pay roll or regular donations or gifts
and by generously committing to leave us a legacy in
their wills – all so much appreciated.
An incredible number of clubs, churches and community
groups too numerous to mention take action for us and
raise funds - whatever the size of the contributions we
so much appreciate this and make sure we put the funds
to really good use.
In addition to the Water Companies we have a number
of corporate supporters and this year several are taking
part in our 30 fundraising ideas for 30 years.
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17. Do ask my colleagues about this of you would like to join
in.
Last year I mentioned our unique partnership with The
Whitbread group – together with their customers they
have now raised an incredible £1 million for our work.
What a result.
So a huge thank-you to all for supporting our work so
generously. Together we have done much in the past 30
years and have changed millions of lives – however we
have so much more to do together.
I would also like to thank the partner organizations who
deliver our work and our staff and volunteers without
whom we would not be where we are today – and of
course our trustees who have helped WaterAid to be a
professional and effective organization – and one that
has a good sense of humour and of fun!
Is this really the Chair of our Audit Committee?
Yes it is!
Thank-you.
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