Throughout the world, USAID is dedicated to assisting developing countries meet any water-related challenges head on. USAID staff and members of the Water Team have captured some riveting footage of the work that USAID has undertaken to support its mission. Working with the Pakistani people and Government, USAID assisted in providing food and healthcare to those affected by a massive flood; in Egypt, USAID has provided training and sanitation kits to Egyptian teachers and school children; and in Jordan, USAID works to promote innovative solutions that support conservation and water demand management.
The Water Team invites you to view these videos to see first-hand the ways in which our work benefits people around the globe. Check back often as we plan to continually update this site with more video content as it becomes available.
For your convenience, we also offer links to two featured Podcasts, which detail some of the latest water-related activities throughout the world:
Interview with Chris Holmes, Global Water Coordinator at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). In this interview on September 22, 2011 at CSIS on Water Supply, Sanitation, and Hygiene Programming, Mr. Holmes discusses USAID's current work on global water challenges and the agency's outlook on a broad range of global water issues.
The Podcast on Handwashing and Sustainable Development from America.gov provides the transciprt and audio file of an interview with Sarah Fry, a Senior Hygiene Programming Advisor with USAID’s HIP program, and Maria Otero, Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs at the Department of State. Here, the two are discussing HIP and the new WASH+ program.
The Voice of Community Podcast features residents of the Maputo suburb of Chamunculo discussing the results of a project by Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor (WSUP).
The USAID-funded Hen Mpoano (Our Coast) Project is carried out by the Coastal Resources Center in collaboration with Friends of the Nation, The WorldFish Center and Sustainametrix, to help coastal communities in the six coastal districts of Ghana's Western Region assess climate change impacts and community vulnerability in order to find ways to adapt using their own resources and knowledge.
Villagers near Senegal’s River Delta plan a year-long rotation of crops to supplement their diets and incomes. USAID provided technical guidance and has constructed wells for irrigation, helping to turn fertile soil into flourishing gardens. Ngara Diatta tends an onion patch that will later produce tomatoes, eggplants, and cabbage. USAID also helped to construct an earthen dike and concrete retention basin to keep out saltwater and retain freshwater, allowing hundreds of hectares of land to be reclaimed for farming.
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) supports improved waste water analysis in Central America to improve water quality for people across the region.
More than 900 families in Ecuador depend on crabbing in the mangroves of the Gulf of Guayaquil. These same mangroves mitigate global warming and contribute to global carbon sequestration efforts.
Sanitation marketing uses the power of the market to increase sustainable access to sanitation at scale. By treating households as discerning consumers, rather than project beneficiaries, sanitation marketing helps enterprises to deliver sanitation products and services that households want and can afford.
It is one of the biggest humanitarian projects ever launched in Haiti. USAID is helping this country deal with climate extremes, saving countless lives and precious farmland. You can see the difference.
The University of Rhode Island’s Coastal Resources Center collaborates with USAID and other partners to carry out natural hazard and climate change vulnerability assessments, put adaptation measures into place, and share lessons about what works and what needs to be done in the coastal zone. This video explores some practical approaches being used by stakeholders in several coastal countries to manage risk and take “no-regrets” actions to increase their resilience and adapt to the impacts of climate change.
Thanks to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)'s Regional Environmental Program in Central America, positive steps have been taken to clean up the algae bloom in Guatemala's Lake Atitlán through improved environmental monitoring and the implementation of cleaner production practices.
USAID supports the Asian Environmental Compliance and Enforcement Network (AECEN) in its collaborative methods to strengthen enforcement of environmental laws in countries throughout Asia. Member countries support each other and share methodologies for developing a "green" judiciary.
The agriculture sector is one of the major consumers of electricity and groundwater in India. Inefficient water pumps used by farmers lead to the overuse and waste of two important resources: energy and water. USAID's Water Energy Nexus (WENEXA) project has worked to address this problem through a pilot program that replaces inefficient pumps with efficient ones and activities which result in the improvement of the groundwater table. Watch the video to learn more.
USAID/Senegal supports an integrated approach to address the interrelated social, governance, economic, health, ecological and sustainability challenges in the water, sanitation and hygiene sector. This video shows this integration and highlights a Community Led Total Sanitation approach that is being applied with the program.
In Senegal, barriers to access to water include high costs and access to materials. This video shows an innovative technology that a USAID/Senegal funded program promotes in Senegal that drills boreholes using local materials and has lowered the costs of drilling from $12,000 to $3,000.
Secretary of State Clinton discusses the impact of water insecurity throughout the world at the recent signing of the Memorandum of Understanding between the US Government and the World Bank on World Water Day.
Maria Otero, Under Secretary for Democracy and Global Affairs; Hattie Babbitt, co-chair of the board for the Global Water Challenge; and Cheryl Benton, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of Public Affairs, discuss global water issues in commemoration of the latest World Water Day.
This 10-minute documentary describes how a USAID program's value-chain business model helped Cambodian entrepreneurs invest in water treatment infrastructure to serve rural areas. The program resulted in clean water access for 60,000 people and encouraged local businesses to grow and thrive even after USAID's rebate assistance ended.
Through its Community Based Initiative for Water Demand Management, USAID works with 150 Jordanian organizations to empower communities and innovate solutions that support conservation and water demand management.
USAID, under the Waterlinks program, supports the partnership between Ranhill Utilities in Malaysia and MJP (Maharashtra state water provider) in India to give residents in Badlapur 24/7 access to clean water. The state provider learned techniques for improved metering, using pressure pumps, and reducing leakage. Many organizations see potential for more partnerships like this across Asia.
Health and environmental message kits help teachers in Egypt teach children about water conservation, hygiene, and sanitation practices, and the children bring the message home to their families.
