Catarina de Albuquerque, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to safe drinking water and sanitation, will participate in a virtual public lecture and live panel event titled The right to WaSH; the right to health on Monday. The event is part of the Another Drop lecture series hosted by the UN University Institute for Water, Environment and Health at the McMaster Innovation Park in Hamilton.
The event is part of an international working symposium supported by the University of Waterloo’s Water Institute, United Nations University, McMaster University, the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, and the Canadian Consortium on Global Health Research, to address the urgent need for innovation to deal with sustainable access to drinking water and sanitation around the world.
According to the UN, water use has been growing at more than twice the rate of population increase in the last century. By 2025, it is estimated that 1800 million people will be living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity. Yet almost one third of the population do not have adequate access to drinking water and sanitation and 1600 children under the age of five die unnecessarily every day from diarrhoea.
As de Albuquerque has said, “We all want the same thing. We want a world where everyone has access to sanitation and water… The good news is that we can do it.”
Date: Monday, November 25, 2013
Time: 7 to 9 p.m.
Location: Atrium@ McMaster Innovation Park, Ground Floor Conference Centre, 175 Longwood Rd South, Hamilton
