World Water Day Being Celebrated Tomorrow

Media Release

21 March 2007

World Water Day Being Celebrated Tomorrow

Tomorrow marks World Water Day, the same day the Ministry of Health launches an educational DVD for small water suppliers.

World Water Day is an international day of observance and action to draw attention to the plight of the more than 1 billion people world wide that do not have access to clean, safe drinking water and it's been celebrated since 1993.

The Ministry of Health has been working for many years to ensure all New Zealanders have access to safe drinking-water. In May 2005, the Government committed $154 million (GST incl) over 10 years to improve small drinking-water supplies.

Ministry of Health Senior Advisor, Environmental Health, Dr Michael Taylor says this culminated in the development of the Drinking- Water Assistance Programme last year, which has seen more than 200 small drinking water suppliers join the programme, to get expert technical advice on upgrading small water supplies. Many supplies are now progressing towards Capital Assistance applications. It's expected that the first capital assistance funding will be provided in July this year.

"To help small water suppliers understand how to comply with the New Zealand Drinking-Water Standards 2005, an educational DVD has been produced by award-winning New Zealand animators the Simmons Brothers, based in Paekakariki, north of Wellington."

Dr Taylor says the DVD entitled 'Dont Bug Me' is the first in a series of four animated DVDs the Ministry of Health plans to release over the next 3 months. This DVD looks at pathogens and pathways in drinking-water supplies and provides technical information in plain English, which will appeal to many audiences.

"The DVD is already being used by Canadian and Australian health officials who viewed it last year at a world conference on water and say it's so good they're using it for the same purposes we plan to", says Michael Taylor.

He says the DVD will also be used today to mark World Water Day in the Cook Islands and Tonga by the World Health Organisation to promote awareness about the importance of drinking-water quality management. This comes at the same time as an NZ Aid programme aimed at building drinking-water quality management capacity in Pacific Island nations gets underway.

Organised by the Ministry of Health, the programme is designed to reduce the incidence of cholera and typhoid in these countries. Drinking-water assessors from public health units in New Zealand are currently visiting a number of Pacific Island nations as part of the programme.

Michael Taylor says, "the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission are also involved in the programme. WHO chose New Zealand to provide the expertise for this initiative because it considers New Zealand is a global leader in applying risk-management approaches for small water supplies and has developed strong expertise and capacity for drinking-water quality monitoring and over the years has, through its technical assistance programme for small drinking-water supplies, become expert in training small communities to develop Water Safety Plans."

"The investment the Government has put into ensuring all New Zealanders have access to safe drinking-water has contributed to New Zealand becoming a world leader on water quality and this should also be celebrated as we mark World Water Day tomorrow."

ENDS

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