International Rainwater Harvesting Alliance

Newsletter n° 02 - December 2004

Dear Rainwater Harvesters,

Welcome to the second IRHA newsletter, now available in French after many requests from our new friends from francophone Africa. The last few weeks have been very busy.


8th SEARNET Conference, 29 November - 3 December 2004, Gaborone

The Southern and Eastern African Rainwater Network (SEARNET) is IRHA's most important partner in Africa. IRHA recently participated in SEARNET's 8th conference in Botswana. The theme was "Harnessing Rainwater for Improved Livelihoods". IRHA took the opportunity to launch its "Parliamentarians for Rainwater Harvesting" initiative with Mexican Congressman Alberto Jimenéz Merino. The initiative was presented to Botswanan members of parliament who were present.

Following discussions in Gaborone, IRHA and IRCSA Africa (International Rainwater Catchment Systems Association) look forward to working more closely together in the future.

The next SEARNET conference will be held in Kigali, Rwanda in December 2005. In the year leading up to this one major issue, raised in Gaborone, will be the need to scale up RWH initiatives throughout all the national RWH associations. For more information see: www.searnet.org


Global Water, Sanitation & Hygiene Forum, 29 November - 3 December 2004, Dakar

IRHA was also at the WASH (Water, Sanitation & Hygiene) Forum. A joint exhibition space in Dakar was shared by IRHA, the Rainwater harvesting Implementation Network from The Netherlands, and from India the Global Rainwater Harvesting Collective, Action for Food Production and Utthan. We met people from many interesting organisations who knew very little about the possibilities of rainwater harvesting (RWH), but who were eager to find out more. One of the Forum field trips was to two Dakar schools now harvesting rainwater from their roofs to provide better sanitation for their pupils.

You can read the Dakar Statement (mentioning RWH) and also find out more about the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council on the web site: www.wsscc.org/dakar


United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, 13-14 December 2004, Geneva

IRHA participated in the meetings of the UNECE, organised by the Swiss Environment Agency (BUWAL) at the Palais des Nations. The theme was "Forests and Wetlands: Suppliers of Clean Water and First Line of Defence Against Floods". See: http://www.unece.org/press/pr2004/04env_p22e.htm

This was followed by a one day meeting of the First Working Group on Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM). IRHA also took part on the subject of trans-boundary watersheds. During these three days there was an important presence of government representatives and NGOs from Russia and the Central Asian Republics, and IRHA made many new contacts interested to learn more about what RWH could bring to their part of the world.

IRHA continued discussions with GWP Central and Eastern Europe on future collaborations in this region.


2nd Alternative World Water Forum (FAME), 17-20 March 2005, Geneva

The secretariat of FAME 2005 and IRHA are organising a conference of up to 100 national parliamentarians closely involved in water issues. The "Parliamentarians United for Water" conference will take place within the 2nd Alternative World Water Forum, both at the International Environment House II (IRHA's home) and the Geneva Grand Council.

To receive an official invitation to this conference from National Councillor Carlo Sommaruga and the parliament of the Swiss Confederation, IRHA must have the names and contact details of the parliamentarians as soon as possible. If you or your organisation can recommend one or two parliamentarians from your country with a strong interest in water issues, then please let us know.

Send names to secretariat@irha-h2o.org. The ideal candidate would have been involved in passing water related legislation or policies through your parliament (or even better, rainwater related legislation).
Also see: www.fame2005.org


Rainwater Harvesting for Disaster and Flood Prevention

In 2005 IRHA will be opening discussions with the World Meteorological Office's Hydrology and Water Resources Department and also the United Nations' International Strategy for Disaster Reduction Inter-Agency Secretariat. We know that RWH can control water levels significantly on a watershed scale. We are looking for case studies that we can present to both these organisations on radically noticeable improvements in flood control due to your RWH work. This was also an important point of discussion in the UNECE meetings (see above). Please send any case studies to: secretariat@irha-h2o.org


Press Conferences

To celebrate its second birthday IRHA held a press conference on the 21st September in Geneva and articles were published in 3 different Swiss newspapers (24 Heures, La Tribune de Genève and Le Courrier). On the 28th November an article was also published in the Courrier International, a weekly French language newspaper that compiles and translates the most interesting articles from around the world. We will continue our work to bring RWH to the attention of the media. You can see the articles on: www.irha-h2o.org

Following IRHA's successful pilot project "Introducing Rainwater Harvesting in an Orphanage in Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria", IRHA featured in newspaper articles and a national radio interview.

There have also been numerous articles in the Botswanan press concerning the recent SEARNET conference.

Christmas Greetings

IRHA would like to take this opportunity to thank all our friends, partners, donors, allies and families for supporting us through our second year of existence. We wish you all a peaceful Christmas period and look forward to carrying forward the Alliance's work in 2005.

Best wishes, the IRHA Secretariat staff