UN, Coca-Cola water project to impact a million people

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IANS | 05 Sep, 2012
UN and Coca-Cola have announced here the expansion of their partnership on water sustainibility to 10 countries that will impact over a million people in Asia and Africa.

The announcement was made at the 6th World Urban Forum here.

The partnership will focus on Asia and Africa and will impact over a million people and will build on the work done earlier by both the partners, said a communique.

The Coca-Cola Foundation announced a contribution of $750,000 towards developing water and sanitation projects in five countries. With the announcement of this investment, the total investment by The Coca-Cola Company and UNHabitat will exceed $4 million over the last six years.

Joan Clos, under-secretary general, UN and executive director, UNHabitat as well as Atul Singh, president & CEO, Coca-Cola India and South West Asia released a compendium titled "From Water to Well Being".

The compendium details the journey of the collaboration between Coca-Cola and UNHabitat in promoting water sustainability in several countries.

It enumerates efforts made in direction to provide sustainable access to safe drinking water, improve access to basic sanitation for the urban poor and slum dwellers and mobilize multi-stakeholders towards water sustainability.

Joan said: "Today, there is an increasing need for an integrated approach to urban water management for the social, economic and environmental sustainability of cities. Within this context, the highest priority for UNHabitat's Water and Sanitation programme is improving access to safe water and helping provide adequate sanitation to millions of low-income urban dwellers and measuring that impact.

"Our collaboration with The Coca-Cola Company started in 2007 with the aim to improve community access to water and sanitation in India and Nepal. Today, this initiative has spread its arms across South Asia, including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Vietnam and Cambodia as well as countries in East Africa," added Joan.