News Release

2012/121/SDN

‘WaterHackathon’ to Find Technology Solutions to Global Water Challenges

WASHINGTON, October 20, 2011 – Computer programmers, designers, and other information technology specialists convened by the World Bank Group and technology partners at NASA, Google, Hewlett Packard, Microsoft, and Yahoo! will compete for 48 hours in cities around the world this weekend to develop new application software, or apps, that solve water and sanitation challenges in developing countries.

Water is essential to sustain life and economic development, yet the number of people without access to clean water and sanitation remains daunting.

- 2.6 billion people lack access to sanitation

- Nearly one billion live without access to safe drinking water

Lack of safe water and adequate sanitation is the world s single largest cause of illness, responsible for two million deaths a year that s four people every minute most of them children. More children die of diarrhea than of AIDs, malaria, and TB combined.

The first ever global WaterHackathon follows the model set by Random Hacks of Kindness(RHoK), a partnership among these same organizations, in which subject matter experts and local stakeholders submit problem definitions which are then tackled by volunteer software developers who use the latest technology tools to create innovative solutions. The first RHoK event in November 2009 gave rise to applications such as I m Ok! and Tweak the Tweet, which were used in emergency response operations following the 2010 Haiti earthquake.

The sustainable management of water resources has also acquired a new urgency in the face of a global population expected to reach 9 billion by 2050, increased food demands, and increased hydrological variability caused by climate change.

- Irrigation produces around half of the world’s food and accounts for about three quarters of water withdrawals worldwide.

- Water scarcity will affect at least 30% of the world’s population in 2050.

- Climate change exacerbates flood and drought challenges as it makes water resources harder to manage, and increases risk and uncertainty.

WaterHackathon will take place simultaneously in nine locations, including, among others, Bangalore, Lagos, Lima, Nairobi, and Washington, DC.

The general public is invited to follow the event live on Twitter at #waterhack.

Water is at the heart of some of the world’s most pressing development challenges. At the intersection of technology and consumer-related data, we are seeing new opportunities to create and effectively use non-traditional solutions. Are we really taking full advantage of now-ubiquitous mobile phones, mobile internet access, and social media tools to transform inclusion, citizen participation, and transparency in water management and services? Are we using open data to full practical advantage? It is in search of such non-traditional solutions that the World Bank is launching the WaterHackathon,” said Jose Luis Irigoyen, World Bank Director for Transport, Water, and Information and Communication Technologies.

“WaterHackathon represents a natural intersection of two focus areas of NASA’s Open Government Initiative – open data and open source,” said Nicholas Skytland, Program Manager of NASA’s Open Government Initiative. “This collaborative project enables us to provide data resources to the water sector and the developer community as they create applications that address some of the world’s most urgent water crises.”

HP is committed to applying our technology, expertise, and dedicated volunteers to support and contribute to the prosperity of people and communities around the world,” said Marlon Evans, Office of Global Social Innovation, Hewlett-Packard Company. ”We are proud to partner with the World Bank and Random Hacks of Kindness in their efforts to solve today s water problems.”

Microsoft is delighted to see the growth and continuation of the Random Hacks of Kindness model,” said Patrick Svenburg, Director of Developer & Platform Evangelism at Microsoft. “The chance to bring together subject matter experts around water and sanitation with software developers from all around the world is a unique opportunity to create open solutions that will directly affect the quality of life of people, perhaps even safe lives.”

“We are very excited to see the Water Hackathon taking off as one of the first Random Hacks of Kindness Community Events,” said Christiaan Adams, a Developer Advocate with Google.org’s Crisis Response Team.

Among the speakers at WaterHackathon is Jeff Martin, founder and CEO of Tribal Brands and Tribal Technologies, which created the first intelligent database behind mobile applications that predicts consumer behaviors and interactions. “Today, far more of the world’s population has access to a cell signal than safe drinking water,” he said. “What we need now is a marriage of digital convergence to solve this problem – where mobile phones and apps help bridge this incomprehensible gap in a way desktop computers never did.”

Contacts:

In Washington: Karolina Ordon, +1 (202) 458-5971, kordon@worldbank.org

Christopher Walsh, (202) 473-4594, cwalsh@worldbank.org;

For Broadcast Requests: Natalia Cieslik, (202) 458-9369, ncieslik@worldbank.org

For more information, please visit: www.WaterHackathon.org

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Inadequate Sanitation Costs Bangladesh the Equivalent of 6.3 Percent of GDP in 2007

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2011 Oct 6 – Washington DC — Inadequate sanitation causes Bangladesh economic losses totaling US$ 4.22 billion (Taka 30,000 crore) each year. This is equivalent to 6.3 percent of the country’s GDP in 2007, according to a new report published by the Water and Sanitation Program (WSP), a multi-donor partnership administered by the World Bank.

The report, The Economic Impacts of Inadequate Sanitation in Bangladesh, is based on evidence on the adverse economic impacts of inadequate sanitation, which include costs associated with death and disease, accessing and treating water, and losses in education, productivity and time. The findings are based on 2007 figures, although a similar magnitude of losses is likely in later years.

The report shows that losses due to premature mortality and other health-relatedimpacts of poor sanitation total about US$ 3.56 billion (Taka 25,000 crore) (84.3 percent of total economic impacts). This is followed by productive time lost to access sanitation facilities or sites for defecation at US$ 454 million (Taka 3,000 crore) (10.8 percent), and drinking water-related impacts at US$ 207 million (Taka 1,500 crore) (4.9 percent).

Ninety-five percent of the premature mortality-related economic losses are due to deaths and diseases among children under five. Diarrhea among these children accounts for US$ 1.46 billion (Taka 10,000 crore) (40.9 percent) of all health-related economic impacts.

In Bangladesh, diarrhea is the largest contributor to health-related economic impacts resulting from poor sanitation, amounting to two-thirds of the total health-related impacts. This is followed by acute lower respiratory infections, which account for about 15 percent of all health-related impacts.

Poor households are the biggest victims of inadequate sanitation. They experience about 71 percent of the total economic impact of inadequate sanitation.

“Over the last decade Bangladesh has emerged as a global reference point in experimenting and implementing innovative approaches to rural sanitation. Community Led Total Sanitation, which started in Bangladesh, has now been implemented all over the world. Bangladesh’s basic sanitation coverage rose from 33.2 percent in 2003 to 80.4 percent in 2009. This report shows that despite great success, much can still be done in the sanitation sector in Bangladesh”, said Ellen Goldstein, Country Director for World Bank in Bangladesh.

The losses caused by poor sanitation exceed Bangladesh’s national development budget for 2007–2008 by 33 percent. “The total amount of these losses is five times higher than the national health budget, and three times higher than the national education budget in 2007

“Similar studies carried out in East Asia and India indicated annual per capita losses in the range of US$ 9.3 in Vietnam, US$ 16.8 in the Philippines, US$ 28.6 in Indonesia, US$ 32.4 in Cambodia and US$ 48.0 in India,” said Christopher Juan Costain, Regional Team Leader for WSP in South Asia. “Bangladesh lost US$ 29.6 per capita, which demonstrates the urgency of improving sanitation in the country.”

The report underlines that substantial investments are needed to improve sanitation. The Government of Bangladesh has made significant investments towards implementing its “Sanitation for all by 2013” programs. The rising trend in the Government’s budgetary allocation to sanitation indicates a strong commitment to the goals of the sanitation programs.

The report shows that sanitation and hygiene improvements will reduce premature deaths and related morbidity, eliminate domestic water-related costs, reduce absenteeism at schools and workplaces, and improve welfare and productivity.

As a result of comprehensive efforts to improve the level of sanitation, the report estimates a potential gain of about US$ 2.26 billion (Taka 16,000 crore).

The report follows a WSP study published in 2007 on the economic impacts of sanitation in Southeast Asia, a part of the Global Economics of Sanitation Initiative.

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