LAHORE - World Wide Fund-Pakistan (WWF-Pakistan) and Coca-Cola Beverages Pakistan Limited (CCBPL) have partnered together to better access to drinking water in marginal communities facing acute shortage of clean water.
WWF-Pakistan Director General Hammad Naqi Khan said: “Water Stewardship encourages businesses and corporates to work beyond their fence line and work on resource management issues to mitigate the future risks to supply chains. Pakistan is facing a looming crisis in water management which has direct linkages to the social, economic and environmental well being of the country. It is about time that businesses and the government work side by side to arrest the effects through effective water stewardship”.
Through this partnership CCBPL will install water filtration plants with extensive community outreach and mobilization opportunities. WWF-Pakistan aims to offer and install localized solutions, with respect to the particular water availability and accessibility issues at each target site. WWF-Pakistan will also identify sites and communities for the installation and provision of drinking water facilities to communities. WWF-Pakistan will also promote the concept of water stewardship and involve CCBPL actively in it.
Zafar Abbas Jafri, Director PAC, CCBPL said, “According to recent UN reports, water scarcity is going to be a major issue in the coming years, so we have to educate the masses and introduce initiatives to make use of the water currently available. CCBPL is at the forefront in this fight against water scarcity especially in this partnership with WWF-Pakistan”. The initiative targets research on water quality issues; installation of localized solutions i.e. water treatment plants; reverse osmosis (RO), ultra-filtration (UF), ozonator and sand filters etc. in less privileged communities. The communities will be selected in accordance with their water situation, needs and participation in solving the issue. In addition, the capacity of target communities with a particular focus on women’s participation will be increased to ensure sustained operation and maintenance of installed drinking water infrastructure.
This understanding will remain valid till the end of 2016 and is expected to make an effective contribution in improving the access to clean drinking water for low lying areas. Starting with Lahore, the initiative will be expanded to other regions.
Water availability in Pakistan is only 964 m3 per capita, below the water scarcity level of 1,000 m3 per capita. It is expected to decline further due to over-abstraction - over 60 per cent of Pakistan’s drinking water needs are met by abstracting groundwater. Some of the major health issues and diseases the country faces, such as typhoid, cholera, dysentery and hepatitis, are also linked to waterborne diseases as 30 per cent of diseases and 40 per cent of deaths are associated with contaminated drinking water. Approximately 250,000 children die each year due to contaminated water. It is also estimated that Pakistan’s water availability in 2025 will be 104 Million Acre-Feet (MAF), whereas demand will be 135 MAF and a shortfall of 31 MAF.
In order to cope with these issues WWF-Pakistan launched the Water Stewardship in Pakistan (WSP) project in January 2013 with an aim to promote sustainable consumption and production (SCP) practices in the country by facilitating and supporting a shift towards better water management in water-intensive SMEs located in Lahore and its surrounding districts.