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Theme:

Environmental Health: Water and Food Security

“Environmental health addresses all the physical, chemical, and biological factors external to a person, and all the related factors impacting behaviours. It encompasses the assessment and control of those environmental factors that can potentially affect health. It is targeted towards preventing disease and creating health-supportive environments.” -WHO

“Millennium Development Goal number 7, target 10 aims "to halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation". The world is still on track to reach the drinking water target, but increasing water scarcity may seriously undermine progress towards achieving this goal.” - WHO

“The rapid rise in the price of basic foodstuffs has had both a profound, immediate humanitarian impact and a major structural effect that aggravates the existing prevalence of malnutrition around the Globe.” -WHO

Conference participants will have the opportunity to have a greater knowledge about this topic when the Background Guide will be uploaded on the website by the end of January. This Background Guide will provide you with an introduction to the link between health and levels of access to water and to safe and nutritious food. It will also provide an overview of the factors that determine the current and future levels of access to food and water. Finally, the document will outline possible solutions to the problem, focusing more specifically on solutions that the WHO could bring.

Environmental health is a timely topic of particular relevance given that around the globe, 13 millions of deaths could be prevented every year if our environments were healthier. Poor environment is the direct cause of one third of all deaths and diseases in the least developed countries. Environmental health is a vast field which encompasses weather extremes, increasing global temperatures, rising sea levels, food borne diseases, poor quality of water, lack of water, natural disasters, air pollution, insect vectors that spread infectious diseases, use of fuels and others. We have chosen to focus on access to food and water because they are evident primary human needs that are being compromised by the recent food security crisis, the food prices crisis and the increasing water scarcities.

How to get well prepared for the conference

  • Read the Background Guide.
  • Consult the references sent in the previous newsletter (FAO and WHO websites). Here they are again:
Data and Numbers
Maps
General Information
New Resources

Here are questions to answer for each of your countries:

 
  • Does all your population have general access to clean water? to food? Use the data you can find with the resources sent previously.
  • What are the main difficulties for your population to get access to clean water and food? (e.g. scarcity, unequal distribution, climate, prices, dumping, monocultures, decreased international aid, etc…)
  • What are the consequences of the poor access to food and water? (e.g. infant malnutrition, hunger, small agricultural yields, infectious diseases, etc.)
  • Can you think of any solutions to improve your situation? How can you prevent a further worsening of the situation? Address the issues by considering both the short and the long run. Think globally: how can you cooperate with the regional countries and the rest of the world? (e.g. increase the funding of the World Food program, cut in the bio-fuels, help poorest farmers get started with fertilizer, improved seeds and small-scale irrigation equipment where applicable, rural financing programs like micro-credit, sanitation programs in urbanized areas, improve fresh water supplies leakages, enhance transboundary water management, increase water technology transfer and water professionals exchange,  finance more water for agriculture, take urgent action in delivering essential vitamins and minerals to the populations, raise awareness of political and economical leaders, increase local health projects, use of dry toilets, green roofs, etc…)