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- [00:04]
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- [02:33]
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- [03:05]
Coco Kahn
Welcome to Intelligence Squared, where great minds meet. I'm Coco Kahn, journalist, author and host of Podsave the UK and on today's episode, in partnership with WaterAid, we're celebrating the world's most vital resource, the starting point for health, education, livelihoods and the environment. WaterAid's mission is based on the fact that clean water is the most powerful way to build a fairer, more sustainable Future. And since 1981, they have reached 30 million people. Because when water flows, so does opportunity. In this first episode of a two part series, we're taking a look at ways that change starts with water. It's the foundation of life and every community, economy and ecosystem depends on it. To help us explore this, I'm joined by Amica Godfrey, WaterAid's executive director of international programs. With over 25 years of experience in the WASH sector, which is water, sanitation and hygiene. Her experience spans policy, research and hands on program leadership across more than 10 countries. Amica brings rare insight into how clean water transforms and what it takes to deliver it sustainably. Welcome, Amica.
- [04:17]
Amica Godfrey
Thank you.
- [04:18]
Coco Kahn
It must be strange having to say out loud, do you know how important water is? Because it's a given, right? It covers more than 70% of the Earth's surface. I remember thinking before I came into this conversation how much I'm made of water and how much all the plants in my garden, I've had to bring them inside because it's starting to freeze, are made of water. And yet how much thought do I give to it each day? I'm not really sure I have given enough. I suppose my very first question is, when did you realize how fundamental water is to literally everything?
- [04:51]
Amica Godfrey
I think that's a very good question, Coco. And it is important to emphasize that again that water is everything. It is the foundation to everything. As a child, I grew up in Nigeria and it is one place where you're faced every day about how important water is because you have to think about it when you wake up in the morning on where you're gonna get it from. I happened to be one of the fortunate few that didn't have a lot of thinking to do because I knew it would be there. Would I either go downstairs to the tank to collect it and come upstairs and all of that. But for some, it wasn't like that. I think for me, the biggest reality check came when I was taken to the field as a very young pre medical student on a community health visit. And it was to treat a disease that was called guinea worm. And my first encounter with that was I really wanted to be a medical doctor, to be able to cure illnesses. Until I encountered guinea worm and So I asked a question to my teachers and said, how can we stop this disease? Getting to this stage where you have a lot of people with illness, very bad infections, and worms climbing out from their legs, tied with sticks. And they said to me, clean water. I think that was the biggest shock of my life because I must have read it in medical books, I must have studied it, but it never occurred to me that it was that bad until I saw it. And that's when I said, I am going to make sure that people have water. And that's what changed my direction of what I wanted to be.
- [06:27]
Coco Kahn
I mean, that story is so powerful, so visceral. I mean, I gasped hearing it. And I suppose You've worked across 10 countries in both urban and rural environments, but not every story is as stark as that in terms of telling you how important water is. I wondered if you could tell me about this invisible role that you've seen with water and the various ways it's shown up, both very starkly, both a matter of life and death, but also just a matter of productivity and things working better.
- [06:57]
Amica Godfrey
Of all the years that I've worked in facilitating access to water, what often makes me smile is when I visit communities without access to water and see what people have to go through to do it. And I Visit again after WaterAid has worked with its partners to facilitate access. The change is tremendous. And I think one of the ones that stuck to my mind most recently, too, that actually I keep going away thinking, this is why we do what we do. It's on a visit to Nigeria that I made recently, I visited a health care center not very far from the capital, because sometimes we often think of access to water being in the most rural places, but it's everywhere. It doesn't matter where you are. Urban, rural, the impact for those that don't have it is the same. And this particular health center was about 20 minutes outside of the capital Abuja. And when we got in, there was no water supply in this healthcare facility because WaterAid with its partners, were still trying to build and install water. So I was taken to the makeshift where I encountered a young lady that was in labor. And beside the young lady was a bucket of water that was very brown that was going to use for delivery. It did bring tears to my eyes. I just left the place in tears. However, I went back another time to the same health clinic because I really wanted to know what happened and how far we've got to. And coincidentally, a woman was coming in, also in labor. The transformation in the Place was amazing. There was clean water everywhere, water running from the tap. There was even a hand washing basin, a modern one, in the delivery room. Everything is changed. And she didn't have to come with 5 liters of water from home for them to facilitate the birth. And she was asking the nurses and there was a shower room. There was. It was amazing. And she said, could I stay for longer after I've given birth? Because I could take showers and I could stay for additional three days. Would you allow me to do that? And they said, of course, obviously we will. And that is just. It's fantastic when you see changes like that. It really makes you think, this is what water can do.
- [09:25]
Coco Kahn
Yeah, I mean, that's such an amazing story. I had a baby myself this year, and so my experience of delivering is still very strong in my mind. I will carry that with me to death. I will probably tell every single person I ever meet for more than 25 minutes about my birth experience. And so hearing that, so, I mean, that woman's life was completely transformed. But not only that, it would have been. She'll be sharing the story. It will give hope to other women. It will reach out the, the, the feeling of progress across those that she loves as well. It's so powerful. I think it's fair to say that we take for granted the role that water can play and that feeling of progress. So I suppose from a policy and research perspective, what are the issues that hide the importance of water when we're talking about national development?
- [10:11]
Amica Godfrey
A lot of these countries where we still lack access to basic water and sanitation happen to be in the global South Sub Sah, Africa, South Asia and all of those places. These are parts of the world that are battling with so many other things. That often means that there is a lot of competing national priorities that people have to deal with. And with the current situation we're seeing across the world, economic changes, climate change and all of that, decision makers are very keen to invest in things that return that they see has an economic rate of return, something that returns economic benefit that is obvious. So things like transport, things like energy, all of that. And that often clouds the fact that without water, none of this can succeed. And a lot of these decision makers do have access to water because they can open taps and they can, if they don't have it, will be facilitated for them. So it's often not obvious to show that water is foundational to that economic growth that governments are seeking. It is often ignored. Water for people, as we call it. So water for agriculture yes, people get excited. Water for energy. Yes, they will do dams to deliver, to generate electricity and do agriculture and all of that. But the basic fact that the people that have to make these things work also need safe water. It's often something that is neglected. And so sometimes that's what overshadows the need that national governments and national decision makers need to prioritize this. And in places where they have, they have seen the benefits of how that could help with your economic growth, how having healthy people could help. Because, for example, if you're embarking on a massive agricultural reform and you have a population that is often down with cholera, it's very, very difficult to achieve that. And some governments have realized that it is important that for everything that water does, be it for energy, be it for agriculture, that there's always room for water for people within that.
- [12:17]
Coco Kahn
I wondered, do you think maybe there's possibly a gendered element to it, that maybe the human impact of water felt more keenly by women, families, children, maybe. Maybe that's why it can be overlooked.
- [12:30]
Amica Godfrey
Yes, it's also an opportunity because often it's. It's important to note that yes, a lot of decision making could be, you may find more males in there, but it also would want us to think about who are the main influences of the decision makers. Often it is the women behind them, their daughters, their wives, and things like that. So when things impact people that you really love and that you want to do something about, it often leads to a reaction to make changes. So it doesn't necessarily mean we can also see it as an opportunity that because of what is happening, if we empower women to speak up and if we empower them to really raise the issues, and we're seeing that in a lot of the places where we work, we're working with a lot of young people now who are raising the issue of water and the importance of it. And also we see that when there is water, a lot of local enterprises that begin to mushroom in communities are women led. And when that happens and they raise money more, the families thrive because there is suddenly better nutrition, better food put on the table and all of that.
- [13:41]
Coco Kahn
What are these women led initiatives?
- [13:43]
Amica Godfrey
So in what I've seen in communities where water has suddenly become available more than it used to be, you find women start up little industries that often use water for them to make it. So there will be things like food processing that could then mean that they have more to sell. You have backyard vegetable gardens that are often grown by women. You also have local drinks that often require quite a bit of water to make that easily brings an economic income for women. A lot of these small enterprises and communities are often led by women.
- [14:21]
Coco Kahn
For this bit, I really just wanted to talk to you about the ripple effects. Not just people who directly benefit from clean water having none, but the way that it for generations has this knock on empowerment. So let's start with some of the programs that you've led. So you've led programs across diverse cultural and economic settings. What is a transformation that has stayed with you?
- [14:44]
Amica Godfrey
One of the transformations that more and more these days when I visit, I talked about when you have water in a local health center where babies are born. It is so transformational. And why that is really transformational is it does encourage women to come to the health center to give birth. That is very important. We may not see the association with water, but when you have to bring 5 liters of water and your family would have to follow you all the way carrying that water for you to give birth, it often not encourage people to come and deliver in health centers. And we know that the more women we have coming to health centers to deliver, the more lives we can save. Because if there are complications during birth, there are experts and specialists within the room to solve it. And in most of these places, people are often sometimes encouraged to stay at home. Why go to a place that is quite dirty? You have to do all the work rather than go to a place that is clean. So that's another ripple effect that we're having. Even though water is not about healthier births and saving lives of the mother and baby, but by even attracting them to come to the health center, it makes a lot of difference because we reduce potential maternal deaths and child children dying during birth because you can support them in a cared environment. Another transformational difference is what the difference is making to girls. Girls that are able now to come to school because there is somewhere to either clean themselves during menstruation, somewhere to wash up themselves, somewhere to dispose of their sanitary use sanitary pads. And in a lot of these schools you can even see that where schools that have adequate water supply, toilet facilities, more girls are encouraged to come to school than schools where they don't exist. So they stay away during their period. That means you almost kind of perpetuate this gender differences in the way people gain potential development more how people's lives and future are developed. And so you. I can't even begin to. There's so many ripple effects that so on education, on women and child health, on economic development on there's so many things. Everything, everything starts with water, especially in places where people don't have it.
- [17:17]
Coco Kahn
Given how clear that is, what are the misconceptions that keep stopping this? You know, wholehearted investment in clean water, which is clearly the foundation of everything. What's holding it back?
- [17:29]
Amica Godfrey
I think some of the reasons why we don't see investments as much as we should. It's often water is, like you said, is very simple, so everybody can have it. And what we don't remember is that a lot of water that is available, it's not clean or safe enough for people to drink. There is water everywhere, we acknowledge that, but they're often not safe enough. It does require investment to make that happen. And investing in water or investing in transport or energy, if you invest in energy, you probably get bills sent to people, people pay straight away and all of that. But because water is often kind of not taken as important is everywhere. So people say, well, it should be free, no, but that's not possible because it does require quite a lot to treat it, to get it to the stage where we can use it. And often investing in that is not seen, again, as a priority because it does not return quickly the investment that is made on it. But we need to look deeper, beyond the immediate benefit we get from other investments, like I say again, transports like agriculture and all of that. And look, that if you invest in water, it means you have reduced spend on health care because less people would have to go to hospitals, less cholera, less diarrhea, less all of that. So that is really why I think it's still kind of neglected. But as WaterAid, that's part of the work we're doing. We're not just facilitating access, we're also doing a lot of work on advocacy to really provide that information and data that is needed on why national investment is critical.
- [19:19]
Coco Kahn
I mean, these conversations about investing in water or education and actually, as you've described quite well, you know, invest in water, you, you do get a lift, naturally, in terms of education, you've got more girls going to school. Progress happens in other areas. But I think anyone listening to this, wherever they are in the world, will have had some experience of a frustration that governments, business leaders or whatever aren't quite getting this. So you've seen the sector evolve over 25 years. What changes have made the biggest difference in people's lives and what gives you hope for the future of clean water water? So I'm thinking in particular, you know, when I say biggest difference in people's Life. We've talked a lot about settings. So, you know, water in a healthcare setting, water in an educational setting. But is there, like, technological innovations in terms of the actual pumps or the. I mean, I'm really showing my lack of knowledge.
- [20:12]
Amica Godfrey
This is great, because when people in this country think about water, we think about opening our taps and water flows through it. When I started this work many, many, many years ago, a good source of water supply will be from a well, a deep well where you drop a rope and a bucket and pull water up. That was what it was about 28, 30 years ago, and that was considered really good water. Now, coming back to 25, 28, 30 years later, we are seeing in a lot of the communities where we're working that you can actually open the tap like people do here, and you collect clean water from the tap. And what has changed over time. So we've gone from digging wells in the ground to get groundwater, to bore holes that are drilled by machines and a hand pump installed, which basically means it was quite a good exercise because you have to, like, use your muscle to pump the pump, push the pump up and down for water to come out. What we're now doing is many people, we. With time, you know that the more if you have access to water, the more you're likely to use it to wash dishes, wash your hands, make sure children are kept clean, and all of that. And so bringing water closer to people, rather than having women and girls walk, Even if it's 10 minutes, 5 minutes, it's still quite a walk to go and carry 25 liters of water back home, is that we've now found a way of still drilling those boreholes in the ground, but equipping them with pumps powered through solar that could then pump the water closer to people's homes, even if they don't have it directly inside their houses. For those who can afford it, they want to pay to get connected inside their houses, or at least inside their complex. For others, it will be a shared tap stand that is closer to where many people live. But the advantage of that is there is a lot of sunlight in many of the places where we work. So we take advantage of that and ensure that the solids are what powers the pumps that pump that water. In times where there is not a lot of sun, like in the rainy seasons or when it's cloudy, a lot of the systems that we build are pumped already to a tank, like an overhead tank, which then means that when there is not enough sun to continue pumping, water can come down by gravity to those taps where people can still use them. And as soon as the sun comes again and the solar charges it, it keeps pumping to fill up that tank. So those are some of the technologies changes that we've seen over time and that we're really adapting to make users use of what we have in abundance in those in those countries. We've also in some countries where we often sometimes have challenges with salt in groundwater. So in communities where they are quite close to the sea, what we find is that we're seeing more and more salty water. And one of the ways we try to do that is to do what we call a dilution solution. So basically we collect rainwater which is fresher without salt in it, and dilute it with groundwater that is coming out and get it to a level that is good for people to use and drink and is healthy, and then that gets pumped again. These are technologies that didn't exist in the past that we're all looking at. You know, how do we adapt to the changes in climate that we're seeing and how do we get water access closer to people?
- [23:53]
Coco Kahn
Amazing hearing that described. I don't know if it's too early to say, but what's coming down the line in terms of the next innovation?
- [24:01]
Amica Godfrey
One of the things that we would really like to do as water aids, we not only work in rural communities, we also work in urban communities. Because as you know, access to water supply when you're in an urban area can be quite tough because you're already living in a very densely populated area with little or no place to even store any water or put a big tank and things like that. So you need to have regular access to water supply because your means of storage is very limited. And as they say, urban poverty often hits very hard, harder than when you're in the rural area, because you might have your support network when you're in the rural area with your families and extended families and friends. In urban area, it seems to be people come from all walks of life and mix together. So you don't have that kind of community feeling and social network to support you. And a lot of the challenges we're seeing in urban water supply, which is mainly piped, is that there's often a lot of leakages. And that means that not a lot of people either get water at all because water leaks out by the time it gets to where they are, or some of the water can also get contaminated. So we're really looking at doing a lot of work with the people that provide Those water supply to liquid, how do we reduce leakages and how do we ensure that the water that is supplied, that the majority of it actually get to people rather than leaking out in the ground. And that's in the water supply terms. We call it non revenue water. That is basically water that is cleaned up, supplied, but it's unaccounted for because we can't account it getting to people. What we want to do is to reduce the quantity of unaccounted for water. We want to be able to increase the accountability and making sure that the amount of water that is cleaned up at the center, especially in urban areas, that 90% at least gets to be supplied. And we can trace it and then we can look at where is it leaking from, what can we do? And there are technologies and AIs that we're looking into that could help us do that, that we're working with, beginning to work with universities to explore and the water supply services.
- [26:27]
Coco Kahn
That sounds incredible. I know you said you're beginning to do this stuff, but presumably the focus being put on this, you're already seeing some improvement, right? I mean, what's your expectation in the next five, 10 years?
- [26:41]
Amica Godfrey
So there are specific countries where we really want to do this work in or where we're beginning to work with the water utilities that are working. One of them is in Rwanda. And one of the ways, even before we get into the AIs and the technology is to start to install different types of meters at different points in the system. And the reason being that by installing those meters, it could give us more data and information and to help us narrow down where the most unaccounted for water is coming from. Because remember that sometimes the treatment places can be far from communities. And we need to ensure that we have enough water by working with WaterAid and some of these countries and donating to WaterAid, it enables us to equip the systems with these pumps across the line as we go through to be able to narrow down and then do more work on how what can we do to reduce these leakages.
- [27:37]
Coco Kahn
I mean, it's fantastic to hear all the, the details of these systems that you're setting up. I mean, they're very clearly groundbreaking. I suppose one of my questions would be you've got the setup and then you've got the maintenance, right? And I would imagine that actually probably you've seen it that these systems have been set up and then the communities haven't been able to sustain it for whatever reason it might be. I just wondered if could you explain what communities need to be able to sustain these systems for generations.
- [28:03]
Amica Godfrey
So again, this is something that has evolved out of our experience in the past. When we develop water system, again, just to emphasize that water aid, we often work with partners locally because we know that we need to ensure that whatever we bring, whatever we facilitate, have people that are based in that particular place that are able to gain the knowledge and we transfer the skills to them. And so we often work with local partners, we often work with communities, we often work especially with women because water supply is very key to them. So in the past, when we facilitate work with government service providers to do a particular water facility, we will create like a community management group that look after this water supply and it could be made up of women, men, youth and things like that. But over time we recognize that as the technology is getting more advanced, as people grow and move, those groups, community groups that we help create often don't exist for for as long as we want them to be, which means that things don't often get maintained as they should. So what we're trying to do now is to almost have semi professional groups that actually function like the utilities, but on a smaller scale that will actually take it as a profession rather than on a voluntary basis. And for example, when we did hand pumps and boreholes and rope and bucket, it's easier to have a community group when you start piping water and you start putting it to a tap stand. It does require some kind of professionalism for people to organize. How do we collect money to be able to ensure that when the tap breaks it can be fixed? How do we make sure we have a system that connects us to people with more advanced expertise to help us if a pump breaks down and all of that. So together with the community groups, their role now shift into monitoring data collection information and being able to contact the group that services their pumps and being able to ensure that everyone gets water and being able to decide how the payment for the service is organized within the community by themselves. So in some places, like in Ghana, in Nigeria, in Bangladesh, women can be that community group. But they then they understand the communities, they know the entire families. They decide for family A, the person in that family is very disabled, very old, they cannot pay. Therefore, if to fix it or to help us fix, we're going to pay one pound a month or something like that, we're going to pay one pound and ten pence because it compensates for that woman who cannot pay or for that family. So it's almost Like a cross subsidy going on by the community groups organized by themselves. But then the actual maintenance is actually done by a semi professional group that we know are there. They see it as their job, they are paid to do that job. And that way the system lasts longer. And it's really how we set this up and make sure that at every point there is a group that knows their responsibility, but there is a link between the various chains until it gets to the bigger utility that takes care of it.
- [31:34]
Coco Kahn
Certainly listening to it sounds very hopeful. I wonder, you know, what's giving you hope about the future of clean water.
- [31:43]
Amica Godfrey
I think it's quite important to recognize that as time has passed over the past 25 years, there has been, since 2000, for example, there's been an incredible amount of people that have gotten access to clean water and over 2.4 billion people. That is a lot of people. And it just gives hope that things can change and things are changing and things are improving day by day. And I think what really gives me hope is that the younger generation are coming on board and getting interested into what is happening. So they are taking control and being able to really work around their environment and really see water as a critical part of what's going on. And it does give me hope because if we work with the younger generation who are the future of making decisions, ensuring that those pipes and taps and boreholes keep running, I think it's an incredible move because in the past it would have been only decision makers, it would have been only adults who are involved in these discussions. But now it is, it is widening. It also gives me hope that even with the changes we're noticing in climate and all of that, we are trying to become adaptive, we're trying to become innovative, not just in technology, but in things like the system setup that I just explained about having to make sure that at every particular point there is always something there that would ensure that a particular water facility is up and running in a short time, irrespective of what happens. I think that is the key. It is the maintenance, the management systems that are being put in that would really ensure that everything we're putting in. And also it's important to also note that globally, I think water is being recognized as being very critical for a lot of things and that is filtering down to everywhere. A lot of governments are now kind of thinking about it and doing something about it because they are seeing what the negative impact can be and also what the positive impact can be and how much it actually costs compared to other Investments they are making how little an investment in water can yield huge results than building hospitals and all of that and treating the sick.
- [34:15]
Coco Kahn
Globally, it's being understood much more how important water is. Again, it's a weird sentence to say, but this is a slight tangent. A friend of mine is an environmental campaigner and he was saying one of his great frustrations is that sometimes he comes up against when he's working with policy makers. You know, working here in the uk, they have this frustration of like, well, you know, why should we do anything? Because enter other country here, China and or whatever, they're not doing enough. And my very frustrated friend will say, you know how like wind doesn't see borders, environment doesn't see borders. That's not how this really works. And I wonder if there's something about that with water as well. So if there. And I'm sure there wouldn't be. But if there was someone thinking that, listening to this podcast right now, thinking, why should I be concerned about water in the global south when I'm quite comfortable in the global north, what would you say?
- [35:02]
Amica Godfrey
I know that we have really short term memories, but at I think we can all still remember what happened during COVID We thought we were all safe and comfortable where we were, but we weren't because we are so interconnected now. A lot of the foods that we eat are brought in from other countries. There's a lot of traveling, there's a lot of human movement that is going on. We're now beginning to see diseases that never used to be in this country. We're now beginning to see them. Either people travel on holidays or travel to these faraway places or people from faraway places coming. So there is a lot of human movement that is going around. So we should all be concerned. The world is always almost one now that you cannot say because I'm in the global North, I am protected from what is happening. We get all sorts of bugs, stomach bugs that we never used to have. We're seeing a lot of resistance by so many diseases that used to be cured without us knowing we're going to holidays in faraway places that we never used to go to. So no one is protected because of where they are. And so the fact that we say the water challenges are more in the global south and therefore here I am protected, we've also seen that it's becoming a challenge here also. And so we all need to club together that if we solve the problem in one part of the world, we're not solving it for that Part of the world. We're solving it for the entire world because we're protecting ourselves. We're having a more settled human race in terms of diseases prevention, in terms of migration, in terms of security, in terms of. It does impact all of us. And so it's really important that people.
- [36:47]
Coco Kahn
Understand that water security, clean water, global problem, requires global solutions. So for individual supporters, communities or organizations like WaterAid, how can people get involved, really? How can they be part of this?
- [37:01]
Amica Godfrey
I think there are so many ways to be part of this. One of the ways is to speak up about the benefits of water. If you have any political influence, if you are in places where decision makers are making those decisions, to just continue to speak up about the needs that we continue supporting and making sure that decisions we make are not going to impact on progress that has already been made. So, for example, in the uk, we know that a lot of people do support the need for water. And the study that we did found that 25% of the UK public think that water is the most important issue to spend overseas aid on. And I think we should continue to push for that. And over 53% of people rank it in their top three issues to deal with. And therefore, we do really need people in this time that the world is kind of shifting and we don't know what's happening with all the economic development cuts and all of that. We do really want people to really donate. Donate to WaterAid. Go to WaterAid's website, see all the work we do. Everything, everything starts with water. And by visiting wateraid.org you can really help us to reach more people. You could help us to do the advocacy we're doing both globally and in the countries where we are to ensure that more investment goes into water.
- [38:28]
Coco Kahn
And what are the water aid programs that are just really exciting you right now and that anyone listening to this, you know, can be a part of, can support.
- [38:37]
Amica Godfrey
So we have some work going on in Madagascar. As many people would know, Madagascar is a country that is often really heavily impacted by climate change. In southern Madagascar, it sounds like it's in the south, and therefore there's quite a lot of water. It's an area that is really impacted by climate incidences. There's always either drought, no water at all, or too much water when it floods. And we would really, really, really. It's a difficult place to provide water for because of those changes that are happening is also impacting on the amount of water we found on the ground. But by donating to this program, we could use different technologies, different existing AIs to really look at how do we best access good quality groundwater to deliver water to this part of the world where the climate impact is so high. We also have, like I said, programs in Ethiopia, Rwanda, where we're looking at not just rural water, but what I spoke about, urban water supply, supplying people to people in hot water to people in urban areas where I don't want to use the word urban poor, but actually that's what it is. We in the past use the word slums, but there are still a lot of that mushrooming and growing more and more as the population of Africa increases. It is estimated that 50% will be in the urban areas and a lot of them will be living in these areas that are not attended to highly density areas. And so we would like to really expand our work not just to focus in rural areas, but also in urban areas where the population density is high. So Ethiopia and Rwanda, Madagascar for climate change. We also doing a lot of work in Bangladesh. Everybody knows the issue in Bangladesh with flooding. Bangladesh has a lot of innovative technologies, a lot of them managed by women, growing their enterprise and also ensuring that it's sustainable because they are often rooted in the communities where they are based and are longer term. So we really hope that we can work with anyone listening to help us take these programs to a higher scale.
- [40:50]
Coco Kahn
In your view, what does a world look like where everyone, every single person, has access to clean water?
- [40:58]
Amica Godfrey
It will be a dream come true. It's a world where you have every single health centre, irrespective of where it's situated in the world, that a woman can go in and ensure that the delivery will be done safely. Clean hand water accessible, not brown water in buckets and all of that sitting around. A place where kids can wake up in the morning and not have to trek for hours to get water and come back. And by the time they get to school, school is finished. Is a place where they get up in the morning, they have clean school uniforms, they are happy and choppy to go to school. A place where women can thrive because they can do more local productivity. They can do process more food, process more drinks and more things that they do to give money. Just a place where everybody can actually open the taps like we do here and get water where they don't have to make that much effort and then everything else can fall into place. It will be an amazing thing to.
- [42:06]
Coco Kahn
Have and a perfect place to end our conversation today. Thank you so much, amica. You've been really generous with your time.
- [42:14]
Amica Godfrey
Thank you, thank you Kuku, and thanks a lot.
- [42:17]
Coco Kahn
The message of today's episode is simple but powerful. When a community gains clean water, everything changes. Children stay in school, women reclaim their time and safety. Health improves, local economies grow. The ripple effect is immediate and it lasts for generations. Right now, 1 in 10 people still live without clean water close to home, and every £1 invested in water and sanitation returns up to £4 in increased productivity, stronger health and resilience. With your support, clean water can change lives. If you'd like to help WaterAid reach even more people with clean water, sanitation and hygiene, you can donate today. Even a small contribution goes a long way in building a fairer, healthier, more sustainable future for us all. Just five pounds a month over a year can buy five standpipe taps in Madagascar, meaning communities can have clean water for decades to come. Thank you for listening and a huge thanks once again to Amica Godfrey for sharing her expertise, her stories and her decades of experience working alongside communities to make clean water a reality. And we'll be back with another episode in 2026.
- [43:34]
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- [44:01]
Amica Godfrey
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- [44:17]
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- [44:47]
Amica Godfrey
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