UN-HABITAT and IRC organised the Second Regional Media Workshop on "Urban Water and Sanitation Issues in Asia and the Pacific", in Singapore from 12-14 July 2007.
Published on: 20/07/2007
The workshop had 16 Journalists from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Lao PDR, Vietnam, PR China and Indonesia participating. The workshop was organized by UN-HABITAT in collaboration with IRC Water and Sanitation Centre, the Netherlands, as part of the communication strategy and advocacy campaign under discussion in the Water for Asian Cities Programme. The workshop organized at the Water Hub was hosted by the Public Utilities Board (PUB) in Singapore.
The objective of this workshop was to bring together the media professionals and to create awareness among them about the current situation of water and sanitation in various countries of Asia, particularly those participating in the Water for Asian Cities Programme of UN-HABITAT. The 13 presentations with discussions included two from the participating journalists. In the final afternoon the journalists and UN-HABITAT technical advisers worked out an action plan for articles per region.
The workshop was organized in parallel with the Asia-Pacific Water Forum (APWF)'s 2nd Governing Council Meeting in Singapore. The Journalists also interacted with several GC members on the water and sanitation issues. Mr. Arjun Thapan, Director General ADB, who participated in the APWF's Governing Council meeting was separately interviewed by two journalists from Laos, who addressed the issues relating to UNHABITAT – ADB joint initiatives in the Mekong Region.
Field visits
The Workshop participants visited the Membrane Bio Reactor (MBR) plant of PUB, Singapore which purifies the water treatment process using advanced dual-membrane and ultraviolet technologies where rainwater is collected through rivers, streams, canals and drains, and stored in reservoirs. This raw water is then piped to their water works for treatment. They also visited PUB's NEWaterVisitor Centre, a new approach to water reuse education. This 2,200-square-meter facility was designed and constructed in tandem with a new 7-million-gallon- (32,000-cubic-meter-) per-day reclamation plant: the Bedok NEWater Factory.
Outputs
Some of the journalists published stories on these good examples of Singapore's used water management, as examples for their own countries.
