The Aga Khan Planning and Building Service’s (AKPBS-P) gets award

Image via Wikipedia

Islamabad (Pak Observer) —The Aga Khan Planning and Building Service’s (AKPBS-P) Water and Sanitation Extension Programme (WASEP) in Pakistan has been awarded a national Energy Globe Award in recognition of the projects that “make careful and economical use of resources and employ alternative energy sources”. According to a statement of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) and a message received here, the award, which was received in Kigali, Rwanda, during a ceremony organized on the UN World Environment Day, recognized AKPBS’s efforts to improve living conditions in more than 200 villages in Pakistan.

The WASEP was also short-listed as one of the top three projects in the Water Category Award. Other projects which received this award were from India and Germany.

On receiving the award, AKPBS,P’s Chairman, Hafiz Sherali said “the contribution of WASEP in improving the living conditions of the people in Pakistan has been a source of great satisfaction for AKPBS,P”. Sherali went on to note that more was needed to be done in this area.

The WASEP is a rural-based initiative that integrates supply of safe water, construction of low-cost sanitation facilities and health and hygiene education in many marginalized parts of Gilgit- Baltistan.

The integration of these components has led to significant improvement in health indicators in beneficiary villages. In regions where more than half of all deaths are caused by waterborne diseases, WASEP has been able to reduce, by more than 60 percent, the incidence of diarrhoea, which is the number one killer of children in the developing world. 

The WASEP schemes, running since 1997, are all managed by the communities that benefit from them. Moreover, almost all of WASEP’s water supply facilities are gravity-fed, requiring no electrical energy. It is specifically for these reasons that the Programme—out of more than 800 entries from 111 countries—was presented the Energy Globe Award for Pakistan and was nominated for the Water Category Award.—APP