Energy Globe Award for Aga Khan Planning and Building Services

(PR - AKDN) The Aga Khan Planning and Building Service’s (AKPBS,P) Water and Sanitation Extension Programme (WASEP) in Pakistan was awarded the Energy Globe Award. The award recognises projects that “make careful and economical use of resources and employ alternative energy sources”. 

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. 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. 

Energy Globe founder and organizer, Wolfgang Neumann, congratulated the teams for their achievements and contribution towards the environment and safe water. Also present at the award ceremony was Maneka Gandhi, Chairperson of the Energy Globe Jury and Former Indian Minister of the Environment.

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.

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.

Assessments by the World Health Organisation have shown that WASEP’s integrated approach has had a significant impact in reducing diarrheal incidence in project villages. Studies have also shown that WASEP’s focus on community and school based hygiene education has greatly improved practices of water use, sanitation and personal hygiene.

Last year, AKPBS,P received the National Energy Globe Award for its initiatives to improve housing and domestic energy issues in rural settlements of Pakistan. AKPBS,P has also received the Partnership for Clean Indoor Air Global Leadership Award in 2009; the Dubai International Award for Best Practices in 2008; the Alcan Prize for Sustainability in 2005 and the World Habitat Award in 2006.

AKPBS,P, an agency of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), works with hundreds of marginalised communities of the country. From the mountain communities in the North to the coastal settlements in Sindh, AKPBS,P has implemented a number of social and infrastructural development programmes with the help of local village organisations as well as the support of leading aid agencies such as the Global Environment Facility, the Japan Social Development Fund, UNDP and other organisations.