A Wikipedia-like open source website has been developed for this purpose. The site -
www.akvo.org - was launched last week at the World Water Week in Stockholm.
Director Jeroen van der Sommen of the umbrella organisation Netherlands Water Partnership (NWP) says the English-language site Akvopedia - 'akvo' means water in Esperanto - will become a centre of knowledge for financing and communication. He says:
"The water sector has a short hydrological memory. Knowledge which I acquired in Africa has long since sunk without trace. We need to change that."
At Akvopedia, scientists, development organisations and private individuals can exchange information. The site will also be a virtual meeting place for donors and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Mr Van der Sommen says,
"You can compare it to a community on the web.
As a donor, you can say something about yourself, put up your picture and make contact with people supporting the same project. For example, after visiting the project, you could put up a photograph of the visit via the NGO responsible for the project's implementation".
Making ceramic filters in Cameroon (Akvo photo)
Community
In the same internet community, development organisations will use videos or text messages to show how a project is progressing. Projects will be graded upon completion, and it will also be possible to see when they fail.
The NWP director says
"This will make a donation very personal. People will be able to see immediately how their money is spent".
In the future, Akvopedia will assist in the micro-financing of specific facilities in developing countries. Mr Van der Sommen believes Akvopedia has enormous potential.
"The website already has some influence, but at some point the projects may number in the hundreds of thousands. Then you can really achieve something".
Development organisations also have need of the website, not just to gather support for their projects, but also for their own use. Dutch NGO Simavi wants, for example, to use Akvopedia to monitor projects it supports.
Clean Water
At the World Water Week in Stockholm, several thousand scientists and politicians talked about clean water and safe sanitary facilities. Worldwide, more than one billion people do not have access to drinking water and more than two billion have no proper toilets and washing facilities.
The World Health Organisation and UNICEF acknowledge that it would be complicated and expensive to install water pipes in remote and often sparsely populated areas. The answer lies in small-scale projects. Dutch water experts have gained extensive experience in this type of project and would like to share their knowledge.
Self-supporting
The initial phase of the Dutch internet initiative will cost around two million euros, most of which will go toward developing and building the site. Mr Van der Sommen says the web designers who earlier built the Pay Pal and E-bay sites offered their services free of charge.
The further expansion of the site will be paid for by its users. NGOs will pay a small sum to put their proposals on the site, bigger organisations like Simavi will pay a little more.
Mr Van der Sommen hopes that Akvopedia will be completely self-supporting when the World Water Forum is held in Istanbul in March 2009. And there is also room for expansion. A French aid organisation, for example, has already offered to develop a French-language version of the site.
By Willemien Groot*
*RNW translation
26 August 2008
Radio Netherlands
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The Netherlands wants to make all knowledge related to water technology more accessible to all users.
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