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INSIDE AFRICA
Marking World Water Day; Interview with Lucy Liu
Aired March 22, 2008 - 12:30:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ISHA SESAY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, I'm Isha Sesay. Welcome to INSIDE AFRICA, your weekly window to the Continent.
Water is one of the most essential elements on Earth. Without it, human life simply cannot exist. And yet about one in six people who has a hard time getting access to clean water. In this week's show we'll mark the UN's 15th annual World Water Day with a look at the impact of the problem and what's being done about it.
And actress Lucy Liu of "Charlie's Angels" fame explains what she is doing to help and how others can chip in.
Women and children in developing countries spend 200 million hours a day walking to get water. Yes, 200 million hours a day. That figure comes from Water Partners International, a U.S. based non-profit group. Often the water brought back to the homes is contaminated.
Poor access to clean water takes an enormous toll, not only on people's health but on economies.
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SESAY: It is fundamental to human life and taken for granted by millions. But clean water is a scarce resource in many parts of the world. According to UNICEF, more than 1 billion people around the globe lack access to safe water. At least 300 million of those individuals live in sub-Saharan Africa. It's a cruel irony that a continent that appears blessed with abundant rivers and lakes is the second driest in the world after Australia.
UNICEF's water, environment and sanitation chief says Africa is lagging behind the rest of the world when it comes to drinkable water coverage.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Whereas globally we might be looking at coverage rates of above 80 percent for water supply. In Africa we're looking at coverage rates of less than 50 percent.
SESAY: The situation is taking a heavy toll on the Continent's people. Women and children suffer disproportionately when clean water is hard to find.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When water points are distant it is women who suffer because we see overwhelmingly from the evidence that it is women who carry water. Women who go to fetch water and bring it back to the house, often spending hours a day doing that and it's back breaking work.
SESAY: The lack of clean water is costing lives. Diarrhea related diseases are among the biggest killers of children under five. It's estimated 1.5 million youngsters die of these illnesses every year and a significant number of those cases are in Africa. I'll the while, Africa's water problem is exacting a high economic price, one that is undermining the Continent's collective efforts for sustainable development.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We know that the - that Africa would find it very difficult to reach its full economic potential unless water and sanitation facilities are available and unless coverage increases.
SESAY: Some experts believe that water scarcity will ultimately lead to food shortages which will, in turn, lay the groundwork for further conflict on the continent.
However, UNICEF's Clara Tabroggle (ph) points out that some African companies have made some enormous progress in the last few years. She says Burkina Faso went from 38 percent water coverage in 1990 to 61 percent in 2004 and Malawi went from 40 percent to 73 percent. In terms of sanitation, Madagascar went from 14 percent coverage in 1990 to 61 percent in 2004. UNICEF says it is working with governments in more than 90 countries on low cost water and sewer options that empower local communities.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We work with very simple technologies, hand pumps, gravity flow water systems, simple pit latrines. Things that we know people can afford and people can sustain. We're looking to get the maximum impact for the money that we have available to invest.
SESAY: One of the UN Millennium Development goals is to reduce by half the number of people without access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015 but experts say Africa is not on track to meet its targets because of conflict, political instability, limited investment and political will.
Ultimately, African leaders and their investment partners must overcome those challenges to make the Continent's water woes a thing of the past.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SESAY: Actress Lucy Liu has made it her mission to raise awareness about Africa's water needs. We'll hear from her about her work with UNICEF when INSIDE AFRICA returns.
And if you've ever played host to guinea worm, you never want to go through that painful ordeal again. We'll look at efforts to eradicate this debilitating parasite.
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SESAY: Welcome back to INSIDE AFRICA. Organizations like UNICEF set up projects to bring clean water to communities in developing countries. And ordinary people in developed countries have been able to help by taking part in UNICEF's Tap Project.
All week long participating restaurants around the United States asked their patrons to pay at least a dollar for a glass of water which normally would have been free. UNICEF says each dollar raised will supply a child with clean water for 40 days.
Actress Lucy Liu is a UNICEF ambassador and she is trying to raise awareness about the issue. She recently visited UNICEF water programs in West Africa and spoke to Rosemary Church shortly after her trip.
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LUCY LIU, ACTRESS: I think one of the most important things that I learned there was that water was not just something that is about thirst. It is something that affects and impacts the children and the people there. With education, with protection and security, with their livelihood. It affects if they want to have a garden or if they want to feed their animals. It's pretty much the center of life.
ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So what do you think this Tap Project is capable of achieving? Do we set the bar high here?
LIU: The Tap Project is going to change their lives in such a dramatic and incredible way that is - it's hard to believe how much we take that for granted and having tap water and having the accessibility of having water and to know that and to understand that we can make a difference and make that change is really - it's an exceptional thing because normally when you go into a project, you think, how am I going to get in there, and how am I - it's so political, it's so much red tape. But with this all you have to do is go to a participating restaurant and enjoy a meal and pay a dollar or more if you want and they'll donate the money to the UNICEF water program that will help facilitate and bring water and be able to buy and install hand pumps for these villages of 5,000, 7,000 people.
CHURCH: That's great.
Now, of course, we deal with a lot of figures with these sorts of issues. But if you boil it down, probably the easiest way to explain this to everyone is 5,000 children, more than 5,000 children are dying every day as a result of waterborne diseases. So do you think really, what sort of timeframe are we looking at getting that unacceptably high figure down?
LIU: This is a great question and it's something that can be changed today at this very minute. The amazing thing is if we are able to supply UNICEF with enough money, they can continue their programming. When I was in Cote d'Ivoire, I was in the northern part of the country in Cuahogo (ph) and unfortunately I was in an area where they could not afford to continue the program so therefore the children had to go to remote areas and as well (ph) and in the rivers and try to find water that is contaminated and when they bring that water back, they drink that water and they get sick and they die and the families around them, too.
So it's not just - it's not a unique problem to Cote d'Ivoire. It's all over the world.
CHURCH: Lucy, how annoyed do you get when you come back from West Africa, for instance, and you see the abundance of water and the fact that Americans do take this for granted. Do you ever try to pressure your producers or scriptwriters to try to include those sorts of issue in your shows, to get it out to the mainstream?
LIU: I think that for me I'm learned about the process myself so I can never really get annoyed at anyone because it's something that we don't know about and I think the most important thing is to raise awareness and once you educate yourself you can help other people understand what needs to be done because people naturally want to help, they want to give.
And this is such a great way to give through the Tap Project and so I think the way that you live your life and the way that you incorporate ideas and thoughts into your life as things change and as you learn things, other people will take note of that and hopefully they'll follow along with that and they'll investigate on their own as well.
CHURCH: What do you want people to do who want to do something?
LIU: I would love for them to go out to a restaurant that is participating in this Tap Project or they can go on tapproject.org and they can donate money and all they have to do is enjoy a meal with their friends and their family to give back and just to find out more if they can and also just be aware that you can make a difference. You can give back with so little. It's very simple and it's such an important thing.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SESAY: UNICEF is working toward the Millennium Development goal of reducing the amount of people without safe water by 50 percent by 2015. Imagine having a meter-long worm incubating inside your body for a year then having it slowly work its way out through an excruciating blister. That's what the guinea worm does and it thrives in unclean water.
After the break we'll look at the effort to wipe it off the face of the Earth.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Making business news in Africa this week.
South Africa's government says it supports a proposal by its state-owned energy company to raise tariffs by more than 50 percent. Eskom says it needs the increase to cover higher fuel costs and pay for programs to curb electricity consumption. Company officials say the prices of coal and diesel fuel are running at least 25 percent higher than expect. The country has also been coping with rolling blackouts due to a severe power shortage. If the proposed tariff hike is approved, it is expected to raise the countries annual inflation rate by more than two percent and could force the central bank to raise interest rates.
And South Africa and Indonesia have signed a joint partnership declaration to improve trade relations between the two countries. South African president Thabo Mbeki hosted Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in Pretoria. Mbeki says the South Africa-Indonesia Joint Trade Commission needs to become more active. The two countries say they'll soon take steps to reach a deal on air links. South Africa's main imports from Indonesia include machinery, plastic products, palm oil, textiles and chemicals.
SESAY: Welcome back. You're watching INSIDE AFRICA. Water related diseases are a leading cause of illness and death in the world.
UNICEF says poor access to clean water and sanitation contributes to about 88 percent of all deaths related to diarrhea in children under the age of five. To give you some perspective, more than 4,000 children die from diarrheal diseases every day. UNICEF says almost a third of all people in sub-Saharan African live without access to safe drinking water.
Common water-related diseases include cholera, typhoid, malaria and the guinea worm. Guinea worm disease itself is not fatal but it is extremely painful and can disable its victims for several weeks. About 96 percent of the world's cases can be found in Ghana and Sudan. A person becomes infected with guinea worm disease by drinking unsafe water. The worm, which can grow to nearly a meter in length incubates inside the body for about a year before slowly emerging through a nasty, burning blister.
The Carter Center here in Atlanta is at the forefront of an international effort to eradicate the guinea worm. The program's director, Dr. Ernesto Ruiz-Tiben explained why he is determined to rid the world of this particular parasite.
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DR. ERNESTO RUIZ-TIBEN, CARTER CENTER: When the campaign began in 1986, there were about 3.5 million cases of the disease occurring in 20 countries. Most of them in Africa, but also India, Pakistan and later, Yemen. As of the end of 2007, there were only 9,886 cases of the disease recorded in the world.
The - 15 of the 20 countries that were originally endemic have eradicated the disease already. Only five remain.
Guinea worm disease is called a forgotten disease or forgotten people for good reason. And wherever it occurs it causes havoc among people who depend on their ability to do agriculture to subsist from one year to another.
But it also affects school attendance and affects women in particular and it affects children and the care of the children by their mothers when they're ill with guinea worm for, example.
SESAY: A number of deadlines have been set for actual eradication and they've been passed by. Why has it been so difficult to actually eradicate this disease completely?
RUIZ-TIBEN: Unlike other disease eradication or control programs, we - this program does not have a vaccine to use or a medication to use to cure the infection. This is done one patient at a time, one village at a time in one remote place at a time by educating people about where the disease comes from and how they can prevent it from happening.
It's like, if I ask, have you ever had a toothache, your answer would be?
SESAY: Oh, yes.
RUIZ-TIBEN: Well, do you want to have it again? And what would your answer be?
SESAY: No.
RUIZ-TIBEN: Well, that same understanding, it's accessed across the board, every place and it's the fundamental reason why we believe that through this educational approach we can teach people not only about the disease but what they can do to prevent it and then empower them by giving them donated filters to take action.
Guinea worm will be eradicated. The when depends on how stable these areas remain and to allow the programs to execute what they need to execute to stop transmission of the disease.
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SESAY: The African Development Bank and the African Ministers' Council on Water will host the first African Water Week in Tunisia next week. Their goal is to speed up the spread of clean water resources around the continent.
Changing gears now, China is backing a number of large infrastructure projects around Africa. And that's bringing large numbers of Chinese workers to the continent. Up next, we'll look at how everyone is getting along on a big dam project in Ghana.
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SESAY: You're watching INSIDE AFRICA. Welcome back.
Let's take a look at some headlines from the Continent this week.
Kenya's parliament has unanimously approved the first of two key constitutional amendments. They are needed to enact the recent power- sharing deal between President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga. The deal creates a position of prime minister and two deputy posts.
Uganda's minister of state says rebel leader Joseph Kony may have violated a fragile ceasefire agreement. Kony, who heads the Lord's Resistance Army, reportedly has moved his forces to the Central African Republic. The Ugandan government is concerned he may not show up to sign a permanent peace deal next week as scheduled. The agreement would officially end a vicious two decade rebellion in Northern Uganda. Kony and two deputies face several international arrest warrants but Kampala says that they asked that they will be dropped if he signs the deal.
And the singer known as Mama Africa is showing her support for HIV positive mothers, orphans and victims of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Miriam Makeba spent four days there as a goodwill ambassador for the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization. The South African singer's work mainly focuses on fighting malnutrition and hunger.
Chinese investment in African infrastructure is having a noticeable impact on the landscape. China is backing at least nine dam projects on the Continent, most of which are at least partially financed by the China Export-Import Bank. One of those dams is under construction in Ghana on the Black Volta River.
Ghana hopes the project will help end chronic energy shortages. As Christian Purefoy reports, projects like this one combining cultures that have rarely ever mixed before.
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CHRISTIAN PUREFOY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: In a Ghanaian construction tunnel, an unexpected face. The Chinese have come to help Ghana build the 400 megawatt Bui Dam.
It's a dangerous job. Where these two strangers must trust each other with their lives.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (inaudible)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (inaudible)
PUREFOY: Africa has seen its fair share of visitors from foreign lands. European colonizers, Indian traders, American evangelists. And now, Chinese construction. But how do they feel about each other?
Engineer Yun Fan (ph) tells us how he misses home but also how he is enjoying the new experiences.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, Ghana is a very beautiful place. The sunshine, the weather, the people and the children. I like everything (ph) Ghana, especially the football.
PUREFOY: Perhaps the biggest challenge is language. With very few of the Chinese workers speaking English, in many ways, this is a $600 million project built with sign language. But it's something the Ghanaians are approaching with humor.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, we lose some of the middle (ph) of the canyons (ph) like the (inaudible), the consortium (ph) will be and that means (inaudible).
PUREFOY: With an estimated 500 Chinese workers and 3,000 Ghanaians expected to be working together here for the next five years, Chinese may become their second language. Christian Purefoy, CNN, Bui Dam, Ghana.
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SESAY: Before we go, this sad note. The Oscar-winning film director who brought Hollywood to Botswana last year has died. Anthony Minghella apparently suffered a hemorrhage following neck surgery at a London hospital. He was perhaps best known for directing the 1996 film "The English Patient" which won nine Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director.
Minghella had recently completed a television adaptation of the popular novel, "The Number One Ladies' Detective Agency." He shot the film in Botswana where the story is set. Jill Scott, who played the lead character, Precious Ramotswe said, in her words, "My heart aches with grief."
Anthony Minghella was 54.
And though we must leave this week's show, I'll see you back here next week for a special live edition of INSIDE AFRICA on Zimbabwe's Election Day. Until then, take care.
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