Press Release WaSH WG Lions Europe

Press Release WaSH WG Lions Europe

  • August 30, 2021
  • News

At this year’s Europe Forum in Thessaloniki (7-9 October 2021), the WaSH Working Group Lions Europe will conclude its first term of office, present its final report (2018-2021) and start its next term 2021 to 2024.

Our WaSH2021 FOCUS: GROWING A WORLD WONDERSHIP.

Climate change has already started and Africa is suffering the most. Where we are drilling boreholes into the earth now, we will no longer find water in a few years.

As early as 2005, the African Union developed the Great Green Wall project. A belt of vegetation is to extend from the Atlantic to the Pacific through the African countries south of the Sahara and slow down, hopefully even stop, climate change and the spread of the desert in the south. French President Eduard Macron believes in this idea and announced in January this year that he would invest 12 billion euros in this project.

And there are reasons for this optimism. In Burkina Faso, for example, Jacob Sawadogo has ensured that the water table in the area where he is planting has risen by five meters. That is almost a miracle. For this he was awarded the World Lively Award.

However, the Great Green Wall is only successful where it succeeds in getting the local population to cooperate. Overall, it can only be successful if it succeeds in greening really large areas in sub-Saharan Africa – and not deforesting them further. Now partners are needed to communicate these ideas to the population in the regions. This could be – among other NGOs – the African Lions with their European allies.

We are ready and about to support this project sustainably in the coming years.

In addition to the provision of clean drinking water and decent sanitation and hygiene facilities, particular support will be given to capacity building such as water management and the construction and maintenance of WaSH-related facilities.

We are convinced that Lions can make a valuable contribution to this project:

  • With the network of 30,000 African Lions, we can take the idea of greening to large parts of the rural population and build trust.
  • We can help build networks of professionals who develop tailor-made projects in the different regions, always in exchange with the local population, whose knowledge and experience must also be used.
  • We can work with the authorities to create new employment opportunities in sustainable forestry and agriculture for people who have so far earned their living largely through logging and charcoal production. The individual projects must contribute to improving living conditions in the regions.
  • We can win various ecological initiatives to join in.
  • We can also support the process through our own projects.

Speaker: PIP Gudrun Yngvadottir (keynote speaker), PID Elisabeth Haderer (Head of GAT, CA4 Europe), PIP Eberhard J. Wirfs (Honorary Chair WaSH WG); PDG Hermann Heinemann (Chair Euro-Africa Committee); PDG Hans-Ludwig Rau.

Enclosure: View Graph: WaSH – the centerpiece of the UN Sustainable Development Goals

The WaSH WG Lions Europe offer the publication of the content.

Responsible in the sense of the press law

Reinhold Hocke

Chairman WaSH WG Lions Europe

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