Last week, a group of 14 students traveled halfway across the world to address global water issues at the the fifth World Water Forum.
Attendance at the event - which took place in Istanbul, Turkey - was required for the students, all taking Earth and Environmental Science professor Stanley Laskowski's course, "Global Water Issues," which specifically centers around the Forum for the semester.
A triennial event held by the World Water Council since 1997, the Forum took place March 16-22 and was attended by professionals from NGOs like the World Wildlife Fund, government representatives, people from companies like Coca-Cola and faculty and students from universities around the world, such as Penn and Johns Hopkins University. The goal was to discuss water issues relating to science, technology, policy and culture.
"Every day, 4,000 children die from a water-related problem," Laskowski wrote in an e-mail, explaining that the Forum is a part of the effort to address this problem.
He added that in the past, Penn students have traveled to a variety of developing countries to study these issues.
The Forum focused on six different themes: governance, finance, education, the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals, global climate change and balancing human consumption needs with the environment.
Aside from attending a variety of panels and events, the 14 students from Penn hosted a two-hour event focusing on youth and women-related water issues.
They created a game show and performed a dramatic skit called "Beyond Water" for the audience. The skit depicted how some people collect water and the issues associated with water and sanitation, explained Law School student Wei Huang, who went on the trip.
"We wanted to send the message that in some parts of the world, the simple act of getting water to drink or going to a bathroom can be very difficult and unsafe," Liberal and Professional Studies student Nalat Phanit wrote in an e-mail.
In other discussions at the Forum, the UN wanted to declare water as a human right and include it in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but the U.S. delegation - which consisted of any attendees from the United States - was focused mainly on the idea that water is a human need but not a right, explained Christiaan Morssink, a Penn Public Health professor who went with the group.
Also among the topics discussed was the problem of how to finance the development of water supply and infrastructure in developing countries, Morssink said. He explained that because of current economic hardships, funding such development is especially difficult.
However, Penn students said certain topics could have been more heavily examined at the Forum. They expressed dissatisfaction with the minimal discussion on science and technology and said problems pertaining to water supply in agriculture were highly emphasized while hardly anyone talked about problems in water supply in an urban setting.
"The convention outlined various problems regarding water issues, but did not focus on the solutions and scientific advancements," said LPS student Asako Kondo, who is studying environmental policy.
