As part of the International Year of Freshwater, the Archbishop’s Overseas Relief and Aid Fund (ORAF) has joined the national ‘Water Matters‘ campaign.

“By contributing to this campaign, we aim to maximise impact and lobby the federal government to devote a larger part of its aid budget to water and sanitation projects,” said ORAF Program Manager Kim Vanden Hengel.

ORAF is funding a unique water project in Uganda, where water availability per capita is at the lowest end of the scale. This project was put forward by Sydney Anglican, Professor Steven Riley from the University of Western Sydney who worships at All Saints West Lindfield. It will involve the upgrading of the sewerage system at the Uganda Christian University, which currently just discharges into the soil of the campus.

The new system will provide a training ground for students in the implementation and maintenance of sewerage technology, a skill in acute shortage in Africa. The wastewater will be pumped and used to irrigate eucalyptus trees, which will be farmed for income. It is hoped that this model will be able to be used elsewhere in Africa.

In 1995 the vice-president of the World Bank, Ismail Serageldin declared that ‘if the wars of this century were fought over oil, the wars of the next century will be fought over water.’

The United Nations have declared 2003 the International Year of Freshwater in an attempt to raise awareness and promote a fairer distribution of this valuable resource. Water is considered one of the biggest barriers to development in third world countries, as freshwater is the basis for good health and food production.
Water like oil, is a limited resource, it can not be made, or replaced with another product, is unevenly distributed and represents real power to those who can control it.