Remote Sultan Kudarat village is first Asian beneficiary of US-Japan clean water initiative

Through the efforts of the Alliance for Mindanao Off-grid Renewable Energy (AMORE) Program of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and Winrock International, 100 households in six water-scarce sitios in remote Barangay Chua in Bagumbayan, Sultan Kudarat will be the first in Asia to enjoy safe drinking water under the Clean Water for People Initiative of the United States and Japan.
Japanese Ambassador Kojiro Takano and AMORE Chief of Party Rodrigo Cabrera signed yesterday in the presence of USAID/Philippines Mission Director Dr. Michael Yates a PhP1.14M grant by the Embassy of Japan, through the Grant Assistance for Grassroots Human Security Projects (GGP) under Japan's Official Development Assistance (ODA), for the installation of a spring-fed, gravity-type potable water system in Barangay Chua under the AMORE program.

Barangay Chua is an upland community of former Moro National Liberation Front combatants that AMORE, with USAID funding, is energizing with an 8-kW microhydro power (MHP) system for household and communal lighting as well as for productive livelihood and social services applications.
Waterborne diseases being among the leading causes of child mortality in the community, the residents have identified potable water, side by side with electricity, as its most critical needs. It was chosen to receive the grant largely on account of its thriving community-based organization, the Chua Barangay Renewable Energy and Community Development Association (BRECDA), which AMORE organized and is training to operate, maintain and productively use the MHP system that it is constructing in the village. The Chua BRECDA will also manage the potable water system.

"We are glad to be a channel of blessings other than electricity to remote, conflict-affected and dirt-poor barangays in Mindanao. It is really the people of Chua, however, who have made this happen, because of their determination to rise from the ashes of war and poverty," Mr. Cabrera said.

With this development, AMORE is bringing the country closer to the fulfillment of two of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's 10-point agenda for her new six-year term: electricity and water for every village in the country, and peace in Mindanao.

The Clean Water for People Initiative of the U.S. and Japan, which was launched during the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in September 2002, aims to provide safe water and sanitation to the world's poor. It was created within the context of the Japan-US Partnership for Security and Prosperity that was announced in 2001 by US President George W. Bush and Japan Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.