African Sanitation Activist Honored With OU International Water Prize

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NORMAN, Okla. – The University of Oklahoma Water Technologies for Emerging Regions (WaTER) Center has named development activist Ada Oko-Williams as the recipient of the 2013 University of Oklahoma International Water Prize. Oko-Williams, associate director at Water and Sanitation for Africa. was nominated and selected for her advocacy and collaborative community approach for clean water, sanitation and hygiene in Africa.

From poor, rural, disease-stricken communities in Nigeria to communities of the deep forests of war-torn Sierra Leone and Liberia to desert communities in Niger Republic, Oko-Williams is engaged with issues affecting access to water and sanitation.

Born and raised in Nigeria, Oko-Williams understands firsthand the problems a lack of access to water and sanitation can mean to a country’s development. She believes Africa’s development problems can be solved with the support and collaboration of the developed world and achieved with African citizens in the driver’s seat.  

Water expert Idrissa Doucouré, CEO  of Water and Sanitation for Africa , a Panafrican Intergovernental Agency, nominated Oko-Williams at the OU WaTER Symposium in September.

“Ada Oko-Williams rebuilds lives as well as infrastructure,” Doucouré said. “She inspires communities to take action toward their own development through participatory processes and critical analyses of situations while offering solutions and actions designed to address undesirable situations.”

In the past five years, Oko-Williams has trained more than 350 sanitation practitioners in West Africa. She has directly worked with more than 1,000 communities, indirectly providing  more than  600,000 people access to sanitation and hygiene in communities in West Africa. At the policy level, she has influenced the development of sanitation programs through direct engagements with governments and duty bearers.

Oko-Williams currently is exploring economic and business models in sanitation that better livelihood, support environmental sustainability and spur economic development and growth at micro levels in Africa.

The OU International Water Prize recognizes and honors an individual or group that has made significant contributions in the field of water supply and sanitation, particularly for small villages and communities in rural or remote regions. It is one of the first and largest prizes dedicated to the field of water supply and sanitation in remote areas of emerging regions. Oko-Williams will formally receive the OU International Water Prize and give the plenary lecture at the OU International WaTER Conference, scheduled for Sept. 23 through 25, 2013. For more information about Oko-Williams and the conference, visit www.coe.ou.edu/water.

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About the University of Oklahoma WaTER Center

The WaTER Center is part of the OU College of Engineering. The center started in 2006 as an organization focused on bringing water and sanitation to remote villages. The vision of the WaTER Center is a world in which all humankind has safe, reliable drinking water. The center’s mission is to help solve drinking water challenges for impoverished regions, both internationally and locally, through innovative teaching and research initiatives.

For more information on the WaTER Center, visit http://WaTER.ou.edu.

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