BACKGROUND AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
In July 2006, the International Development Committee
announced an inquiry to examine how DFID is fulfilling its increasing
commitment to sanitation and water, and to assess multilateral
efforts to secure progress.
Around 50 stakeholders contributed to a substantial
volume of written evidence, representing a wide range of development
actors, including multilateral aid organisations; development
banks; the national and multinational private sector; the research
community; professional bodies; non-governmental organisations
(NGOs); international partnerships; public utilities, and trade
unions. We are grateful to all those who submitted written evidence,
and to those who supplied us with background papers.
We would like to thank the individuals and organisations
who gave oral evidence during five evidence sessions in Parliament
between November 2006 and February 2007, and during one joint
session in November 2006 with the Communities and Local Government
Committee focusing on the World Urban Forum III.
We are particularly grateful to those organisations
and individuals from developing countries, and/or with close links
to developing countries, who took the time to engage with the
inquiry. We greatly value their input and look forward to more
input from developing countries in future inquiries.
We visited Ethiopia in February 2007 to observe the
work being done by the Department for International Development
(DFID) on sanitation and water. We were impressed with the work
we saw and would like to thank the staff of DFID and representatives
from other organisations who made it such a worthwhile and interesting
visit (see Annex 1 for the programme for the visit).
We would like to thank our Specialist Advisers, Belinda
Calaguas, Head of Policy at WaterAid, and Dr Andrew Cotton, Senior
Programme Manager at the Water, Engineering and Development Centre
at Loughborough University, for their assistance throughout this
inquiry.
We would also like to thank those who took part in
informal discussions with the Committee, including Richard Carter,
Professor of International Water Development at Cranfield University,
David Hall, Director of the Public Services International Research
Unit at the University of Greenwich and Valerie Curtis, Director
of the Hygiene Centre at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical
Medicine.
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