Eric Stowe receives 5th Water Prize

The highlight of this year's Conference was the awarding of the 2017 University of Oklahoma International Water Prize to Mr. Eric Stowe of Splash. Eric delivered the banquet plenary address entitled “Urban WASH; Using Schools as the Beachhead to Lasting Change". Splash a nonprofit organization, based in Seattle, that delivers safe water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) programs to more than 400,000 children living in urban poverty across Asia and Africa.

Banquet participants are watching the introductory remarks, Sam Noble Museum of Natural History.

In his address, Eric stressed that he is not an engineer. He is, he said, "the most non-technical person in this room". However, Eric showed great knowledge of both the promise and limits of water treatment technology, as well as a keen sense of what works in developing countries from a business standpoint. The pictures and footage of the many schools and orphanages in which his organization has worked are evidence that Splash has developed a sustainable business model, using locally-owned franchises to manage their water-based solutions.

By 2050, 75 percent of the world’s rural poor will be living in cities, Stowe said. The movement represents a global shift. India alone will have 230 million people in its three largest cities by 2050. “These numbers represent an expansion of the world’s poorest people into her cities,” he said. “We’re bordering on explosion.”

Joseph Harroz, Jr., Dean of the OU College of Law, presents the 2017 International Water Prize to Eric Stowe.

Splash was founded by Eric in 2007 to help bring clean water and sanitation to orphanages in China. They have since worked in eight countries and have partnered with local residents to find long-term solutions to the challenges of urban WaSH (water, sanitation, and health). In his talk, Eric spoke of schools as "beachheads", or the logical starting point in densely-populated urban slums where WaSH interventions can take a stable foothold. Splash currently has projects in Nepal, China, India, Ethiopia, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Eric gives the plenary address at the Water Prize Banquet on the last night of the Conference.

Eric writes that "There is a middle ground. By establishing citywide programs using poor schools as the beachhead for broader community change, we can bypass the bureaucracy and glacial pace of municipal schemes."