Inclusive business means water, sanitation and hygiene for all
John O'Keeffee, President of Diageo Africa
| WaterAid
Marking Word Water Day, President of Diageo Africa, John O'Keeffe, says ensuring access to water, sanitation and hygiene is the key to economic progress and development.
It may seem unorthodox for the president of a beverage alcohol company to call on people to raise a glass of water – but it is World Water Day, a moment to consider the preciousness of this resource.
As a global leader in beverage alcohol, water security is essential to our business, and one of which we are very mindful as more than one-third of our production in Africa is located in water-stressed areas.
Our challenge is to do business in this fast-growing and exciting market, while contributing on a deeper level to the private sector development can and should be an engine of sustainable, inclusive economic growth.
As a global business, we generate over 10% of our sales in Africa; we’re listed locally in Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana, so we are deeply invested in seeing these markets grow and thrive.
And we know that enhancing the economic prospects of communities where we are based depends upon our operations, our employees, our communities and our potential consumers in these markets having access to the most basic of life’s essentials: water, sanitation and hygiene, known collectively in the sector as WASH.
This isn’t just about Diageo’s supply chain. Some 319 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa are without access to clean water, and almost 700 million are without access to decent, private toilets, with devastating impacts on health, communities and livelihoods.
Ensuring access to water, sanitation and hygiene – whether it’s for a small farmer growing sorghum, for his community, or in the factories producing our products – is a critical part of our business plan.
Our integrated water strategy, the Water Blueprint, launched in 2014, aims to tackle the challenges of water access in a holistic way -- in production, acquisition of raw materials, through advocacy and in communities.
Among our targets are a 50% improvement in efficiency of water use in our operations, and delivering Water of Life projects in the water-stressed watersheds in which we work.
Diageo has supported WaterAid for over 15 years through the flagship community Water of Life programme in Africa, and in the last five years alone we have raised over £1m to invest in WaterAid projects, transforming the lives of over 140,000 people with access to safe water and over 150,000 people with access to a toilet. In Bauchi State, Nigeria alone our support will provide access to safe water, improved sanitation and hygiene for over 10,000 people.
Not only does improving access to water, sanitation and hygiene improve the health and wellbeing of a region but studies show that investment in these services pay huge dividends in terms of economic development, with the World Bank estimating that every $1 invested in water and sanitation results in an average of $4 returned in increased productivity.
Our new five-year partnership agreement with WaterAid will not only continue to work at community level but will also support high-level advocacy, crucial to ensuring that governments and other multinational corporations understand the critical importance of supporting water, sanitation and hygiene for all.
This will enhance our commitment to the World Business Council on Sustainable Development’s ‘WASH in the Workplace Pledge’, and to the UN Global Compact’s CEO Water Mandate, which encourages business leaders to help advance water stewardship, sanitation and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
As we grow and expand, Diageo is pursuing an ‘inclusive’ business approach in our African operations. When we help local farmers in our supply chain improve their operations and yields, their livelihoods improve, and we develop a local source of high-quality raw materials. It’s a win-win situation. And it is one that depends upon secure, reliable access to water, sanitation and hygiene to succeed. Without these basics, no community can thrive.
Production increases when farmers and their families are healthy and well; so does a community’s prosperity and its market participation. It is often said that water is life. It is also key to economic progress and development.
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