Correspondence with Government Officials

Dear {Title. Name. Honorific},

We need your help to achieve United Nations Sustainable Development Goal, Target 6.1, which is to achieve universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for every community.

About us

EssentialNeed.org is a non-profit organization and registered charity as approved by the Australian government, working to help achieve Target 6.1. We are made up of 31657 voices from 151 countries and growing daily.

Our corporate supporters so far include the likes of Google, Microsoft, and more than 2,000 businesses have joined us, with support continuing to grow.

Schools and universities are assisting us in educating our youth and young adults in achieving a solution to one of the greatest threats to the world’s humanity.

We are all united by wanting Target 6.1 be achieved.

The problem we are looking to solve

It is everyone’s responsibility to prevent avoidable deaths and achieve a more sustainable world. Here are some facts about extreme water poverty. 

• 663 million people worldwide live without access to clean water (UNICEF/WHO)
• Millions of people including children die every year (UN)
• More info

Through a united voice, we aim to get the elected officials of developed countries, such as yourself, to agree with a funding commitment towards Target 6.1.

Most people think that ending extreme poverty will lead to overpopulation. The facts below show that the opposite is true.

Overpopulation

• The longer it takes to end extreme poverty, the faster population will grow
• Research from the UN data shows the solution to overpopulation is saving poor children from avoidable death (UN World Pop.)
• The only way to stop the excessive population growth is to improve child survival to more than 90% (UN/WHO/Gapminder/Prof. Rosling TED talk)
• Global warming, pollution, resource scarcity, increased number of refugees and other population-related issues will continue to grow. More info
• Extreme water poverty is happening outside of your country, but it is directly impacting you, your citizens, and your future generations
• Our species is at risk. More info

The solution

A commitment from every developed country

With a united voice, we are asking every developed country to match its funding to provide access to clean water for UN's reported impacted people which is 663 million people. Annexure A provides the commitment targets for each country based on its population. 

We ask that the funding is provided to accredited NGOs with a demonstrated history of delivering clean water projects as per Annexure B.

Our aim is to get the funding commitment from your government as per Annexure A.

What we need from you

Please email us a publication within 28 days upon receipt of this letter showing your support for this funding request with any extra information that you would like us to publish. Your publication will be posted under Government Official Publications for public information and for presentation to your Minister of Foreign Affairs and Human Rights which can approve the bill. Kindly email your publication to publications@essentialneed.org. 

In the case that you are not able to respond within that time frame, please let us know when to expect your publication.

For inquiries, please contact our Government Relations team at government.relations@essentialneed.org.

It is our responsibility to achieve a more sustainable world and prevent avoidable deaths.

Your Voice can change everything.

EssentialNeed.org team and members

Annexure A - Commitment from developed countries

Countries indexed for having ‘very high human development’ are considered to be the developed countries that we are asking commitment from. The cost per victim is estimated at $50 AUD and recommended solution providers are listed under Annexure B. The formula used to calculate Commitment per developed country to meet this challenge globally is (Population / 2) x $50 AUD. Please note, $50 AUD is an indicative rate and can be different for each NGO depending on the location of the project. We ask that funds be paid to your chosen NGOs through EssentialNeed.org for centralised reporting purposes. The NGOs are listed in Annexure B.

Annexure B - Undertaking Projects

Your government is recommended to choose from the below list of International NGOs which may have a local office in your country to undertake your funded projects. 

• FairAction (currently rated number 1 for reporting, click to see why) 
• Care
• Charity: water 
• Oxfam
• Red Cross
• Save The Children
• UNICEF
• Water.org
• WaterAid
• WorldVision
• More NGOs will be added over time

Alternatively, your government can choose other preferred NGOs considering their admin costs vs their impact per dollar and we can add them to the above list.

We ask your government to make it mandatory for the participating NGOs to add the below details marked with * for every project on EssentialNeed.org for public information in the light of centralized reporting, transparency, accountability, and cost comparison for better decision making. 

1. Project location*
2. Solution type*
3. Life of solution*
4. Number of beneficiaries*
5. Project cost*
6. Estimated total litres of water made available from the life of solution
7. Project start, finish time
8. Update on level of project funding (is the project already funded and/or requires more funding)
9. Are there other project sponsors
10. Project Manager contact details
11. Implementing partner
12. Is this project classified as an Urgent Project (Urgent Projects ensure the right direction to end water poverty)
13. Are there local government involvements
14. Other relevant/important information on nature of project – e.g. maintenance, employees, etc
15. Contact detail of someone in the community (may be used for tourism purposes to boost local economy)

We use the information in (3), (4) and (5), to estimate the cost of clean water per beneficiary per day. For example, for a project that has the following attributes:

• Number of beneficiaries: 500
• Estimated life of solution: 20 years (20 x 365 = 7,300 days)
• Project cost: $25,000

The cost of clean water for one day per beneficiary is:

Cost per day for all beneficiaries: $25,000 / 7,300 = $3.43

Cost per beneficiary per day: $3.43 / 500 = $0.007

With this unit of measurement better decisions can be made, accountability can increase, transparency will shine, public’s trust will be strengthened. 

Annexure C - The Impact

By ensuring your country takes up its important role – benefits will include;

• Communities will become more self-sustainable
• Children will have the opportunity to take on education
• Women can start a trade
• There will be less number of refugees
• Less civil wars
• Less global warming
• Less stress on resource scarcity
• More stabilized population -- we can stop at nine billion instead of eleven (Prof. Rosling TED talk).