The WASH Working Group of the GTFCC meet on February 28 in Senegal

Participating from the Veolia Foundation were Thierry Vandevelde, CEO of the Foundation and consultant, Sy Rotter.  Among the action items was the appointment of Tim Grieve, Senior Advisor in the WASH Program Division of UNICEF to replace Thierry Vandevelde as Chair of the Working Group. Thierry will remain as principal advisor to Tim with his full commitment to continue to lobby the GTFCC Secretariat to fund the pending 20 priority activities focused on ending cholera and other waterborne diseases. While comments from the Secretariat endorsed in principle the importance of these recommended activities there was little if any agreement on how or if this would occur.
 
A second action item was the Secretariat's proposal to establish a "high level" organizational and corporate advocacy and fundraising activity to culminate in a public event in September 2017. Absent however from the discussion was any clear indication of the amount of funding to be sought, or for what specific purpose. Question was raised regarding how this activity would be coordinated with the current fundraising and advocacy efforts of the Pan-American Health Organization which are focused on eliminating cholera from Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Also mentioned was the reality that both efforts will be competing for funding and recognition by the UN in its current $400 million drive to accelerate cholera prevention and eradication efforts in Hispaniola.

Other participants in this meeting included WASH experts from UNICEF, WHO, other U.N. agencies, the World Bank, Universities, NGOs and Foundations.