Berlin, 15 August 2007 – Water Integrity Network launches new website to fight corruption in the water sector

The Water Integrity Network, WIN, has just launched its redesigned website. The new and more accessible website can be found at www.waterintegritynetwork.net. The site will promote anti-corruption activities and coalition-building at the local, regional and global levels. The website is designed to further WIN’s central objective of open knowledge-sharing among members and includes anti-corruption news, tools and networking and discussion forums.

WIN recognizes that corruption — defined as the abuse of entrusted power for private gain —has to be tackled through a wide range of coordinated anti-corruption activities at the local, national and global levels. WIN a coalition with 170 members in 53 countries, promotes advocacy and awareness, capacity building, implementation of anti-corruption tools, research, management of information, and supports ground level startup activities.

Globally, the water sector is riddled with corruption that often negates the impact of development and hits the poor most severely. Corruption reduces water supply, quantitatively and qualitatively, and increases scarcity and pollution. It distorts decision-making for new projects and misallocation of existing schemes. Corruption also skews democratic principles, reduces the domain of public action and ultimately undermines the rule of civil society. Corruption stunts water development and makes it harder and costlier to reach the Millennium Development Goals on poverty, water supply and sanitation services and environmental sustainability.

WIN has members working in all areas of the water sector. They range from activists to researchers, engineers to scientists. The Network was founded by the International Water and Sanitation Centre (IRC), Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), Swedish Water House (SWH), Transparency International (TI) and Water and Sanitation Programme (WSP).