Washington, DC | August 7, 2012
WASH NGOs in North America and Europe have elected Thilo Panzerbieter, founder and executive director of the German Toilet Organization, to be the new northern civil society representative to the international steering committee for Sanitation and Water All (SWA), the global network of governments and other organizations committed to expanded WASH access in developing countries.
Three very qualified candidates from the WASH sector were nominated, and in online voting the week of July 15 Panzerbieter was selected as representative and Dennis B. Warner of Catholic Relief Services (US) was selected as alternate. The election process and announcements were made by End Water Poverty, based in London, and MWA, based in Washington.
At the urging of the U.S-based WASH sector, USAID recently announced its formal membership in the partnership on behalf of the US government.
Panzerbieter, a civil engineer who has worked for a range of NGOs in Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe, has also been a steering committee member of End Water Poverty since 2011. He devised and managed the main awareness raising and advocacy campaign of the International Year of Sanitation, in collaboration with UN-Water. Since then, he was one of the key drivers in initiating the “German WASH-Network” and a WASH working-group within VENRO, the umbrella organization of development NGOs in Germany.