Everything Starts With Water

Welcome to Intelligence Squared, where great minds meet. I'm Coco Khan, journalist, author and host of PodSave the UK. And on today's episode, in partnership with WaterAid, we're celebrating the world's most vital resource, the starting point for health, education, livelihoods, and the environment. Water aid's mission is based on the fact that clean water is the most powerful way to build a fairer, more sustainable future, and since 1981 they have reached 30 million people, because when water flows, so does opportunity.

In this first episode of a two part series, we're taking a look at ways that change starts with water. It's the foundation of life and every community, economy and ecosystem depends on it. To help us explore this, I'm joined by Amica Godfrey, Water Aid's Executive Director of International Programs. With over 25 years of experience in the wash sector, which is water, sanitation and hygiene, her experience spans policy, research and hands-on programme leadership across more than 10 countries. Amica brings rare insight into how clean water transforms and what it takes to deliver it sustainably.

Welcome, Amica. Thank you. It must be strange having to say out loud, do you know how important water is? Because it's a given, right? It covers more than 70% of the Earth's surface.

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