Dr Uschi Eid
The IAH Distinguished Associate Award is presented annually to a person who is not a groundwater professional but has made an outstanding contribution to the understanding, development, management and protection of groundwater resources internationally.
Dr Eid is a socio-economist by training and a long standing member of the Green Party in Germany who served for 20 years in the German Bundestag. She was appointed Parliamentary Secretary of State in the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development in 1998 and was the personal G8 Africa Representative of the German Federal Chancellor from 2001 to 2005. During this period she developed a focus on the water supply and sanitation sectors.
In 2004 the UN Secretary General appointed Dr Eid as a member of UNSGAB, which provides advisory services to the UN system in the water and sanitation sector. As Vice-Chair of UNSGAB, she plays an active role in promoting water supply and sanitation issues on the political development agenda. She fought at a high level for the water and sanitation related Millennium Development Goals and for the International Year of Sanitation. She strongly supported the IAH-sponsored symposium “Coupling Sustainable Sanitation and Groundwater Protection” in Hannover in 2008 where the relationship between wastewater treatment and management and groundwater resource protection was addressed. Uschi Eid has also been active in lobbying for a new Sustainable Development Goal on Sanitation and Wastewater Management at the recent Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development.
IAH is pleased to acknowledge Uschi’s personal contribution to the enhancement of wastewater management and groundwater protection worldwide with this award. She was not able to come to Niagara Falls, but the award was presented to Uschi in October at a meeting in Osnabrück in the presence of the Prince of Orange and a distinguished audience including around 70 people from the University, the Mayor, the Dutch delegation and many others. In her response, Uschi said she would convey thanks to UNSGAB.
