World Bank’s Briscoe to discuss global water resource management
| April 09, 2007 | |
Photograph of John Briscoe, PhD
John Briscoe, Ph.D., country director for Brazil for the World Bank, will discuss water and its impact on human well-being at an April 20 lecture sponsored by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Public Health. Water management is one of the great challenges facing developing countries. Growing economies need more water services — hydropower, irrigation and water for industry and people. However, surface and groundwater systems are already under stress and research has shown that the environmental quality of water is deteriorating. Climate changes make the challenge of water management more daunting. Briscoe will address these challenges and describe the progress made to date. Briscoe is the keynote speaker for the School of Public Health’s annual Fred T. Foard Jr. Memorial Lecture. The Fred T. Foard Jr. Memorial Lecture was established in 1969 by Foard’s widow, Elsie Foard, to honor him as a public health practitioner whose career spanned more than a half-century, much of it with the U.S. Public Health Service. The Foard event, which takes place in Loudermilk Hall at the Rizzo Conference Center at Meadowmont in Chapel Hill, begins with a 5:30 p.m. reception, followed by Briscoe’s lecture at 6:30 p.m. The event is free to the public, but registration is requested by April 13 and can be completed at: www.sph.unc.edu/alumni. A former professor of water resources at the School of Public Health, Briscoe now oversees the World Bank’s projects in Brazil. He has also served as the senior water adviser for the World Bank, a position with oversight responsibility for the Bank’s $40 billion portfolio of programs in water resources, irrigation, hydropower and water sanitation. Briscoe was the principal author of the Bank’s 2003 water strategy and recently published a book through Oxford University Press titled “India’s Water Economy: Bracing for a Turbulent Future.” Prior to working at the World Bank, Briscoe served in the water ministries for the governments of South Africa and Mozambique and for the International Center for Diarrheal Diseases Research in Bangladesh. In addition to the United States, Briscoe has lived in Bangladesh, Mozambique, India, Brazil and in his native South Africa. He speaks English, Afrikaans, Bengali, Portuguese and Spanish. Briscoe received a Bachelor of Science degree in civil engineering from the University of Cape Town, and his doctorate in environmental engineering from Harvard University. # # # Note: Directions to the Rizzo Center can be found at: http://www.kenan-flagler.unc.edu/About/Maps/rizzo.cfm. School of Public Health contact: Ramona DuBose, (919) 966-7467 or ramona_dubose@unc.edu. |
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