Building technology to serve the poor is a major challenge in the world today. Technology’s benefits must be brought to people, whatever their status, wherever they are, and in ways they can own and sustain. This is essential to promoting development, addressing poverty, and empowering communities.

For the past fifteen years, a small non-profit organization in the province of Negros Occidental, the Philippines has been addressing precisely this challenge. The ALTERNATIVE INDIGENOUS DEVELOPMENT FOUNDATION, INC. (AIDFI) is a social enterprise that tackles the problem of rural poverty by designing, fabricating, and promoting environment-friendly technology which is accessible and income augmenting, for the poor.

AIDFI was initially born out of the social turmoil that accompanied the collapse of the sugar industry in Negros during the 1980s. Hundreds of workers and farmers were displaced and the survival of peasant families was severely threatened. In the wake of this crisis, a small group of social activists which included Auke Idzenga, a Dutch marine engineer, decided to form AIDFI to address the basic needs of the affected farmers. Agricultural production and technology development were their initial strategies, but meager funds and the loss of key members forced the organization to close down. When Idzenga returned to Negros in 1997, however, AIDFI was revived, this time with a clearer focus on innovating technology to help poor, rural families.

AIDFI’s first success came when it redesigned an ancient and largely abandoned technology called the ram pump. The ram pump uses the natural kinetic energy of flowing water from rivers or springs, to push water uphill without the use of gas or electricity. As reinvented by AIDFI, the ram pump can lift water to an upland reservoir, with a volume of 1,500 to 72,000 liters of water per day. Partnering with organizations and local governments, AIDFI does not only introduce machinery, but a whole “social package” which includes community consultation, training of village technicians, transfer of ownership of the water system to the community, and the organization of local water associations to manage the water generation and distribution system.

In introducing the ram pump system to upland communities that do not have easy access to water, AIDFI technicians are able to provide clean, cheap water for household use, livestock raising, aquaculture, and small-scale agriculture. Since reinventing the ram pump technology, AIDFI has fabricated, installed, and transferred 227 ram pumps that now benefit 184 upland communities in Negros Occidental and other provinces across the country. AIDFI has also brought the ram pump technology to help waterless upland communities in other countries; it is now carrying out complete ram pump technology transfer in Afghanistan, Colombia, and Nepal.

AIDFI continues to innovate on technology for the poor. To increase rural incomes, AIDFI has designed and fabricated an essential oil distiller that can process lemongrass into organic oil for industrial users. It transfers this technology to the farmers and provides packaging and marketing support, and a distribution network that now reaches other countries. Going even further, AIDFI has established a “technopark” in their office premises to actually showcase and demonstrate AIDFI-designed technologies that range from cooking and agricultural implements to a biogas plant and a windmill which can generate up to 800 watts of electricity.

In promoting grassroots enterprise, AIDFI has placed the premium on small-scale, accessible, low-maintenance technology that is customized for local needs, energy-efficient, environmentally sound, and one owned and managed by the people themselves. Its struggle to exist as a viable organization has been most trying in both institutional and human terms, but AIDFI has pioneered a way that has already transformed the lives of thousands of rural families.

In electing ALTERNATIVE INDIGENOUS DEVELOPMENT FOUNDATION, INC., to receive the 2011 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes their collective vision, technological innovations, and partnership practices to make appropriate technologies improve the lives and livelihoods of the rural poor in upland Philippine communities and elsewhere in Asia.

It’s a great honor for me and the Alternative Indigenous Development Foundation to be here on the stage receiving Asia’s most prestigious award. It’s a crown on the hard work done by mostly silent heroes who come from the grassroots. We are very thankful to the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation for selecting us. This award will help spread our organization’s work faster. May I request all my colleagues to stand up and share the spotlight and then be fully energized.

For AIDFI this means developing the rural communities or, rather, cultivating communities. Young people in the uplands are losing interest in farming because of its low status. But with our essential oil project right in the middle of the mountains, we have proven that with innovative technologies and techniques beneficiaries feel proud and start cooperating again, a value long lost because of the need for economic survival. For these kinds of projects we need decentralized access to water and energy, preferably renewable energy. These require machines, which can be produced locally and lead to industrialization.

The AIDFI ram pump model is our flagship, and the only technology we have successfully elevated out of the pioneering stage. Now we have installation teams all over the country. We are also carrying out technology transfer to other countries: Afghanistan, Colombia and Nepal, with more to come. We have exported some ram pumps to Malaysia and Japan as well.

We believe our success is due to our passion, drive, consistency and hard work. All this despite the absence of government support. All our technologies could spin off into small factories or enterprises that can help provide basic needs and create employment in rural communities.

Development work is not easy at all in the Philippines context. Everything is strangled by politics.

Lately we encountered how a mishandled agrarian reform case of one member of our essential oil project resulted in the complete blockage of the factory, depriving 25 cooperative members of their livelihood for months. In defending this case I have also been called a troublemaker, received a Petition non Grata, even called a terrorist by a regional government official.

We in AIDFI have felt the fresh wind of this new government especially at the top. We have seen the serious concern of the agrarian reform secretary for our case. At the same time the Land Bank and the Department of Agriculture have shown serious interest in adapting our ram pump for irrigation. But we know it is still a long way to get this seriousness down to the lowest levels. National government cannot do this alone; strong cooperation with the academe and NGOs, among others, is vital. Government has the resources and NGOs like AIDFI have the grassroots connections, the passion and drive to work with the poor.

We also should rethink and see the opportunities in the uplands, areas long neglected. Unless we do this, the late Bishop Fortich, himself a Magsaysay awardee, warned, “the social volcano is going to burst.” My fondest hope is that our government will create an environment in which programs like ours can thrive. With the Filipinos’ great ability, the Philippines’ tremendous potentials, and strong cooperation among stakeholders, we can be a great nation.

And don’t worry. Despite the difficulties, AIDFI and I will remain at the service of the poor from the Philippines and elsewhere in Asia.

China boasts of a staggering eighty-five thousand dams throughout the country, or 46 percent of all such structures in the world. Clearly, hydropower is a key requirement for China?s economic development. Yet dams have led as well to the displacement of over fifteen million Chinese and incalculable damage to the natural environment. A leading figure in the debate on dams and their social impact is YU XIAOGANG. 

YU fell in love with nature early on, having been raised in Yunnan, a province of amazing beauty and home to three of the largest rivers in the world: Nu, Yangtze, and Mekong. His interest in the environment was cultivated during a stint in the Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences, and was further deepened when he attended the Asian Institute of Technology, where he earned a master’s degree in watershed management. 

His graduate research on the social impact of China’s Manwan hydroelectric project documented its negative impact on local communities. Dissemination of his findings stirred controversy and led then Premier Zhu Rongji to order the conduct of an investigation; additionally, the Yunnan government was instructed to release funds to mitigate the dam’s adverse effects. 

In 2002, YU established the nonprofit organization Green Watershed, which developed an integrated watershed management program in the Lashi Lake area, in Yunnan. Lashi was seriously affected by a dam project that had diverted 40 percent of the lake’s water, flooded farmlands, and devastated the livelihood of people in the dammed area. Using participatory approaches, Green Watershed helped the affected communities organize a multisectoral Watershed Management Committee, and mobilized village associations for irrigation, fishery, and other purposes. The communities undertook other activities as well, including microcredit and training in watershed forest protection and biodiversity conservation. 

These initiatives proved so successful that new, ecologically-friendly, and profitable enterprises flourished in the area. The first of its kind in China, the Lashi project became a model for participatory watershed management, and was cited by government as one of the top ten cases of sustainable development in the country. The Lashi project became the springboard for YU’s advocacy in other dam sites. Green Watershed conducted research and forums and used mass media to promote the cause of people’s participation in the planning and development of dams. 

When the local government announced plans to build thirteen new dams on the Nu River, plans that threatened to displace fifty thousand people and negatively impact a UNESCO-designated “World Heritage” nature site, Green Watershed and other environmental NGOs mounted a public debate. The controversy occasioned Premier Wen Jiabao’s decision to put the planned dams on hold, requiring a more scientific study. 

Still, it has been an uphill challenge. YU has met with opposition and even harassment in the course of his work, including a ban on travel outside the country. His position, however, is not simply adversarial. In 2008, he initiated Green Banking, a network of eight major environmental NGOs that gives the “Green Banking Innovation Award” to banks and financial institutions that have contributed to environmental protection in their financing and corporate practices. 

YU recognizes that large-scale infrastructure projects like dams will go on. He is not against dams per se; however, he and his fellow environmentalists will persist in showing that local communities and ecosystems need not be sacrificed in the process of development. Thus, he advocates that a true social impact assessment, in which the people themselves are actively involved, should be a precondition in all dam building programs. For YU, their initial successes “are only the first steps in the Long March. To realize true sustainable development and build a harmonious society throughout China, we need the full participation of all Chinese citizens.” 

In electing YU XIAOGANG to receive the 2009 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes his fusing social science knowledge with a deep sense of social justice, in assisting dam-affected communities in China to shape the development projects that impact their natural environment and their lives.

It is a great honor for me to be elected as 2009 Ramon Magsaysay Awardee. I would like to thank the Board of Trustees and the people of the Philippines. 

I come from southwest China, home to Lijiang, a small ancient city which is both a World Cultural Heritage Site and World Natural Heritage Site. Lijiang also has the Internationally Important Wetlands of Lashi Lake and the Naxi minority group who use pictographs to recount the stories of nature and humankind. 

The NGO Green Watershed was originally founded in this region in 2002 to improve local environmental protection. But now half of the organization’s time is spent on community disaster relief programs and disaster prevention education. Why has this change occurred? To explain this refocusing of objectives I will borrow from the Naxi story of nature and humankind. This story was written in religious text and is central to Naxi culture. 

In ancient times humankind and nature were two brothers, and the brothers divided and reigned over different parts of the earth. Big Brother oversaw the forests, lakes, wildlife, and the weather. Little Brother looked over the fields, crops, livestock, and the happiness of humankind. The two brothers established an agreement of mutual non-aggression and they existed harmoniously. Hundreds of years passed, the weather was good for growing crops, people were well fed and well clothed, and humankind prospered. However, over time Little Brother’s human descendants forgot the original agreement and began to attack Big Brother’s natural world, destroying pristine lands, causing immense deforestation, damming once-free rivers, and rapidly killing off wildlife. Big Brother called upon the natural world to bring floods, storms, droughts, swarms of insects, and plagues. Little Brother’s humankind lost their happiness and prosperity under the punishment of Big Brother. In the end, Little Brother realized his errors and overcame the greed and destruction, once again reuniting with Big Brother and existing in harmony. 

This story comes out of an old agricultural society, and may seem rather distant. However, the two brothers are currently in a time of industrialization, and Little Brother’s vision does not consider the forests, lakes, wildlife, or natural ecosystems. Little Brother’s eyes only have visions of resources and methods that he can use to accumulate personal wealth, thus plundering and polluting the environment at an ever growing intensity. Big Brother may react with opposition to this behavior, bringing more serious and intense natural disasters. China has already become the world’s third highest country suffering from natural disasters. 

This confirms Green Watershed’s investment in community-based disaster management. Last year alone, we provided training for over one hundred NGOs and over sixty communities. In the future we will place more resources and efforts to promote community disaster management capacities. 

Naxi culture has given us this inspiration: to respect and love nature, and to exercise restraint over greed and vanity. Otherwise, our pride in our GDP will change into GDD, Gross Domestic Disaster. 

What I am doing is only “a drop in the bigger water.” I believe the effort will someday become as big as the Pacific Ocean. I highly appreciate that the Board of Trustees has given me this honor. I am very glad to accept it and will continue my efforts to contribute to human society. Thank you.

Asia’s urban multitudes are thirsty and ever-growing. Providing them with safe drinking water is a gargantuan task everywhere. But consider Phnom Penh. The Cambodian capital and former French colonial center had only a modest water distribution system to begin with. Bombing, civil war, and social havoc in the early 1970s brought waves of refugees to the city. Then, abruptly in 1975, the triumphant Khmer Rouge banished every person from Phnom Penh and abandoned its already sagging infrastructure to atrophy. When the genocidal regime was driven from power in 1979, the city swelled again, yet little was done to revive its broken-down water system. Then, in 1993, EK SONN CHAN was put in charge. 

As a young engineering graduate, EK SONN CHAN lost his entire family to the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge. He managed to survive as a farmer. In 1979, he found work at the Phnom Penh municipal abattoir and subsequently rose to be the city’s director of commerce. The water system he inherited in 1993 was barely a system at all. Over the years, its ancient French-laid pipes had been augmented haphazardly into an indecipherable maze of connections. No blueprints had survived the Khmer Rouge, nor had the engineers who understood them. The entire labyrinth was riddled with holes and so porous that disease-laden sewage easily seeped in. EK discovered that 70 percent of the city’s water was lost to leaks or theft. Among the thieves were his own employees as well as military men and other VIPs who profited by selling water to better-off neighborhoods. Poor people paid black marketeers dearly for what was left. The city’s water agency collected fees from only half its users. Not surprisingly, it was losing money. 

EK combed his bloated workforce for the best and brightest and set them to work — locating and repairing the system’s myriad leaks, installing thousands of water meters, and closing hundreds of illegal connections. He installed a computerized billing program, financed by France, and persuaded other international lenders that his agency was a good risk. In 1997, the Phnom Penh Water Supply Authority (PPWSA) became an autonomous public enterprise. With major loans from the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and the government of Japan, General Director EK SONN CHAN embarked upon a major overhaul. 

He laid 1,500 kilometers of new pipelines and expanded the Authority?s water output by 600 percent. He confronted VIP nonpayers and cut off their water when persuasion failed, achieving a collection rate of 99 percent by 2003. He raised prices, resulting in strong revenues and an enviable reputation for paying the Authority’s debts ahead of schedule. With pricing policies favoring light users as well as subsidized connection fees and installment payment plans, he made cheap water available to the city’s poorest neighborhoods. New and refurbished water-treatment plants ensured that this water met WHO water-safety standards. At the same time, EK professionalized the Authority’s workforce, building its technical capacity and instilling in its employees a work ethic of discipline, competence, and teamwork. 

Today, EK’s clean water reaches virtually all of Phnom Penh’s inner city and he is busy spreading it to the outer reaches of the metropolis. In 2004, the World Bank cited PPWSA for its “dramatic improvement in organization, profitability and organizational performance.” 

Now fifty-six, EK SONN CHAN attributes his drive to “work for the country” to the traumas of Cambodia’s recent past. Patriotism also explains his preference for public utilities over private-sector ones. “The profit made by us,” he says, referring to the Phnom Penh Water Supply Authority, “will be profit for our country.” 

In electing EK SONN CHAN to receive the 2006 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service, the board of trustees recognizes his exemplary rehabilitation of a ruined public utility, bringing safe drinking water to a million people in Cambodia’s capital city.

The Honorable Chief Justice, Chairman and Trustees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation, distinguished guests, fellow Awardees and dear friends. 

Thirteen years ago, I was appointed by my superior to be the head of the Phnom Penh Water Supply Authority — an organization synonymous to corruption, inefficiency and a big bully from the public point of view. No government officer wanted to accept this job; but it challenged me. 

Today, I come here to receive the Ramon Magsaysay Award for having rehabilitated a ruined public utility, bringing safe drinking water to a million people in Cambodia’s city. This is doubtless the most profound honor I have received. Words cannot express my deep appreciation and gratitude to the Foundation and its officers and trustees for this award. 

I feel humbled by this recognition because I know that I did not do it alone. There are so many other unsung organizations and people who have made their respective contributions to help me achieve my mission at this level. 

Cambodia was devastated by 20 years’ civil war. Many homes were damaged and many lives were lost. Most infrastructure facilities were destroyed. The country under civil war was ruled by a dictatorship. This ravaged our economy and shattered the morale of our people. Surviving from the killing fields, favored with the support of well-meaning individuals and organizations, my colleagues and I have tried to do something for the benefit of our people; and we are able to do it to some extent. 

In receiving this 2006 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service, I would like to pay my humble tribute to this great leader, to thank those who have taken part in the selection process for bestowing this honor upon me, and to share it with all the dedicated and selfless men and women of PPWSA, who have contributed so much in bringing PPWSA to where it is today. 

Our mission is by no means complete; we continue to do our best, as this award has propelled me to consolidate and expand my work. Thank you all.

Even in the best of times, it is arid in the Alwar district of Rajasthan, India. Yet not so long ago, streams and rivers in Alwar’s forest-covered foothills watered its villages and farms dependably and created there a generous if fragile human habitat. People lived prudently within this habitat, capturing precious monsoon rainwater in small earthen reservoirs called johads and revering the forest, from which they took sparingly. 

The twentieth century opened Alwar to miners and loggers who decimated its forests and damaged its watershed. Its streams and rivers dried up, then its farms. Dangerous floods now accompanied the monsoon rains. Overwhelmed by these calamities, villagers abandoned their johads. As men shifted to the cities for work, women spirited frail crops from dry ground and walked several kilometers a day to find water. Thus was Alwar when RAJENDRA SINGH first arrived in 1985. 

That was the year twenty-eight-year-old SINGH left his job in Jaipur and committed himself to rural development. With four companions from the small organization he led, Tarun Bharat Sangh (TBS, Young India Association), he boarded a bus and traveled to a desolate village at the end of the line. Upon advice of a local sage, he began organizing villagers to repair and deepen old johads. 

When the refurbished ponds filled high with water after the monsoon rains, villagers were joyous and SINGH realized that the derelict johads offered a key to restoring Alwar’s degraded habitat. Once repaired, they not only stored precious rainwater but also replenished moisture in the soil and recharged village wells and streams. Moreover, villagers could make johads themselves using local skills and traditional technology. 

As TBS went to work, SINGH recruited a small staff of social workers and hundreds of volunteers. Expanding village by village — to 750 villages today — he and his team helped people identify their water-harvesting needs and assisted them with projects, but only when the entire village committed itself and pledged to meet half the costs. Aside from johads, TBS helped villagers repair wells and other old structures and mobilized them to plant trees on the hillsides to prevent erosion and restore the watershed. SINGH coordinated all these activities to mesh with the villagers’ traditional cycle of rituals. Meanwhile, with others, TBS waged a long and ultimately successful campaign to persuade India?s Supreme Court to close hundreds of mines and quarries that were despoiling Sariska National Park. 

Guided by Gandhi’s teachings of local autonomy and self-reliance, SINGH has introduced community-led institutions to each village. The Gram Sabha manages water conservation structures and sets the rules for livestock grazing and forest use. The Mahila Mandal organizes the local women’s savings and credit society. And the River Parliament, representing ninety villages, determines the allocation and price of water along the Arvari River. 

Now, 4,500 working johads dot Alwar and ten adjacent districts. Fed by a protected watershed and the revitalizing impact of the village reservoirs, five once-dormant rivers now flow year round. Land under cultivation has grown by five times and farm incomes are rising. For work, men no longer need to leave home. And for water, these days women need walk no farther than the village well. 

RAJENDRA SINGH is TBS’s charismatic motivator. Villagers call him Bai Sahab, Elder Brother, and listen to his every word. People have become greedy, he tells them. They should learn again to be grateful to nature. That is why, he says, in Alwar, “the first thing we do in the morning is touch the earth with reverence.”

In electing RAJENDRA SINGH to receive the 2001 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership, the board of trustees recognizes his leading Rajasthani villagers in the steps of their ancestors to rehabilitate their degraded habitat and bring its dormant rivers back to life.

Your Excellency President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, trustees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation, brothers and sisters, distinguished guests. 

It is with great humility that I accept the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership. This Award really belongs to those communities in Rajasthan in northern India, who have worked against tremendous odds to bring life back to their lands. They share this achievement with the men and women of the Tarun Bharat Sangh who have shown courage and determination. 

Some 16 years ago when I arrived in Bheekampura village in Alwar District, we found that lack of water was driving young people away from theirhomes. Forced to abandon their families and the village, people had lost hope of seeing better days. The government had declared Alwar a ?dark? zone, meaning an area suffering from severe water shortage. 

However, the elders in the villages still had among them the wisdom of their ancestors. Working side by side with TBS, they built traditional earthen dams known as johads. These small-scale, low-cost structures do not look like very much but taken together in hundreds and thousands, they have changed the face of this part of India. With water has come productivity, more income, a sense of community and a real feeling of self-reliance. 

In 1996, we were amazed to find Arvari River flowing even at the peak of summer. We had been building water harvesting structures in the catchment area of Arvari over the years without realizing that we were in fact recharging the river through underground percolation. Since then 4 more rivers have become perennial. 

With the arrival of water, problems of sharing arose. As a result Arvari Sansad (or River Parliament) came into existence representing 72 villages. This Parliament meets four times a year. 

On another front, TBS had to wage a difficult battle against powerful marble mine owners who were destroying the ecology of the Sariska Tiger Sanctuary. Being located in the periphery of this Sanctuary, we filed a petition in the Supreme Court of India. While the case was on, I and my colleagues had to face continuous harassment and character assassination. The Supreme Court in its judgment vindicated our stand and over 450 marble mines were closed down in 1992. 

I may mention that Mahatma Gandhi has a special place in my perception and ideas. He wanted every village to be self-reliant. Our efforts culminating in this Award are a small tribute to Mahatma’s vision and thinking. 

Since being named a Ramon Magsaysay laureate, I have told my brothers and sisters back in India that this Award is a recognition of their untiring efforts. I have told them that the decision-making process leading to the building of johads can be replicated in other parts of India and in Asian countries where communities face similar challenges. 

This Award will inspire communities of Alwar and other parts of Rajasthan where we work. 

On their behalf, I am proud to thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you.

In India, as elsewhere in Asia, laws to protect the environment have long been in place. Yet in India, as elsewhere, such laws are often honored in the breach, and flagrantly so. As a result, there is little to prevent the malignant discharges of the subcontinent’s polluting industries, its sewers, and its trucks and cars from fouling the air and water and earth—with crippling consequences for India’s crowded millions. India’s environmental agencies do have teeth, says crusading public interest lawyer M. C. MEHTA, “but they refuse to bite.”

MEHTA was drawn to environmental issues in 1984, when someone called his attention to the corrosive impact of air pollution upon India’s architectural masterpiece, the Taj Mahal. He studied how effluents from nearby industries were eating into the soft marble of the shrine and filed a writ petition against the polluters with India’s Supreme Court. For more than ten years he pursued the case, marshaling mountains of facts. In a series of staggered directives, the Court responded by banning coal-based industries in the Taj’s immediate vicinity, by closing 230 other factories and requiring three hundred more to install pollution control devices, and by ordering the creation of a traffic bypass and a tree belt to insulate the unique monument.

Meanwhile, when a gas leak at a fertilizer factory in 1985 killed several people and made nearly five thousand others sick, MEHTA won a landmark decision for damages. And when someone inadvertently ignited the Ganges with a lighted match that same year, he filed petitions that led to orders against five thousand polluting industries along the holy river. At his insistence, 250 towns and cities in the Ganges Basin have been required to install sewerage plants. MEHTA vigilantly monitors compliance with all such orders.

In similar MEHTA cases, the Supreme Court has ordered the Delhi Administration to relocate nine thousand dirty industries safely away from the crowded capital, to protect the city’s one remaining forest from illegal encroachments, and to build sixteen new sewerage treatment plants. Other MEHTA campaigns have resulted in the compulsory introduction of lead-free gasoline in India’s four largest cities and the prohibition of commercial prawn farms within five hundred meters of the national coastline. In a 1991 ruling, moreover, the Court compelled India’s radio and television stations and movie theaters to disseminate environmental messages daily.

These victories have required years of singleminded exertion. By working eighteen hours a day, MEHTA manages with a tiny staff and the fervent support of his wife and daughter. He work from a cramped office at home and subsidizes environmental cases with fees from his private practice. He faces constant harassment and even threats to his life.

MEHTA’s marathon effort is making legal history. In forty landmark judgments, the Indian Supreme Court has put the stamp of its authority upon his assertion that the “right to life,” as guaranteed in India’s constitution, includes the right to a clean and healthy environment. Furthermore, it has ruled that violators of this right are absolutely liable for the harm they cause. Indian courts may therefore grant compensation to victims of environmental abuse with the certain understanding that “the polluter pays.”

Fifty-year-old MEHTA keeps his organizational affiliations to a minimum and is known as something of a lone crusader. Still, he devotes several weeks each year to Green Marches, during which he works with grassroots organizations around the country. The movement for a clean habitat must be a people’s movement, he says. “The future lies in the hands of a vigilant public.”

In electing MAHESH CHANDER MEHTA to receive the 1997 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service, the board of trustees recognizes his claiming for India’s present and future citizens their constitutional right to a clean and healthy environment.

This is a moment of great honor for me to be with you today. I would like to share with you on this great occasion some of the thoughts and feelings that coursed through me when I received news of being conferred the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service. One was a feeling of gratitude at the recognition of my struggle to work for the protection of the environment through the legal process. The other feeling that arose in me was of immense satisfaction that the environmental movement in Asia has received great impetus and encouragement.

The need to protect the environment is linked to the very survival of the human race as well as all the other forms of life that coexist with it. Today, the planet is under constant threat form pervasive pollution, pressures of population, poor planning and indiscriminate use of natural resources. Rivers, lakes, coastlines, forests, and the ozone layer have become victims of the depredations of the greedy few, resulting in grave danger to the life and health of a large population in the world.

In the name of development, many Asian countries have become vulnerable to exploitation by the so-called “developed” part of the world. It has been fallacious solution or them to blindly follow the Western model which has overtaxed their natural resources leading to serious socio-economic and environmental consequences. We should not forget that the purpose of development is not to develop material things but develop humankind. Until now, the industrial growth at any cost has been an unchallenged and unquestioned placebo for human welfare. The time has come to do some stock-taking, to look around and see what the consequences of a reckless development are.

There is no other option before us but to seek innovative ways to alleviate our problems without negating the greatness in our cultures and depleting our natural resources. Our traditional wisdom and ways of life provide many viable solutions and alternatives. These need to be examined, revitalized, and incorporated into our planning process.

We must all arise in unison to ace the challenges before us to seek redressal of the present situation. A different mind-set and approach are required to creatively deal with the problems facing Asian nations. The struggle will be a long and hard one, but it promises to bear rich fruit for the future.

Friends, the award, I am sure will go a long way in encouraging and strengthening the environmental movement. I am grateful to the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation for acknowledging my humble contribution to this cause.

Foreign scholars studying village life throughout Asia learn much of value which is shared, particularly with their peers. Frequently they also develop enduring personal relations among families with whom they live and learn. These cultural anthropologists, sociologists, economists and others contribute to the growing intellectual milieu of one world. 

With only rare exceptions, however, the villagers who have hosted research scholars and offered insights into their cultures receive little or nothing in return. After the dissection of their life-styles, problems and aspirations, these usually friendly folk may be left even more discontented by an awakened awareness of unattainable possibilities. 

More than 30 years ago JIRO KAWAKITA began studying the disintegrating environmental equilibrium of Nepal’s Sikha Valley, located west of Pokhara below the snow-clad peaks of the Himalayas. Population pressure upon scarce land was compounded by modernizing demands of retired veterans of Gurkha regiments and seasonal laborers who worked abroad. Forests were being destroyed as need for livestock forage and human food compelled enlargement of ever-higher hillside fields. Focusing upon high-elevation terraced culture of barley, wheat, maize and African millet, KAWAKITA complemented his ethnogeographic research with mountain climbing. Crossing over mountain crests and through gorges gave him a vivid appreciation of villagers’ hardships. He also designed an information analysis system which he used to help villagers identify their most urgent problems. This system he patented and it is used today by Japanese corporations for business planning. 

Impelled by the plight of these some 5,000 Sikha Valley villagers, KAWAKITA in 1963 decided to find technological answers to their two priority needs: transporting fuel and forage down steep slopes to their homes, and securing drinking water without carrying it many kilometers across rugged mountain terrain. Extended discussions with Japanese technicians led to the choice of two simple technologies. The first was a wire ropeway similar to that used by tangerine growers in Japan to move harvests from hillside orchards. In Nepal it would need to be much longer, lighter, of greater tensile strength and highly durable to cross deep chasms and withstand harsh weather. The second was a hard polyvinyl chloride (PVC) pipeline to carry water to villages without cutting into the fragile schist structure of the mountainsides. 

Discovering that government funds were not readily available, KAWAKITA and his associates established the Association for Technical Cooperation to the Himalayan Areas. After soliciting contributions from individuals and corporations — sometimes in kind — and enlisting volunteers, they flew their wire rope, plastic pipe and supplies to Pokhara. With the help of the villagers who had participated in all the decisions, these eight tons of materials were carried four walking days over an arduous mountain trail to the Sikha Valley. The villagers helped install, and quickly learned to operate, the ropeways which greatly eased transport of fuel and forage from distant slopes. The pipeline has become a model for programs of the Royal Government of Nepal and UNICEF. A superhydro pump, whereby a stream fall of four meters lifts water from 120 to a maximum of 200 meters, did not prove durable in the Sikha Valley. At Nepalese government request this hydraulic ram that worked well for five years is being further tested in a village near Kathmandu to determine the required technological improvements and maintenance system. 

As vital as easing the daily lot of the five Sikha Valley villages, is the development of binational relations between Japan and Nepal, and the new awareness of villagers that beneficial technologies are attainable without endangering their cultural environment. KAWAKITA has shown that the skills of human perception of ethnogeographers and other research scholars can be used to bring technology appropriate to their needs to the villagers they study. 

In electing JIRO KAWAKITA to receive the 1984 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Peace and International Understanding, the Board of Trustees recognizes his winning the participation of remote Nepalese villagers in researching their problems, resulting in practical benefits of potable water supplies and rapid ropeway transport across mountain gorges.

It is my great honor to be given this noted Award which commemorates such an esteemed man as the late President Ramon Magsaysay. I am told he loved the common people and served them with the full strength of his energetic personality. My challenge in the Himalayas was also directed to the welfare of the common people, those who live in a remote area of those mountains; naturally I sympathize with his way of thinking. The honor of this Award, however, extends not only to me, but also to every participant who joined my project. Without their efforts, surely I would have accomplished nothing. 

The aim of our project was to develop a concept of international technological cooperation, in particular directed to the revitalization of rural areas and based on self-reliance. Our motivation was not one of charity, but more that of a cheerful venture based on the spirit of mutual participation between the villagers concerned and my colleagues. The villagers gave their best willingly; consequently I learned many things through this experience. From this platform here tonight I want to say to them: “Thank you very much.” Their efforts moved us close to tears. 

The mutual participation came from a common understanding of the total ecological and cultural environment. In other words, the participation was based on the holistic integration of qualitative data to achieve a scientific recognition of reality. In this sense, I believe, the way of true science coincides with the way of humanism. If this were not so, this so-called true science must be fundamentally reformed in the future.

Rural development throughout Asia and elsewhere generally comes in two models: projects are designed and directed from outside and sometimes constructed with local labor, or villagers themselves take the initiative to transform their communities. Cases of the latter are rare. To wait for aid is more tempting, especially since such assistance usually does not require a contribution of goods or labor, or disturb the village leadership structure. 

Thus the modernization of rural Southeast and South Asia founders while hundreds of millions wait for the modernizing process to be done for them. Yet no government or foreign or domestic donor alone can construct the immense water conservancy works required to double rice production in the next 15 years. Roads can be built, but without local participation in maintenance, monsoon rains soon make them impassable. Repeated national campaigns for sanitation, health and increased production can succeed only if farm families themselves want and will labor for improvements, and their children are educated to value work. 

ANTON SOEDJARWO first went to the countryside around Yogyakarta in Central Java in 1968 when he and three fellow engineering students at Gajah Mada University, not wanting to go home and be idle during the semester break, were challenged by their Swiss Jesuit hostel master to help the farmers. Realizing the neglected and impoverished lot of villagers, they eventually organized Yayasan Dian Desa, Light of the Village Foundation, with SOEDJARWO as director. They began seriously to apply their engineering skills, but with a difference: they would work only where rural people showed initiative and cooperation. 

Water was the first community need for which they devised solutions. With a dry season frequently lasting five months, farmers or their wives were squeezing water from banana stalks, or walking two to ten kilometers daily for water, taken often from stagnant ponds. Simple gravity flow systems made with bamboo pipes were tried successfully. These were soon augmented with hydraulic rams for lifting water from lower levels. Building from 4 up to 25 cubic meter ferro- or bamboo-cement catchment tanks followed in 1977; water used sparingly from these cisterns could supply much of a household’s or several households’ needs until the next rain. With these various innovations some 250,000 villagers now have a year-round water supply. 

Fuel-conserving cooking stoves were another practical introduction. As population pressure resulted in the denudation of mountainsides, wood for cooking had become scarce and only a few families could afford kerosene. Built of clay, sand, rock and dung, these modifications of the Lorena Stove, originally designed in Switzerland, require only one-half of the wood formerly used for household cooking. 

As Dian Desa over the past decade became an “institutional entrepreneur,” with maturing leadership, SOEDJARWO determined to practice what he preached and instituted income-generating projects to reduce reliance on outside aid, both by villagers and Dian Desa itself. A special highland clove provided to villagers yields of buds worth US$10 per kilogram. Poultry farming on a small scale has been made economic with a feed composed partly of snails and earthworms, and by a method for preserving fresh eggs for six months. Eels are raised commercially and coffee processed and marketed. The winged bean, grown by the farmers, is manufactured into bean cakes and catsup by the foundation’s factory. 

The crux of Dian Desa’s success is that it encourages a radical change from the mendicant mentality that governments and others unknowingly foster. It tells villagers bluntly: “If you do not want to help yourselves and prefer to starve, that is your choice. We are not Santa Claus. All we offer is to show you how to work for what you need.”

SOEDJARWO has turned down attractive job opportunities in Jakarta, but took time to start a course on village-relevant engineering at Gajah Mada University. Now 35, he has become an example. For a growing number of young Indonesians impatient for change, he offers evidence that outside of government there are opportunities awaiting their creative efforts for bettering rural living. 

In electing ANTON SOEDJARWO to receive the 1983 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership, the Board of Trustees recognizes his stimulating Javanese villagers to genuine self-reliance with simple, readily applicable appropriate technology.

First of all I would like to express my gratitude to the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation for giving me the honor of receiving the Ramon Magsaysay Award. I was quite surprised when I first learned from my staff about the Award; being honest, this was completely beyond my dream. However I believe that this happened because of the good cooperation, understanding and support of the government, of colleagues in our own and other nongovernmental organizations, and of all the friends who have been very faithful and supportive of Dian Desa’s work. On this occasion I would like to thank them. 

I would also like to express my wish that individuals will realize that helping others, however small their efforts may be, is worth far more than doing nothing; they can make a difference. 

As we all know, there are millions of people who still subsist below the minimum standard of living — for a myriad of multifaceted reasons. There being many reasons for poverty, a wide array of possible activities exists for overcoming this condition. There is a real need of activators who can play the role of initiators in addressing this problem. It is surely not the responsibility of the government alone, but the responsibility of the people — or in other words, our responsibility — to help change society. 

Unfortunately, within society there is usually a class system that may lead to a condition or situation where people work only for recognition or status. And such a situation, in my opinion, is quite dangerous for development. In my experience more activators will bring better performance and hasten development faster than one prima donna with many titles or high status, or than government alone. I think this is the situation in the rural development process; I believe President Magsaysay foresaw this years ago. 

In closing I once again would like to thank the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation, the Indonesian Government and all the friends who have given their support to Dian Desa. I believe this honor will be a challenge to us to fulfill and transmit the desire of the former President of the Philippines, His Excellency Ramon Magsaysay.

A shy, frail housewife and aspiring poet, MICHIKO ISHIMURE became a determined documentaries when “ businessmen with no conscience ” allowed toxic waste to pollute her community. Arousing the public will, she demonstrated how exacting search for fact could overcome bureaucratic inertia and hostile industrial interests.

Minamata was a naturally beautiful but poor fishing and farming center when one of Japan’s pioneer chemical companies established itself there in 1908. Growing into a great chemical complex before, and especially after, World War II, the company became the principal employer and dominant influence in local politics and government.

Official non-interest attended a puzzling “cat’s dance disease” that spread through Minamata nearly a quarter century ago, causing frenzied cats to die or drown themselves. Nor did officials show concern when people, especially fisher folk, were afflicted with a crippling and disfiguring disease that also was often convulsive and fatal. An exception was the late Dr. Hajime Hosokawa of the chemical company’s hospital, who, in 1957, enlisted research assistance from Kumamoto University Medical School. Their finding that the “mysterious disease” was a central nervous system disorder resulting from eating fish contaminated by mercury waste discharged into Minamata Bay was suppressed, though the City Hospital had to build special wards to accommodate the patients.

Impelled by her Buddhist upbringing to act against callous harm to life, Mrs. ISHIMURE quietly sought out the stricken. Her penetrating portrayals of their lives and agonizing illnesses within the context of a stratified society were first published in a small literary magazine in Kumamoto, Kyushu. When assembled into a book, Kukai Jodo Waga Minamata (Pure Land Poisoned Sea) in 1968, these poetic essays commanded national response.

The resistance of local and national authorities and the chemical industry was stubborn. Ostracized by unaffected residents whose living depended upon the polluting company, and over protestations even of relatives, Mrs. ISHIMURE persisted. A collection of essays by her and others, Waga Shimin Minamata-byo Toso (Minamata Disease My Dead People), was published in 1972. A second book, a compilation of her own perceptive writings previously carried in leading magazines and newspapers, Rumin no Miyako (City of Drifters), was in its third printing within a month after publication in March 1973.

As scientists, publicists and committees of concerned citizens have gained hearing in Tokyo, the Health and Welfare Ministry belatedly has acted. Though the chemical industry has begun corrective measures, the battle still is not won. As Mrs. ISHIMURE chronicles it, the Minamata tragedy is only a part of the ongoing struggle between the simple innocence of fishermen and farmers and the tyranny of mass industrialization that threatens to dehumanize society.

In electing MICHIKO ISHIMURE to receive the 1973 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts, the Board of Trustees recognizes her as the “voice of her people” in their struggle against the industrial pollution that has been distorting and destroying their lives.

The anniversary of the surrender of Bataan makes it impossible for me to express my appreciation without honestly falling headlong into complex feelings of anguish, because as a human being of that country whose soldiers perpetrated that surrender in your land, I am to receive your most noble and humane national prize, the Magsaysay Award.

The setting sun over Manila Bay, the beauty of which is praised throughout the world as exquisite, sets also into my soul as if bathed in human blood. In like manner, the setting sun over Manila Bay reminds me of the beauty of the sun setting over my own Minamata Sea.

This same sunset has twilight the funeral march of my people on the seaside hills, and yet, while these dead were still among the living, this solar twilight cascaded over the canvas sails of their boats as if over so many flower petals being guided smoothly over the water on their way. And the shimmering sunlight presided over the wind romping across the sea beckoning to the many schools of swimming fish.

In the ancient and primitive religions of my country, the abundant light of the sun brought life to this world, and was worshipped as the goddess of affection and peace. Among other gods were those who misbehaved and brought disaster to people, causing the sun goddess to hide herself because of her overwhelming sadness; this left the people in fearful darkness pleading for the return of their goddess through prayer and self-restraint. This original mythology developed into a most simple but powerful morality for my people. Even today, when scientific civilization has become the object of faith, there is no doubt that the sun still remains the ultimate lord of life.

With this kind of faith already in existence, then, the national modernization of my country brought drastic modifications so that the hearts and minds of my people became alienated. Thus, in the last world war this warped faith was used as a slogan for the invasion of other countries. In spite of this, like people in your own country who have not yet been destroyed by the evils of civilization, so in my Minamata, there are people who cannot live without love for the life of others.

It is these kinds of people who have been attacked by organic and inorganic mercury and other industry-related heavy metal poisons so that, not only has their existence and life lost its physical viability through the accumulation of death-dealing quantities of poison metals, but also the aim of this intrusion has been the sneering and insulting execution of the unique, beautiful and delicate ethics yet remaining in my homeland.

This intruder came dressed in the garb of area industrial development and economic growth and he appeared before humble and simple people using a silky coaxing voice like that of the wolf in “Little Red Riding Hood.”

While modern chemical industry was secretly depositing poisons, some of my own people died a sudden and anguishing death, and through 10 and 20 year periods, parents, children and then grandchildren were more slowly murdered. However, these people, caught in an unprecedented disaster, saw through those who sought to destroy them with the penetrating sight of unseeing eyes at death.

Over a long period of time, the people who remained were filled with the will of those who had, in such a manner, died, just as the people in your country had begun in a moment to observe in their hearts the Bataan surrender anniversary.

In the classic writings of my culture there is a saying which goes: “The bird’s most beautiful song comes at the moment of death.” At the end of one’s destiny, life, in and of itself, has a dignity and beauty which, even though denied, is not unappealing.

The final voice of that given destiny, after being murdered by a giant even more inhumane than “The Merchant of Venice,” does not stop offering, to those who are left, a deep revelation.

Many of my friends, infinitely more so than myself, have gone through a powerful resurrection of the soul through this death watch, and stand thus together with those who are suffering in order to create many practical and bold action groups. And these persons, expecting no return, humbly and with silent persistence pursue the kind of work that others would not do. My humble literary offerings have been enlightened by these people who act, not with words, but with deeds.

Modern industrial society proceeds in the direction of defacing the most delicate and deep receptivity of the human spirit. For example, when comparing the magnificent and mysterious structures yet remaining in the hinterlands of Southeast Asia, with the buildings in the modern cities of my own country, it can be seen that modern structures are only piles of concrete void of any personality.

My humble desire has been only to bring to life and make sound again this basic and rich receptivity that yet undoubtedly is retained within women and men. Originally, the subject of poetry was the grandeur of nature and I tried to tune my bowstring for a world of people whose souls interacted with the grandeur of nature. However, my bowstring didn’t vibrate, and listening to the wee small voice of my heart, I know now why: the song of those in death was more beautiful than the song sung by the living. Only a small part of this has been put into words.

I have heard that Japanese enterprises have begun their invasion of this country but I pray from the bottom of my heart that your land will never be inflicted with a disaster like that in Minamata.

I ask only that I be allowed to use this Award money for the sake of those still left alive. I offer my deepest thanks.

Mobilizing Asia’s resources to meet man’s growing needs is often crippled by narrow sectional and traditional loyalties. Such shortsighted insistence upon more immediate and personal advantage frustrates rational solutions to many common problems. 

Since it was established nine years ago, the MEKONG COMMITTEE has shown what can be achieved for farmers, fishermen and new industry by international cooperative effort in one of the world’s most troubled regions. Created in response to a recommendation of the United Nations Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East, this COMMITTEE joins Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam in common utilization of the immense potential of the Mekong River. Technical and financial assistance has come from 21 countries outside the basin, 12 United Nations agencies, three foundations and a number of private business organizations. To date, equipment, technical services, grants and loans totalling some US$105 million have been marshalled  about one-third pledged by the four riparian countries. 

The hitherto untamed Mekong—one of the world’s 10 largest rivers—rises among the snows high on the Tibetan Plateau and has carved a twisting course, often through rugged mountains, some 4,600 kilometers to the South China Sea. The Lower Mekong Basin, which is the focus of this effort, extends for some 2,500 kilometers from the forests of the Burma border, through Laos, along the dry northeastern frontier of Thailand, through jungles and deltas of Cambodia and Vietnam. It drains an area nearly twice the size of Japan that is inhabited by some 20 million persons. 

Extensive studies by teams of scientists and engineers from the riparian and cooperating nations have now produced an overall Basin Plan with both mainstream and tributary projects. These multi-purpose projects will provide irrigation, power, vastly improved navigation, expanded fisheries, control of seasonal floods and many other benefits. Navigation improvements now permit night sailing upriver to Phnom Penh. In November 1965 the King of Thailand inaugurated at Nam Pung one of the two electric power and irrigation projects already completed. Construction is underway on four other tributary projects and one tug and barge building program. 

Among the projects for the mainstream of the Mekong, three have a “one” priority. At Pa Mong, just above Vientiane, a massive dam between Thailand and Laos will create a reservoir more than 200 miles long, have an installed generating capacity of over one million kilowatts and irrigate roughly one million hectares, or two and one-half million acres. Sambor, in Cambodia, will be the site of a second major power and irrigation dam. A barrage across the Tonle Sap waterway in Cambodia, that each year alternately admits Mekong water to the Great Lake and then drains it, will amplify fisheries and irrigation and hold back silt from delta lands in Vietnam while deepening water in the shipping channel to the sea. 

When the Lower Mekong Basin program for the period 1965 to 1975 is completed at an estimated cost of more than three billion dollars, the largest single natural resource of southeast Asia will be substantially under productive control. The fact that, despite turmoil, war and other differences in the region, so much headway has been made represents a triumph of reason and consideration of mutual well-being. 

In electing the COMMITTEE FOR COORDINATION OF INVESTIGATIONS OF THE LOWER MEKONG BASIN and COOPERATING ENTITIES to receive the 1966 Ramon Magsaysay Award for International Understanding, the Board of Trustees recognizes purposeful progress toward harnessing one of Asia’s greatest river systems, setting aside divisive national interests in deference to regional opportunities.

On behalf of the MEKONG COMMITTEE—that is to say on behalf of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and the Republic of Vietnam—and on behalf of the United Nations and the UN Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East, whose Executive Secretary is with us this afternoon, I should like to express profound thanks to the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation for the great honor you are conferring upon us. We are especially pleased by your mention of the entities cooperating with us: notably ECAFE, and also 11 other members of the UN family; 21 countries from outside the basin, three foundations, and a number of private business organizations. Our Mekong project has two origins. On the one hand is the vast Mekong River itself: tenth largest river in the world, 4,600 kilometers long, draining in its lower basin an area larger than all France and twice as large as Japan, inhabited—in our four countries—by 20 million people, and pouring annually more than 400 million acre-feet of water into the South China Sea. On the other hand is the appreciation, slowly dawning upon our four countries, of the tremendous underutilization of this great resource. Our objective in the MEKONG COMMITTEE is to bring this great resource into use. In doing so, our four-member MEKONG COMMITTEE—one member from each of our four countries—follows one basic rule: we work for all the people of the basin with absolutely no distinction as to nationality, creed, or politics. On the mainstream of the Mekong we are pushing the planning of three major projects which will be among the largest in the world. We hope and believe that these three mainstream projects, or at least two of them, will be at the finance and construction stage by or before the end of the present decade—the United Nations Development Decade. The COMMITTEE also has projects scheduled for the 34 principal Mekong tributaries. Here the COMMITTEE’s work has gone beyond planning to construction. On 14 November 1965 His Majesty the King of Thailand officially opened the first of the MEKONG COMMTTEE’s tributary projects to be brought physically into being: the Nam Pung in the parched northeast of Thailand. This was followed on 14 March 1966 by a similar ceremony at which His Majesty opened the much larger Nam Pong Project, also in northeast Thailand. Two modest but welcome hydroelectric projects are advancing in Laos, near Pakse and Luang Prabang. In 1965 the COMMITTEE and its friends concentrated fundraising activities in the US$24 million Nam Ngum tributary project in Laos. These efforts culminated in success; Nam Ngum in Laos and Nam Pong in Thailand are to be interconnected, pursuant to a covenant signed by the four MEKONG COMMITTEE members and the United Nations, and work is now proceeding whereby power generated at Nam Pong in Thailand will be in use across the Mekong in Vientiane, Laos, by mid-1967. The stage is also set for construction of the Prek Thnot tributary project in Cambodia. Some work has already begun and the MEKONG COMMITTEE, assisted by the Secretary General of the United Nations and the Executive Secretary of ECAFE, is now exerting every effort to arrange financing for this project pursuant to an ECAFE resolution endorsing the MEKONG COMMITTEE decision to consider 1966 as “Cambodia Year.” No less determination is invested by the COMMITTEE in its efforts to improve navigation in the maritime lower reach of the river, in the canal network of the delta, and in the Lao and Thai reaches of the river upstream of the Khone Falls. We are also pressing forward with a large number of ancillary projects, including a network of experimental and demonstration farms, forestry and fisheries development, power market projections, mineral surveys, industrial planning, and social development and public health projects. Training is a vital part of our activity. Forty-one percent of the COMMITTEE’S professional staff are drawn from the four riparian countries; these staff members are contributing greatly to the COMMITTEE’S progress, and at the same time are growing with the COMMITTEE. In addition, the COMMITTEE sponsors an extensive program of seminars, study tours, and fellowships, and obtains considerable quantities of textbooks and technical studies for use throughout the basin. Much money is needed for all this work. We are happy indeed to have received some US$110,000,000 in pledges to date. And we are proud that nearly one-third of this is coming from our four Mekong governments themselves. President Marcos, Senator Manahan, and members of the Board of Trustees, may I say in conclusion that your decision to present to us the Ramon Magsaysay 1966 Award for International Understanding marks an important milestone in our work. For the first time in our history an eminent body from outside our basin, a body with which we have had no previous contact, has paid tribute to what we are trying to accomplish. Through this major and splendid Award, you give each of us deep inspiration, which will be a source of assurance and strength in all that lies ahead. You have touched the Mekong Spirit with something of the spirit of Ramon Magsaysay. My friends, allow me to record our deep appreciation.