It’s an honour to reintroduce Transworld Publishers Ltd to the network but the irony of the matter in the situation here, I reckon, is the title ‘ Africa Water, Sanitation & Hygiene’ whilst the description of our activities is centred in water and sanitation, if you may kindly take note.
Let me explain this anomaly if you please. Here in Kenya, one has to take many months to register for example, a publication as a trade mark with the Kenya Industrial Property Institute (KIPI) as it involves the application, the search, preliminary advise and advertising the intended mark in the KIPI journal in case of objection(s)from anywhere in the world as the Institute is a member of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) .The matter doesn’t end here. The application has to comply with the Laws of Kenya Trade Marks Act Cap 506 Books and Newspapers Rule (Cap 111 Rule 4 (2)) before publishing . We have just taken a précis from a rigorous process to save time and space. So in essence, one can’t wake up one day and think of a title and publish. The bottomline is that, one may end up in jail or face unprecedented legal damages either nationally or internationally or both.
So the misconception that we are copycats carrying a similar title from a renowned organization is absolutely unfounded as is insinuated elsewhere in reference to our title. To the contrary, the plan to launch the title in question goes way back several years.
As an explanation from the departure from the title, the ‘Africa Water & Sanitation’ my colleague in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, Ms Befrina Igulu remarked in the editorial of the Sept-Oct 2012 edition of the publication that the terms water, sanitation & hygiene are inseparable in health, concluding that they are synonymous ‘because sanitation is the hygienic way of promoting health towards water usage for cleanliness’.
It is our wish and commitment to continue in unpretentious approach the search of solutions to Africa’s development problems and contribute to the achievement of MDGs and other global causes and demands for the water and sanitation before the year 2015.
We need your support. We would wish to take this opportunity to invite specialists in hydrology, hydrogeology, civil and water engineering, water management, etc and contributors to the planning, design and implementation of water and sanitation programmes to send in short authoritative original articles on challenges facing the water and sanitation sectors in their respective countries, ongoing projects to the MDGs in those particular areas and other environment, health lists and conservation issues that may periodically address water resources for publication. Articles may be accompanied by pictures, diagrams and or illustrations.We need to share experiences and lessons learnt and compile information that may help everyone to access different approaches.
We are also inviting organizations and individuals interested in publishing to partner with us and possibly enter joint ventures in Africa and anywhere else for that matter to publish future issues of the ‘ Africa Water, Sanitation & Hygiene’ and other titles that are in the pipeline. Applications may be sent to
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in confidence.
Suggestions and/or comments please.
Kind regards
S.Mwaniki