Every two minutes, three children die of diarrheal disease. Most of those deaths could be prevented with clean water and sanitation. We know the solution, and it sounds simple – so why haven’t we achieved it yet?

Water, it turns out, is a wicked problem.

Shannon Marquez, PhD, associate dean for academic affairs in Drexel’s School of Public Health and director of Global Public Health Initiatives, at a well-drilling site in northern Ghana

On April 10 at Drexel, representatives from the fields of public health, environmental engineering, water resource management and more will convene to tackle that problem head-on. The Philadelphia Global Water Initiative (PGWI) will hold its annual conference on campus that day, emphasizing solutions to water issues affecting urban areas in the developing world. Registration is still open at pgwi.org, at a cost of only $10 for students, $40 for attendees from NGOs, or $60 for…