AMCOW’s Executive Secretary, Dr Rashid Mbaziira, has paid a courtesy call to the Deputy Minister for Water and Sanitation, Republic of Malawi, Hon. John Bande. The visit, which took place from 24-27 May 2022, was to solicit Malawi’s and partners’ inputs into AMCOW’s ongoing efforts to provide responsive solutions to the intermittent but extreme drought and post-drought flooding episodes ravaging different parts of Southern and Eastern Africa. Also, the Executive Secretary seized the opportunity to discuss AMCOW’S strategic direction for the period 2022-24 within the framework of implementing the AMCOW Strategy 2018-2030. 

AMCOW understands that the responsiveness of continental policy initiatives to Member States’ real needs is dependent on a Bottom-Up to Top-Down approach. Therefore, AMCOW is working to ensure that Member States’ priorities constitute the basis for formulating continental initiatives, domesticated for implementation as national policies. 

However, to ensure ownership, it is imperative that all Member States at least can identify with aspects of AMCOW programmes – this is, in turn, influenced by their level of participation in the formulation process of the programmes. Therefore, this courtesy call on the Honourable Minister falls within the broad framework of the regional consultations. 

Critical highlights of the discussions include enlisting the support of the Republic of Malawi on: 

• annually convening the statutory AMCOW Southern Africa sub-regional Ministerial Committee (SMC) meeting in collaboration with the SADC Secretariat;
• implementing continental and global commitments on water and sanitation, including the Africa Water Vision 2025, PIDA-PAP II water projects and SDG 6; 
• utilising the African Sanitation Policy Guidelines (ASPGs) to formulate a SADC regional protocol on pollution control and accelerating access to safely managed sanitation; and, 
• making preparations for the 13th ordinary session of the AMCOW Executive Committee (EXCO) in Windhoek, Namibia, and the water pavilion at COP27 at Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt

During the meeting, Hon. John Bande assured AMCOW of Malawi’s commitment to its programmes and activities. 

Since completing the 9th World Water Forum in Dakar, Senegal, AMCOW has increased its effort to strengthen engagement with the Member States and partners. AMCOW’s Executive Secretary has since paid courtesy calls to Ministers responsible for water in Nigeria, Mozambique, Egypt and Malawi and is still counting.

AMCOW’s Executive Secretary, Dr Rashid Mbaziira, has paid a courtesy call to the Deputy Minister for Water and Sanitation, Republic of Malawi, Hon. John Bande. From 24-27 May 2022, the visit was to solicit Malawi’s and partners’ inputs into AMCOW’s ongoing efforts to provide responsive solutions to the intermittent but extreme drought and post-drought flooding episodes ravaging different parts of Southern and Eastern Africa. Also, the Executive Secretary seized the opportunity to discuss AMCOW’S strategic direction for 2022-24 within the framework of implementing the AMCOW Strategy 2018-2030. 

AMCOW understands that the responsiveness of continental policy initiatives to Member States’ real needs depends on a Bottom-Up to Top-Down approach. Therefore, AMCOW is working to ensure that Member States’ priorities constitute the basis for formulating continental initiatives, domesticated for implementation as national policies. 

However, to ensure ownership, it is imperative that all Member States at least can identify with aspects of AMCOW programmes – this is, in turn, influenced by their level of participation in the formulation process of the programmes. Therefore, this courtesy call on the Honourable Minister falls within the broad framework of the regional consultations. 

Critical highlights of the discussions include enlisting the support of the Republic of Malawi on: 

• Annually convening the statutory AMCOW Southern Africa sub-regional Ministerial Committee (SMC) meeting in collaboration with the SADC Secretariat;
• implementing continental and global commitments on water and sanitation, including the Africa Water Vision 2025, PIDA-PAP II water projects and SDG 6; 
• utilising the African Sanitation Policy Guidelines (ASPGs) to formulate a SADC regional protocol on pollution control and accelerating access to safely managed sanitation; and, 
• making preparations for the 13th ordinary session of the AMCOW Executive Committee (EXCO) in Windhoek, Namibia, and the water pavilion at COP27 at Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt

Hon. John Bande assured AMCOW of Malawi’s commitment to its programmes and activities during the meeting. 

Since completing the 9th World Water Forum in Dakar, Senegal, AMCOW has increased its effort to strengthen engagement with the Member States and partners. AMCOW’s Executive Secretary has since paid courtesy calls to Ministers responsible for water in Nigeria, Mozambique, Egypt and Malawi and is still counting.

Member States’ focal points numbering 27 from the northern and eastern Africa region have benefitted from the WASSMO/AfricaSan Ngor training series to improve data collection and reporting for the 2022 round of Africa’s water and sanitation sector report. This exercise feeds into the effort to respond to the yearning of the African Heads of States to oversee regularly the state of water and sanitation in the continent.

The workshop, which aimed at accelerating effective, timely, and quality data collection and reporting held in the Republic of Egypt in collaboration with the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation and the Regional Centre for Training and Water Studies in Cairo. The training paves the way for launching the next data collection campaign. It will increase awareness for establishing and strengthening the National Coordination Platforms and improve the focal point’s knowledge and practical abilities to utilise the WASSMO Information Technology System. It will minimise disparities in data management structures and objectives among the Members States and enlighten focal points on relevant best practices and tools for the effective planning, coordination and WASSMO, AfricaSan Ngor processes implementation. Also, it will increase stakeholders’ awareness of Africa’s Water and Sanitation Sector Monitoring and Reporting mandate by the African Union.

At the opening of the event, the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation, Dr Ragab Abdelazim, represented the Hon Minister for Water Resources and Irrigation, H E Muhammad Abdul Aty. During his opening remark, Dr Ragab appreciated AMCOW’s collaboration and the opportunity given to Egypt to host the workshop. He reiterated Egypt’s commitment to supporting AMCOW’s role in Africa’s socio-economic development, stressing Egypt’s readiness to work with other countries to realise the Africa Water Vision 2025, Africa Agenda 2063 (the Africa we want) and accelerate progress in achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDG6). In closing, he expressed Egypt’s expectation for AMCOW’s participation in the Fifth Cairo Water Week in October 2022, titled “Water at The Heart of Climate Action”, whose recommendations will be submitted to the Water Pavilion – on the sidelines of the (COP27) hosted by Egypt (Sharm El Sheikh) in November – as a representative of the African continent. 

In his remarks, the Executive Secretary of AMCOW, Dr Rashid Mbaziira, represented by AMCOW’s Officer in Charge of Water Resources Management and Climate Change, Prof Moshood Tijani, stated that regular reporting to the AU HoSG would draw the highest level of attention to the sector’s challenges. He said that AMCOW would operationalise the National Coordination Platforms to improve the completeness and quality of WASSMO data to initiate action on strengthening national-level capacity for collecting, analysing and reporting on SDG6, Sharm El-Sheikh, Ngor and other relevant commitments. Therefore, he called on Member states to provide more information on related targets of the African Water Vision 2025. 

The WASSMO/AfricaSan Regional Workshop responds to AMCOW’s mandate by the Heads of States and Governments of the African Union Assembly in Sharm El-Sheikh in 2008 to report on the progress in implementing its commitment to water and sanitation in Africa. 

The WASSMO is a web-based system for monitoring and reporting progress in Africa’s water and sanitation sector. It was developed by the African Ministers’ Council on Water in 2016 with financial support from the Africa Water Facility (AWF) through the African Development Bank (AfDB).

The Republic of Botswana hosted the Southern African countries from the 4th to the 6th of May. The Republic of Benin hosted the Western and Central regions from the 10th to the 12th of May. Overall, a total of 110 focal points have been trained across 45 countries.