This paper has sought to show how water can contribute to the goals of NEPAD and, through that, to show how water can contribute to sustainable development in Africa. It has become apparent that water has a central and critical role in sustainable development, in general, and in the attainment of the NEPAD goals, in particular. In fact, water may be regarded as the lifeblood of sustainable development. It is to sustainable development what blood is to the human body. This is evidenced, in part, by the two-way links that exist between water and NEPAD’s programmes. Even for those which do not require water as an input, water resources could be adversely affected unless appropriate actions are taken. This highlights the need for water resources development to be included in a coordinated and integrated approach to development and competing demands for water use. Without this, achievement of the goals of NEPAD will be undermined.
Certain critical and cross-cutting water issues have been identified. Measures for addressing some of these critical issues have been presented. In many cases, these turn out to be mainly the effective implementation of IWRM. These will also be complementary to programmes designed to address water service backlogs and to ensure the reliability and sustainability of economic water supply and sanitation services to urban and other commercial water users.
To ensure that water plays its proper role as an instrument for sustainable development and also as an instrument for regional integration, it is important that Africa should define a water agenda that is driven by its position on the key water issues it faces, and by its priorities for action in pursuit of the NEPAD goals and the Africa Water Vision. These two aspects of Africa’s water agenda are addressed next.
Africa Positions on Water
Fortunately, these broad conclusions are consistent with positions already adopted by the African water sector through instruments such as the African Water Vision and its Framework for Action.
It is proposed that, given the central and critical roles of water in sustainable development, and the two-way links that exist between water and the NEPAD goals, the positions on water listed below be recommended for adoption at this Conference.
- Water is to be viewed as a cross-cutting issue to be mainstreamed within NEPAD and other development efforts at national, sub-regional and regional levels in pursuit of sustainable development
- The Africa Water Vision and its framework for action are endorsed for use at all levels of water development and service provision in Africa
- Policies, strategies, and projects in water resources management and development should be based on the principles of IWRM. To this end, Africa will adopt the following, among others:
- Management at the river basin level
- Management at the lowest appropriate level
- Demand-driven approaches
- Ownership and participation by all stakeholders, especially women and the youth
- Promotion of knowledge and information exchange aimed at institutional sustainability and conflict prevention
- A high priority will be given to the establishment of sustainable and sufficient mechanisms for providing financial and technical support for meeting urgent and critical needs in water resources development and access to services for drinking water supply and sanitation, agriculture and food security, and environmental sustainability
- Policies for mainstreaming gender balance, poverty reduction, and environmental sustainability in all aspects of water resources development and service provision will be pursued
- A high priority will be given to global, regional and sub-regional public goods in water and mechanisms developed to support their achievement
- A high priority will be given to the development and implementation of a program for awareness creation among civil society, political leaders and decision makers about the indispensable role of water in development and poverty reduction
- Participation by the private sector in water service provision will be supported provided that there are adequate safeguards, specifically for the interests of the poor and generally for the achievement of NEPAD’s development goals
- The key areas of focus in the medium term shall be as defined under the priorities for action
- Political commitment will be promoted through the mechanism of the African Ministers Conference on Water, AMCOW.
Priorities for Action in Water
The basic spirit behind the priorities for action is that it is support for the broad NEPAD agenda that should serve as the key determinant for prioritizing regional and sub-regional actions in the water sector in Africa. With this in mind, the proposed agenda is constrained by considerations of sustainability of Africa’s water resources, protection of developments from water-related extreme events, access to water to meet basic human needs, and environmental sustainability.
It is hoped these priorities for action in the water sector would be considered by African water Ministers and revised to ensure harmony with their statement so that we end up with a single agenda for water to be pursued by all in Africa. This requires also that the final version of the priorities for action would have been discussed with Africa’s development partners.
The proposed priorities for action are as presented below:
- Improving water governance at regional, sub-regional, and at transboundary water basin levels
- Establishing sustainable organisations and mechanisms for improved financing and cost-recovery in water resources management, development, allocation, and service delivery
- Promoting improved water resources management and the institutionalization of integrated land, forestry and water resources management action plans at sub-regional level, transboundary water basin levels, and at national levels
- Promoting the definition of property and use rights regimes for water within countries and between transboundary water basins
- Improving African capacity for IWRM, focusing of water governance and access to service
- Improving the technical knowledge base at regional and sub-regional levels for water resources management and access to water services
- Improving access to water supply and sanitation services
- Instituting a system for performance monitoring, assessment, and reporting on all aspects of the agreed priorities for action
- Optimising the contribution of water management to food security and agriculture based trade and development
- Developing the contribution of water infrastructure to energy generation
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