Wallace Mawire
April 23, 2014

The first African water integrity summit to be held in Lusaka, Zambia on 29 to 30 April, 2013 will address corruption in the water sector in Africa, according to Sanna Gustafsson, Communications Officer for the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI).

“Twenty-five percent of all water investments or about 50 billion dollar is lost to corruption every year.

SIWI Logo
SIWI Logo

The Summit “Accelerating towards a Water Secure World” will be held the aim to encourage and stimulate dialogue on how corruption can be addressed in the water sector at a regional and national level,” Gustafsson said.

Gustafsson added that typical examples of corruption in the water sector include falsified meter readings, distorted site selection of boreholes or abstraction points for irrigation, collusion and favouritism in public procurement and nepotism in the allocation of public offices.

The summit will gather water sector stakeholders from Western, Southern and Eastern Africa to exchange knowledge and experiences, sharing know-how, experiences, successful tools and challenges when implementing water integrity action plans. It is also expected to contribute to building political ownership for water integrity practice, assess the gaps and develop a way forward for further enhancing integrity in the water sector.

The Summit is reported to be a culmination of a three year sub-saharan capacity building programme on water integrity that has successfully trained more than 400 stakeholders across 36 countries.

One of pictures that were exhibited during the 2012 World Water Forum in Marseille France showing Women meditating in water.
One of pictures that were exhibited during the 2012 World Water Forum in Marseille France showing Women meditating in water.

The programme, as well as the Summit, is implemented by UNDP-Water Governance Facility, The Water Integrity Network, UNDP/Cap-Net, WaterNet and SIWI.

At the end of the summit, a Summit Declaration is expected to be be published on the SIWI webpage.

The declaration will also be submitted to the African Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW) for consideration by its Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) and General Assembly.

Water Journalists Africa (WJA) is the largest network of journalists reporting on water in the African continent. It brings together some 700 journalists from 50 African countries. It was established in...

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