The Africa workshop takes place at the World Water Congress & Exhibition in Copenhagen on 14 September 2022, 10:30-12:00 | Room C0

The WHO/UNICEF joint report released in March 2022 stated that achieving SDG6 targets in Africa will require a 12x increase in the current rate of progress on safely managed drinking water, a 20x increase in safely managed sanitation and a 42x increase in basic hygiene services.

According to the report, between 2000 and 2020, the population of Africa increased from 800 million to 1.3 billion. 500 million people have gained access to at least basic drinking water and 290 million gained access to at least basic sanitation services. But 411 million people still lack even a basic drinking water service, 779 million lack basic sanitation services (including 208 million who still practise open defecation), and 839 million still lack basic hygiene services.

This could be explained by factors such as: (i) lack of skills, (ii) overlapping responsibilities in the governance as well as the the Covid-19 pandemic. Hence, Africa is not on track to achieve SDG6 by 2030.

Some solutions could help accelerate achievements so far: (i) sharing the best practices in the sector through Peer-to-Peer Learning Partnership; (ii) emerging new actors, and new collaboration approaches, (iii) improving governance and (iv) capacity building.

The Africa workshop presented by AfWA on “ACCELERATING THE ACHIEVEMENT OF SDG6 IN AFRICA: KEY STAKEHOLDERS, METHODS AND FOCUSSES” will share some of the thoughts and solutions on the topic.