23 Mar

Category: News

©African Water Association

WOP Africa and GWOPA were present at the 16th African Water Association Congress in Marrakesh – Morocco- from 19 to 24 February 2012. The theme of the congress was ‘Collaborative Mechanisms and Innovations for the sustainable development of the water and sanitation sector in Africa’. The main highlights of the congress were the following; Ms Duduzile MYENI, chair of SAAWU South Africa, was elected as the new AfWA President. More than 560 people from 50 countries attended the 47 technical sessions on performance management, asset management, operations of water & sanitation systems, financing, capacity building, water safety plan and quality management. The Congress attracted 220 exhibitors.

GWOPA and WOP-Africa co-organized a session on WOPs in Africa, in which some successful examples of South-South and North-South WOPs in the continent were presented.

A Panel also discussed incentives for mentor utilities to participate in WOPs on not-for-profit basis. Champion utilities active in WOPs, from Africa and Europe - namely ONEP (Morocco), SIAAP (France), NWSC (Uganda) and SDE (Senegal) - shared their experience and emphasised the benefits they get from mentoring other utilities in terms of attraction for human resources and recognition for contribution to the achievement of WatSan MDGs.
WOP-Africa also organized a workshop to launch a series of WOPs financed by the African Water Facility. It was attended by 30 participants from 16 African utilities. During the workshop, a WOPs implementation manual developed by WOP-Africa coordinator, Mr. Fadel Ndaw, was adopted, and a roadmap for the implementation of 10 WOPs was defined.
A WOP-Africa Program Committee (PC) was also held in parallel with the Congress to follow up on the recommendations of the previous PC meeting that was held in Kampala in December 2011. The PC members assessed positively the progress made so far with the WOP-Africa program, especially the actual move of the WOP-Africa Secretariat to Johannesburg and its installation within RANDWATER over there.