African leaders urged to fight water corruption

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African leaders urged to fight water corruption

Water sector stakeholders from western, southern and eastern Africa gathering in the Zambian capital Lusaka on Wednesday urged African leaders to toughen laws against corruption and strengthen governance laws in the water sector.

"Corruption drains billions of dollars from the water sector, while more than 300 million people in the sub-Sahara Africa live in a water scarce environment, and 115 people pass away every hour from diseases related to degraded resources," the African Water Integrity Summit said in its final communique.

"With strong laws, all these problems will come to an end," it added.

"The summit therefore, proposes that the head of states at the forthcoming African Union summit come up with strong laws in their quest to provide good governance and fight against corruption," said the communique.

Themed "Accelerating Towards a Water Secure World," the two-day summit brough together water integrity experts from over 35 countries in Africa to exchange good practice and experiences related to fighting corruption in the water sector.

Also attending were water users associations, advocacy organizations and representatives from the donor community.

The participants regretted that in most countries the water crisis is not due to scarce resources but primarily due to governance failure.

"Where there is a leadership failure, corruption is expected to be on the rise and this is exactly what it is at the moment in most African countries," the communique read in part.

"Over 344 million people in Africa rely on unimproved water sources and this comes about as a result of fragmented institutions we consider are responsible for the obstruction of accountability in the sector with high investment and aid flows, making it vulnerable to corruption," it added.

The outcome of the two-day discussions was handed over to a representative of the African Ministers' Council on Water (AMCOW).

The summit was the culmination of a sub-Saharan capacity building program sponsored by the UNDP-Water Governance Facility together with its partners UNDP Cap-Net, the Water Integrity Network (WIN) and the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI).

The three-year program, funded by the Swedish Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), has trained more than 400 people on water integrity.

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