Call to water sector to work with AquaFed and accelerate Water Action Agenda progress

AquaFed is calling on all organisations working in water and wastewater to work with us to break down silos and accelerate progress on the Water Action Agenda and SDG6 targets.

The Federation is appealing to all organisations, not just private operators, to join AquaFed so that collectively, we can plan and implement multi-stakeholder partnerships for Water Action Agenda Commitments.

AquaFed’s appeal to new partners came during the recent Special Event on SDG6 and the Water Action Agenda at the UN in New York (16 July), where it was revealed that a lack of collaboration and partnership is the biggest factor holding back Commitments from being achieved.

Fred Van Heems, AquaFed’s President, who spoke at the Special Event, said: “Water must always remain under public control, but for too long stakeholders who can implement solutions have been on different sides and in silos.

“Private sector organisations bring innovation, technology, data and many other specialisms like skills and training best practise and efficient utility management. But these can only be implemented successfully via multi-stakeholder partnerships if the Water Action Agenda Commitments and SDG6 targets are to be achieved. As we know, effective partnerships themselves are an SDG goal and there is so much more potential for all organisations working in water.

“AquaFed now has a second College of membership that is open to everyone because we are determined to break down silos and barriers to progress. Our aim is to implement successful public-private-partnerships together with all stakeholders. Collectively, we should all be making the case for and delivering services that operate transparently and make the best use of data.”

At the Special Event, Madhushree Chatterjee, Chief of Natural Resources and Interlinkages Branch at the Division for SDGs of UN DESA and Secretariat of the UN 2023 Water Conference, explained the key challenges and barriers that Commitment-holders are currently experiencing:

• lack of knowledge and skills to implement commitments
• lack of community knowledge and awareness of commitments
• political and leadership challenges and in particular, enabling policies that support implementation
• need for much greater global collaboration and momentum.

Comments from Fred Van Heems and other panellists at the Special Event can be viewed here.

The first part of the session is available to see here.

For more information about AquaFed and how to join, contact: Neil Dhot, Executive Director, AquaFed. info@aquafed.org