Africa
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The African Working group is interested in Water supply and Sanitation and Integrated Water Management issues in the African area
What is the Africa Working Group (AWG)?
The Africa Working Group (AWG) is one of the ‘regional components’ of the EU Water Initiative (EUWI) and is responsible for its activities in Africa. The purpose of this partnership is to make an effective joint (Africa-Europe) contribution to the achievement of water and sanitation related MDGs in Sub-Sahara Africa.
The AWG emerged from the EU-Africa Strategic Partnership on Water Affairs and Sanitation, signed in September 2002 during the World Summit on Sustainable Development by the Presidents of South Africa, Nigeria, the European Union and the European Commission.
The AWG has members coming from the Technical Advisory Committee of the African Ministerial Council on Water (AMCOW-TAC), the European Union Member States (EU MS), the European Commission (EC), civil society, financing institutions, knowledge institutions and the private sector. The diversity of its membership is considered to be one of the strengths of the AWG. Its membership is open to organisations active in the fields of policy dialogue and national policy framework development, accountability and transparency, and donor harmonisation.
The AWG is co-chaired by the AMCOW-TAC and an annually rotating EU member state, while a ‘troika’ consisting of the present chair, outgoing chair and incoming chair functions as the operational management body. The AMCOW-TAC acts as the strategic counterpart to the troika of the AWG. Day-to-day work of the AWG is enhanced through a support team hosted by IRC.
The AWG multi-annual work programme latest version (2006-2009) consists of the following groups of activities:
• Organizing policy dialogue and thematic discussions on water supply and sanitation and IWRM/TWM.
• Strengthening accountability and transparency mechanisms.
• Stimulating the development of national policy frameworks through a multi-stakeholder approach.
To enhance its effectiveness, the AWG has adopted the following working principles:
• Close cooperation with and strong involvement of AMCOW-TAC and the AU
• Alignment and cooperation with other international actors and Africa focused activities, like UN-Water, AfDB, WSP, G8, GF4A etc
• Improving communications with the members and stakeholders of the AWG
• Bilingual operations (FR, EN)
Based on this multi-annual programme the AWG develops and implements its annual work plan. A new AWG strategy is currently under development and will be implemented in the course of 2009.
In 2008 there was an intensive policy discussion on sanitation between all African stakeholders. This led to the endorsement of the Africa-EU statement on Sanitation during the AU Summit (July 2008) and to the involvement of the AWG in the implementation trajectory through membership of the WSP task force. An important outcome of the sanitation statement was the role of the AWG in leading and coordinating the development and preparation of the proposal to the OECD-DAC Creditor Reporting System to disaggregate the future reporting of ODA for sanitation and water. The proposal was endorsed at the OECD meeting in May 2009. This marked an important and effective collaboration between EU Member States, civil society organisations and international bodies.
Also in 2008, an important AWG study was concluded: the mapping of EU aid to Africa in the water and sanitation sector. The AWG developed this project in the summer of 2007, under good alignment and coordination with the UN-Water GLAAS (Global Annual Assessment) exercise and with OECD-DAC. The report provides a basis for further dialogue between the EU and Africa on how to improve aid effectiveness
Both this report and the changes to the OECD DAC CRS are likely to have significant and measurable long term impacts in targeting aid flows to the sector.
Highlighted Documents
- AWG Newsletter January 2010 (french version)
- AWG Newsletter January 2010 (english version)
- 5Th Water Forum : AFRICA REGIONAL PAPER
Africa has now reached the point where there needs to be greater convergence between the high levelcommitments and delivery through concrete and unambiguous actions, strengthening and scaling-up ofexisting mechanisms and initiatives, and refinement of strategies to close gaps.