KEY OUTCOMES OF THE WSLG MEETING HELD ON 18-19 NOVEMBER 2010

  1. Introduction

The Water Sector Leadership Group, a think-tank and stakeholder dialogue forum for the water sector, held its bi-annual meeting for 2010 at eThekwini’s Protea Karridene Conference Centre on the 18th and 19th November 2010. The key theme for the two-day meeting was to solicit stakeholder input into the revision process and content of the next National Water Resources Strategy. The meeting had a good representation of stakeholders from within the water sector – water sector institutions and interest groups, and inter-sectoral partners from within government (agriculture and forestry, rural development, cooperative governance and treasury), organised private sector (BUSA, Chamber of Mines), organised local government (SALGA) and organised civil society.

  1. Key Points from Acting Director-General’s Address: Setting the Scene

The Acting Director-General, Mr Trevor Balzer, briefed the meeting on the priorities of the Department of Water Affairs as informed by the current Government’s 2014 Service Delivery Outcomes and sustained programmes based on DWA’s key functions. The new Minister of Water Affairs expects the department to play a visible role in water services delivery through targeted local government support programmes. She is also expecting DWA to coordinate sector activities through a single national plan.

Given the negative publicity that the sector has recently received, the challenge is to ensure that whilst there are clear plans for the medium and long term activities, sector partners also act on the most urgent issues such as water pollution, illegal abstraction of water, and lack of drinking water for over 1,6 million poor people.

The development of the National Water Resources Strategy provides an opportunity for all sector players to define the legacy that must be created in terms of water security beyond the 2014 targets set by the current government.

He challenged the WSLG to make its voice heard in society through pronouncements on the difficult challenges that the water sector is facing.

He gave an overview of the service delivery outcomes. The following key comments from the delegates were noted:

  • There is a need for closer collaboration between the water and energy sectors on issues of power generation, water demand management and energy efficiency for the water infrastructure
  • DWA needs to provide firm leadership and direction on the institutional realignment project
  • Water pricing is critical for water use efficiency, sustainability of services, infrastructure asset management, institutional viability and costs of water-dependentproducts e.g. agricultural produce
  • Provincial water plans form a basis for converging social and economic development programmes of provinces and national or catchment water management plans to give effect to the National Water Resources Strategy.
  1. Key comments on the revision of the NWRS
  • The NWRS must be developed, packaged, owned and communicated in a manner that truly positions it as an overarching water resources strategy that informs all water resources activities in the medium to long-term.
  • The DWA must lead the whole water supply value chain, with clear appreciation of the roles of different water institutions. Strong leadership in the water services sector is required at this stage.
  • It was urged that the best practice learnt from the collaborative development of the SFWS be replicated, where the WSLG played an instrumental role in drawing upon sector expertise, facilitating consensus and ownership of the final strategy and saving a lot of time and potential disputes. (particularly in the consultation stage).
  1. Common Threads in the NWRS Responses from the Inter-sectoral Stakeholders

The NWRS must respond to the following:

•Poverty alleviation – access to basic water supply, water for productive use, food security, etc

•Balancing demand and supply (water security, use efficiency, WCDM, etc)

•Balancing economic, environmental and social needs (infrastructure, allocations, etc)

•Resource management - water quality and water resource protection (“impactor “and impacted perspectives)

•Financing – pricing, cost-efficiency, viability

•Cross-cutting issues

  • Sector collaboration and integrated planning
  • Climate change and water security
  • Financial and risk management
  1. Key Messages from the Meeting (Points to Ponder)
  1. Sector Leadership: The Department of Water Affairs must take full responsibility for leadership actions (policy development and adherence monitoring, legislative compliance, and implementation support) for the full water supply value chain without disregard for implementation responsibilities of the different water institutions. This is very important in avoiding vague responsibilities between DWA and other national departments (Department of Cooperative Governance, Department of Human Settlements, Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, etc), and also between DWA’s role as a regulator of water services and the role of provinces as custodians of local government.
  1. Access to Basic Water Supply: The water sector, led by DWA, needs to demonstrate that it is concerned about the over 1, 6 million people that still do not have access to adequate water supply. Sector programmes should be clear that addressing backlogs is still a priority that is high on the water sector’s agenda, whilst ensuring greater focus on sustainability of services, including management, cost efficiencies, O&M and asset management.
  2. Water pricing: Given its direct impact on sustainability of institutions, services and economic sector outputs, the revision of the raw water pricing strategy is very critical to financial viability of the water sector programme as a whole. Difficult decisions must be made about pricing in the agricultural sector and effective cost recovery in the raw water and domestic water provision to not only ensure recovery of actual costs of supply but to also encourage conservation and reduce demand. These decisions must also fairly reflect socio-economic realities of the South African society including the need for cross-subsidisation and food security.
  3. Institutions: The sector must develop and strengthen water institutions to be effective (doing what they can do best and limiting duplication), accountability (who is responsible for what and how these are accountable both to government and to society/stakeholders) and efficient operations (optimisation, value for money, cost-effectiveness and responsible expenditure). The need for cost-effectiveness is particularly relevant when addressing emerging institutional modelling questions such as:
  • Whether there is value in combining blue and green scorpions (“Rainbow Scorpions”)
  • Whether operational costs could be saved by establishing “shared management centres” for more than one CMA without losing accountability and operational responsiveness at water management area level
  • Whether operational costs could be saved from establishing multi-sector economic regulators, where water and energy are combined into one regulator
  1. Regulation: There are strong messages from both the public, Parliament and water sector stakeholders that DWA must begin to regulate where strong regulation is both necessary and urgent to earncredibility and maintain confidence in the sector
  2. Human Resource capacity development:The time for debate is long over – the water sector, through DWA stewardship, must confirm and quantify supply and demand of skills in the water sector. The meeting endorsed the approach taken by the
    Skills Development Task Team to ensure coordinated response to the capacity challenges of the sector by taking a long term systemic approach (throughout the skills development pipeline) whilst tackling critical skills shortages. To this end a centralised water sector skills intelligence capability and coordination function is vital and requires dedicated resources.
  3. Water Sector Leadership Group Role: The WSLG must be firm and vocal on key challenges affecting the sector to demonstrate that all these challenges, except for internal institutional ones, are clearly acknowledged as water sector challenges and not just DWA or local government issues. These include key challenges such as water pollution, water losses, infrastructure dilapidation, climate change mitigation, and others.
  1. Key Actions for DWA senior management

The meeting agreed that DWA must take decisive leadership in the following areas:

  • Finalisation of the NWRS, WfGD Framework, Raw Water Pricing Strategy, Institutional Realignment and Regulation model
  • Approval of sector strategies, especially the following that are still awaiting approval: HIV/AIDS Mainstreaming Strategy, and Water Services Infrastructure Asset Management Strategy
  • Institutional location and funding of the Water Information Network programme (WIN-SA)
  1. Other key resolutions of the meeting for DWA senior management action/noting
  2. The WSLG EXCO to finalise review of configuration and tasks of the Strategic Task Teams, noting the following WSLG positions from the meeting
  3. Only four/five?? STTs to continue in 2011: WCDM, Regulation, Skills Development, Finance, and Institutional Development & Reform
  4. To establish a NWRS STT that will incorporate the pre-existing STTs dealing with Water Security, Climate Change.
  5. DWA to ensure availability of a champion to convene each task team and allocate resources to run task team activities
  6. Each task team to be chaired or co-chaired by a delegate from a relevant sector institution other than DWA
  7. A process for the review of the role of the MCC and provincial water sector forums must be set up, noting the sector collaboration implications of the government’s 2014 Service Delivery Outcomes. The WSLG EXCO will lead the process and consider different options.
  8. It was noted that the End of Programme Evaluation of Masibambane is being embarked upon. Noting that the sector wide approach, supported by donor funding gave rise to sector collaboration and the sector fora, including the WSLG, it is vital that sector partners (through the WSLG??) be proactively engaged in the Evaluation, including effective sector representation on the Evaluation Steering Committee. It is strategically important that this Evaluation Team provide the basis for an exit strategy post Masibambane donor funding with firm recommendations on what should be taken forward and how best to do so.