Leaders, experts, practitioners, scientists, development partners and industry representatives working across different areas of water and sanitation sector across the world convened in Kampala in February 2020 at the 20^th African Water Association International Congress and Exhibition to discuss pathways to accelerate access to water and sanitation for all.  The conference, hosted every two years in different African countries, brings together professionals and industry players to share ideas, best practices and recent developments in the water and sanitation sector.

According to National Water Sewage Corporation, the event has been organised to discuss how problems of water scarcity and stress in Africa can be solved through innovations and diplomatic efforts.  The congress which is organised under the African Water Association, brings together more than 100 water utilities from Africa and another 200 countries outside Africa to discuss the water and sanitation sector, identify breakthroughs in addressing water and sanitation challenges and reflect on Africa’s progress in achieving the SDGs and establishing new impetus to achieve water and sanitation for all.

As the climate changes, the population grows and economies expand, pressures on the world’s finite water resources in the great lakes region is already intensifying.  The quantity and quality of available water, and with growing populations more water is both consumed and polluted. The attention of policymakers has been bent on addressing the short-term vagaries of weather which have been predominantly droughts and floods yet quality of water has largely been overlooked. Unlike the quantity of water that is easily captured by media spotlight thus drawing public attention, water quality—being predominantly invisible and hard to detect—goes largely unnoticed. Even without these developments, population growth would drive water scarcity on the continent. But larger deficits in the amount of water flowing into streams and rivers during future hot and dry years will amplify this effect. In a future world with more people and less water, countries need to work together to ensure the best use of resources to catch and store rainfall in the wet, flood risk years, and equally distribute that water in dry years. In an already complex and tense social economic and political landscape, If the governments fail to work together to prepare, the consequences for their people are going to be dire and catastrophic.