ABOUT
Africa Water & Sanitation Systems Leadership Symposium 2026: Accelerating Water and Sanitation Transformation for Sustainable Impact will take place at the Kigali Convention Centre in Rwanda from 17 to 21 August 2026. The symposium is co-convened by the African Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW) and the Government of Rwanda, and facilitated by IRC.
The event will mobilise leadership at political, fiscal, financial, and technical levels. It will spotlight financial credibility as the foundation for unlocking sustainable investment and building resilient systems. The symposium will bring together African leaders, reformers, financiers, and global partners to drive momentum, share country experiences, and align on solutions that deliver credible and investable water and sanitation services.
A framework for transformation
Africa Water and Sanitation Systems Symposium structures the transformation agenda around 4 mutually reinforcing pillars, aligned with the Africa Water Vision 2063 and the Africa Water Investment Programme (AIP):
01 Leadership
Transformation begins with leadership—political, fiscal, and technical.
02 Regulation and accountability
Trust is the currency of investment. Regulation is how trust is made visible.
03 Professionalisation
Systems are only as effective as the institutions that operate them.
04 Strategic public finance
No system can sustain itself without credible public finance.
To turn the four pillars into action, the symposium will deliver six content streams over the three main days:
High-level political dialogues
Ministers of Water and Finance and Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) on national reforms agenda for financial credibility.
Strategic dialogues on regulation and accountability
Pathways for alignment with institutional credibility and investment-readiness.
Strategic dialogues on public finance
Pathways for fiscal and budgetary reforms and domestic resource mobilisation for accelerating public-private partnerships and investment readiness.
Strategic dialogues on professionalisation
Pathways for efficiency gains, and professional excellence in both rural and urban service delivery.
African youth solutions and innovation dialogues
Connecting innovative solutions and startups with WASH leaders.
Systems reform and investments dialogues
connecting country project holders with DFIs to explore concrete collaborations for de-risking, efficiency-based savings and domestic resource mobilisation
Why Kigali matters now
Across Africa, water and sanitation systems are approaching a point of no return. But in 2026, Africa has a unique political opportunity to change this trajectory.
This symposium aims to position African Institutions as credible, investable and accountable. Read about the vision, priorities and details of the event.
Highlights from past systems events
