Water sector stakeholders from Africa gathered at the Water Integrity Summit in Lusaka, Zambia to energise local African relationships in the water community and to take resolute action against corruption at political levels.

The Water Integrity Summit marks the conclusion of a successful three-year regional integrity training programme in Sub-Saharan Africa. The programme has trained more than 400 stakeholders across 36 countries, the impact of which will be documented and analysed at the Summit, in order to further disseminate practical insights on how to respond to misconduct in the water sector.

Under the theme Accelerating Towards a Water Secure World, the summit offered African water sector stakeholders an opportunity to exchange knowledge and experiences, as well as successful tools and challenges when implementing water integrity action plans. The summit aimed to contribute to building political ownership for water integrity practice, assess the gaps and develop a way forward for further enhancing integrity in the water sector.

“Lack of water integrity is a huge cost for societies as it often translates into poor service provision, loss of lives, stalling of the much-needed development and degraded resources,” Zambian Minister of Mines, Energy and Water Development YamfwaMukanga told the summit.