2004 ATPS Annual Conference and Workshop, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Baseline Studies on Sustainable Water Catchment Management

ATPS Small Grants on Water and Environment

Regional Studies on Existing Water Initiatives

ATPS/NETWAS/SDC Water and Sanitation Workshop, September 2006

Follow-up Initiatives

Lake Naivasha Slowly Shrinking

Strategic research for industrialization

AMCOW

AMCEN

Water and Sanitation Program

Infrastructure Consortium for Africa

TIGER Initiative

RWSSI Trust Fund

African Water Facility

WriteShop - Maximising the Impact of Research through Science Communica

ATPS Programme on Water and Environmental Sustainability

The African Technology Policy Studies Network (ATPS) inaugurated a new programme, on 29 November 2004 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to enhance the generation use and communication of knowledge in driving environmentally sustainable use of water resources in Africa.

The ATPS Programme on Water and Environmental Sustainability responds to issues that have been raised during conferences and workshops in the past two decade. These meetings include the Agenda 21 (1992 Earth Summit, Rio de Janeiro), the Third World Water Forum in Kyoto (2003) and the World Summit on Sustainable Development (2002). The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the African Ministerial Council on Water and the actions articulated under the New Partnership for Africa's Development are other forums where concerns for environmental sustainability and the use and management of water resources have been raised.

The main objective of the programme is to enhance the generation, use and communication of knowledge in driving environmentally sustainable use of water resources in Africa. Pursuant to the main objective, ATPS brokers and enhances the use of knowledge from partners within and outside Africa in meeting Africa's and NEPAD's goals, and Millennium Development Goal 7 to attain environmental sustainability in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).

As the attention of African policy makers and the development partners are turned to how to urgently and concretely reduce poverty, it has become necessary to examine the water-environment nexus: its implications on the production processes relevant to the poor; environmental health and security and common resource use conflicts that are associated with water use; water pollution; other related cross sectoral and cross border conflicts in water catchment management; sustainable governance; public participation and empowerment; and the cost effectiveness/benefit of different water catchment management options. A holistic and integrated approach to interrogating these issues would yield results that are implementable over the long-run, with direct relevance to the poor achieved through participatory measures.

Some of these issues are not new. But attempts to address them continue to be ad hoc and hence without proper considerations for sustainable governance, stakeholder involvement and cost-effective choice of management options. Little is known about the drivers of stakeholders' willingness and ability to adopt and implement management options as well as their consequent preferences, attitudes, values and behavior. Without a proper understanding of these issues, water management technologies are likely to be unsustainable. Many African governments are now paying attention to the policy issues around water and the environment.

The specific objectives are:

To improve water management and conservation for poverty reduction

To enhance the capability of the water and sanitation governance and delivery institutions in meeting their service delivery objectives in selected key countries

To induce attitudinal and behavioral changes with respect to sustainable water and environmental management at various levels

To harmonize national and regional water acts and environmental acts/policies to avert potential cross-border conflict

To enhance knowledge exchange and collaboration between the different water stakeholders' in Africa

To generate new knowledge and build capacity for efficient water management

There are many players in key roles in improving water access and management but the ATPS programme will differ markedly in many ways. "Our goals may be the same but our entry points differ," explains Dr Osita Ogbu, "Where there are areas of overlap, ATPS, as one among a few Pan African International non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working on water and environment, will take the initiative to build synergies with the programmes and institutions," he adds.

The programme is well thought out and was informed by a consultation forum that ATPS organized on 15 June 2004, with major stakeholders to discuss Knowledge and Sustainable Water Resource Use in Africa. The participants, drawn from the academia, private sector, the government and NGOs acknowledged that it was the first time any institution has brought together various players on water and environment to exchange ideas and knowledge. They challenged ATPS to keep the forum active.

Funded by the Royal Dutch Government, the ATPS Programme on Water and Environment is designed to utilize ATPS' areas of expertise including knowledge exchange, knowledge brokerage and advocacy. The programme emphasizes knowledge sharing at various levels primarily through:

Joint research, training activities and deliberative workshops between African researchers, relevant government institutions and responsible water management authorities and international researchers/institutions involved in sustainable water catchments management

Stakeholder and public participation events to share existing and new knowledge among researchers, government agencies and the public to encourage ownership of technology policies that result from the research and participatory exercises

ATPS, through this programme, intends to introduce a holistic and integrated approach to studying the water-environment nexus that would yield results that can be implemented in the long-run, with direct relevance to the poor.