Water Stewardship Summit
Addressing the Annual Water Stewardship Summit in
Sandton, Trevor Balzer, deputy director general: strategic
and emergency projects at the Department of Water and
Sanitation (DWS), echoed the department's Deputy Minister,
Pamela Tshwete, that big businesses should support funding
sustainable development projects.
The summit was a meeting of water, infrastructure, and
financial sector stakeholders. It presented in-depth talks on
funding models to improve South Africa’s water security, in
support of the National Water and Sanitation Master Plan,
which is in the process of being drafted and is expected to be
completed in March 2018.
Calls went out at the summit for the financial sector to
look at ways to support efforts to close the water services
infrastructure funding gap of about R30-billion a year, and
which requires new funding models to minimise losses and
improve revenue generation and collection to reduce the
budget gap in the sector.
James Aiello, senior adviser, transaction advisory services
at National Treasury, said many municipalities outside the
main metros are in an unsustainable position, and face
significant challenges in securing infrastructure funding.
Catherine-Candice Koffman, head of infrastructure and
telecommunications project finance at Nedbank CIB, said
it helps the bank from a corporate and investment banking
perspectiv e to become involved in the early planning
process, as this enables it to leverage its own goals to
contribute to the future master plan.
Cornelius Ruiters, executive: infrastructure and
programme management services at the Independent
Development Trust, urged innovative water infrastructure
funding models in SA and focused on enhancing efficiencies
in the system.
Danish Ambassador Trine Rask Thygesen said the Danish
government has three main aims in supporting SA’s efforts
to improve water security and bridge the infrastructure
funding shortfalls.
In-depth discussions and participation from the floor ensured
lively debate.
Delegates took the tea breaks as opportunities to discuss the
presentations.
These are foreign policy and long-standing partnerships with
South Africa; an ongoing interest in helping improve water
services; and the fact that Denmark has developed world
class water infrastructure innovations. u
Water in our country, and particularly the North West
province, is of critical importance. The Water Research
Commission (WRC), Department of Science and Technology
(DST), and key role players from the province engaged in a
Provincial Roadshow in the North West province
The focus of the Roadshow is on ‘Securing Water for
the Future’. This roadshow has served as an opportunity
to introduce the National Water RDI Roadmap and Water
Technologies Demonstration Programme to partners in
the North West province, and to explore how universities,
utilities, and municipalities can foster water innovation in
the province.
The roadshow takes the form of an open workshop for
interested stakeholders, followed by strategic meetings
with organisations such as Bojanala, Rustenberg and JB
marks municipalities, the University of the North West, and
Magalies Water.
The RDI roadmap was created to increase water
security in South Africa by supporting research, high-
end skills development, and deployment of innovation
into practice. The Water Technologies Demonstration
Programme (WADER) is the water innovation partner that
pulls together applied research and development with pre-
commercialisation stages to see how this can be rolled out
‘Securing Water for the Future ’
Delegates from North West province during an interactive
session discussing ‘Securing Water for the future’ and how
their institution can engage with the Water RDI Roadmap
Portfolio Management Unit (PMU) and WADER.
into practice. WADER acts an innovation intermediary to
facilitate high-level collaborative technology demonstrators
from the public and private sectors to maximise the
potential of the water innovation value chain with the aim of
accelerating technologies to the market. u
Water Sewage & Effluent November/December 2017
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