Sector Wide Approach (SWAp) in Practice sharing seminar between South Africa and Mozambique

Sector Wide Approach (SWAp) in Practice in South Africa and Mozambique will be the theme of a two-day lesson sharing seminar in Pretoria South Africa from 25 to 26 May 2010. This is part of IRC's regional programme in Southern Africa, see http://www.irc.nl/page/36924.

Senior officials from both the Mozambican National Directorate of Water and from the Department of Water Affairs in South Africa, together with SWAp practitioners will be attending the seminar with a view to gaining insights from SWAps in practice towards drawing out lessons to share in Southern Africa. South Africa will present experiences from their Masibambane, “Let’s work together” water sector programme, which is recognised as having successfully built the South African water sector and demonstrated good achievements so far.

Each achievement required planning, technical support, consultation, mechanisms for collaboration and joint decision making, dedicated resources, and political commitment, see http://www.irc.nl/page/49527. The seminar also affords the opportunity to gain insights from the challenges Mozambique faces in building its water sector and lessons learnt.

Lessons from SWAps

Many lessons have been learnt from water sector SWAps which illustrate that the approach has the potential to not only build the water sector but also to put in place mechanisms for lesson sharing, acceleration of the MDGs, accountability and more sustainable service delivery practices. SWAp processes can lead to more robust sector programmes and serve as a vehicle for sector development. How can this be achieved in practice? The purpose of the seminar is to address this question and to share lessons on what has worked and what has not worked in practice.

Objectives

Objectives of the seminar include:

• Examining the evolution of the sector wide approach in the water sector in both the South African and Mozambique contexts
• Identifying from examples what works in practice and what the key success factors are with a focus on the following topics
• Why the sector wide approach? (general overview)
  - How to start a sector programme / SWAp
  - Sector policy – ensuring sector ownership and addressing the water and sanitation MDG targets
  - Financial strategies and mechanisms (sector financing – different modalities)
  - Building the sector and sector support
  - Achieving successful sector collaboration (vertical and horizontal) and donor coordination
  - Knowledge sharing and learning
• Use the outcomes of the seminar for further documentation and tool development on effective SWAp practices
• Pilot a bilateral exchange between South Africa and Mozambique towards a Southern Africa region wide lesson learning and exchange on water SWAps.

Participants

Senior government officials from Mozambique and South Africa, including officials directly involved in the SWAp, partners and water sector practitioners from Mozambique and South Africa are being invited. Participants will bring experience in establishing, planning, implementing and supporting a sector wide approach in the water sector.