6th NIWE International Water Conference (IWC 2023)

1.0   Background:

The sustainable development goals (SDGs) clearly underpin the importance of water; this is because water is directly connected to human health and wellbeing. In Nigeria, water supply systems are categorized into urban, small towns, and rural systems; whilst, the rural system is doing well, the other two systems are heavily challenged. According to the latest Water Sanitation and Hygiene National Outcome Routine Mapping (WASHNORM - 2021), up to 87 % (179 million) of Nigerians do not have access to safely managed drinking water services; these services are provided mostly by State Water Agencies (SWAs) which have been underperforming in recent years.

Efforts by the Federal Government to revamp these organizations with the support of development partners in the past have not yielded much improvements. The reasons are not far-fetched; and is not limited to declining investment in the sector, low capacity development and utilization in the areas of technical competence, system optimization, low operational standards, aging staff and lack of succession planning, poor cost recovery, and lack of regulation of state actors among others. It has, therefore, become essential to have holistic consideration of the entire WASH governance structure, to see where changes can be implemented or accelerated in order to fast-track the attainment of SDG 6.

The Nigerian Institution of Water Engineers as a responsive professional engineering body has been organizing the International Water Conference to bring together stakeholders in the water sector to discuss topical issues affecting the water sector and harvest ideas that will engender rapid development in the sector.

In other to make the 2023 edition more successful than previous years, partnering with other relevant stakeholders and development partners has become imperative in furtherance of goal 17 of the SDG. NIWE is open to developing joint themes, co–host and sponsoring conference programmes with interested organizations. 

 

2.0     Conference Objectives

The International Conference will harvest knowledge from around the world to sustainably manage our safely managed water supply systems. The conference aims to examine the governance structure including actors, systems, and processes of Nigeria’s water supply system. This will be achieved as outlined in the following objectives:

ü  Promote cross pollination of ideas and synergy on water, sanitation and hygiene governance among experts, managers, decision makers and the academia.

ü  Provide a forum to facilitate knowledge exchange, based on real experiences and innovations from water sector professionals across Nigeria.

ü  Support international efforts to ensure partnerships for sustainable and accelerated change in water governance in Nigeria by highlighting and documenting lessons learned.

ü  Provide networking among water sector professionals for sustainable management of water infrastructures

ü  Set new directions for research, knowledge and capacity building needs related to water governance.

 

3.0     Target Audience:

NIWE hopes to bring together all water sector practitioners from the public and private sector of the economy including NGOs, CBOs and other relevant stakeholders. Specifically, the conference targets managers, decision makers, technocrats, academia and industry that are connected with water

4.0     Conference Theme:

Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Governance in Nigeria: Rethinking Strategies and Strengthening Policies”

 

Sub Themes:

 

T1.          Integrating knowledge, strategies and decision making for WASH

T2.          Accelerating access to sustainable urban and rural WASH

T3.          Innovative and Smart WASH Management Technologies

T4.          Climate resilient WASH in practice

T5.          Strengthening WASH enabling Environment

T6.          Financial Re-engineering for WASH

T7.          Bridging the Human Resources Gap for WASH

T8.          Youth and Gender Mainstreaming in WASH

T9.          Accelerating Change in WASH Governance

T10.        Groundwater Governance for Effective WASH

 

 

 

5.0     Features:

·        PLENARY SESSIONS

·        TECHNICAL SESSIONS

·        TRAINING WORKSHOPS

·        EXHIBITION

·        PANEL DISCUSSION

              ·       ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

              ·      GALA NIGHT/DINNER