South Africa’s water woes have been the subject of concern for several decades. Despite multiple water emergencies and ample warning of an impending national water crisis, little headway has been made in improving the situation.
The majority of the country’s dams are overexploited, with two-thirds of our rivers in poor condition. According to the 2023 Blue Drop Water Report, as much as 15% of South Africa’s water supply systems are in poor or critical condition. For a country ranked as one of the top 30 driest countries in the world, good water management is essential to general wellbeing and water security.
In response to looming water scarcity challenges, the Strategic Water Partners Network (SWPN) emerged to bridge South Africa’s projected water supply-demand gap. This partnership, co-chaired by the Department of Water and Sanitation and South African Breweries, brings together government agencies, private enterprises and civil society organisations to collectively tackle water security challenges.
SWPN Executive Secretary Peter Varndell notes that partnerships are central to the organisation’s work. He adds that the collaborative’s successful initiatives over the years in the agricultural, municipal and mine water sectors earned SWPN the international State-of-the-Art Partnership of the Year Award in the clean water category in 2018.
The collaboration brings together diverse stakeholders to assess problems and opportunities and take a practical approach to problem-solving, serving as an incubator for water management solutions. Joint discussions then evolve into concrete projects, which are carefully tested, refined and ultimately scaled up.
The network operates through specialised working groups, each targeting critical areas of water management: agricultural supply chains; wastewater and sanitation; water use efficiency; and water stewardship. Core teams work with municipalities to reduce water demand and address non-revenue water loss (e.g. water leaks). To this end, the organisation has delivered various projects targeting water demand reduction in Polokwane, Nelson Mandela Bay and Johannesburg. The network participates in Gauteng’s water security initiative, which addresses the province’s pressing supply-demand water gap.
Since its launch in 2011, SWPN has grown from five founding partners to an extensive network comprising dozens of international organisations, public sector bodies, financial institutions and civil society groups. This growth reflects both the urgency of South Africa’s water challenges and the effectiveness of SWPN’s collaborative model.
SWPN places particular emphasis on scalability and sustainability. Projects are selected based on their potential to help close the projected 17% water supply-demand gap by 2030, but equally important is their ability to be replicated or to catalyse broader change in water management practices. The network prioritises initiatives that can become self-sustaining beyond initial support, ensuring a long-term impact.
SWPN in action – The Alex Project
Building on the demonstrated success of previous programmes, the Alex Project aims to create a fund to seed investments to reduce water leaks while ringfencing savings to pay for scaling out the projects.
SWPN has concluded a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Johannesburg Water permitting the collaboration to repair leaks. It has identified the retrofitting and repair of faulty or leaking household plumbing fittings in Alexandra as a viable project. Customers will be educated on the benefits of responsible water use and effective metering will be implemented to enable equitable revenue collection of consumed water. The project is anticipated to deliver a financial saving of R56 million a year.
The role of business in water security efforts
Rather than playing a strong role in lobbying or advocacy, Varndell notes that SWPN is more focused on finding areas of commonality and supporting the implementation of those activities that deliver results.
He notes that opportunities exist for companies and nonprofits to support municipalities and that it is possible to cross-subsidise operational budget-type projects with corporate CSI opportunities. Companies can support projects through their CSI strategies, leveraging their social investments to support job creation, health and other interventions that involve water security.
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Source: The original version of this article was published in the Trialogue Business in Society Handbook 2024 (27th edition).
