AMBASSADOR'S SPEECH AT RWSP COMPLETION WORKSHOP

Ladies and gentlemen,

Good evening to all of you,

I am very pleased to be addressing you at this completion workshop for the Regional Water Sector Programme.

Cape Town is an excellent location for this workshop. Denmark is supporting the City of Cape Town on a large number of projects, among others, the implementation of improved air pollution systems, climate change research, and energy efficiency in municipal buildings. So it is definitely not the first time I   visit Cape Town in relation with the Danish development assistance.  

Denmark has for many years, despite of its small size, been a big country in terms of development assistance. A political decision to allocate a minimum of 0,8% of the GDP to development assistance has been made. The regional focus for Denmark’s development aid is predominately Africa, and especially Sub-Saharan Africa.

Danida has supported the water sector in the SADC region for   over 2 decades. The regional support has primarily been focussed on the Zambezi River Basin, but Danida is also involved with water projects at a national level, currently in Zambia and South Africa. I am pleased to see that these programmes will also present their results here at this workshop.

In May last year, the Danish prime Minister and the Minister of Development Cooperation launched the outcome of an Africa Commission, in which among other, President Kikwete from Tanzania had been participating. The mandate of the commission was to find “African solutions to African challenges”. The commission came up with recommendations to increase focus on especially the youth, the private sector and renewable energy.

Another overall guiding framework for the Danish development assistance is the Millennium Development Goals, which Denmark is fully committed to meet. As you all know, one of the targets is set to increase the share of population which has access to water. 

It took us – SADC and Danida – a long time to prepare the regional Water Sector Programme. The process was heavily influenced by organisational changes in SADC - particularly the centralisation to Gaborone - but by 2005 we were ready to go.

Today we heard about all the successes SADC and Danida together have achieved over the past five years. If there are activities that did not fully meet the expected output – we will let them rest as collateral damage.

However, I feel confident to state, that at an overall level, the Regional Water Sector Programme has been very successful and has had an impact on the thinking in many Ministries of Water and in SADC.  The programme has through its community projects demonstrated how a holistic approach to water management can contribute significantly to improve people’s livelihood.

My colleagues in the program tell me it is merely common sense, which  needs to be applied and implemented. I am being told that those initiatives have already been positively discussed at the SADC meeting of Ministers of Water, and the Ministers have expressed a wish for more activities based on the experiences of this Regional Water Sector Programme.

Another success worth mentioning is the awareness programme. The programme managed to bring stakeholders together from various sectors to discuss water management on a broader scale, including how to deal with the effects of Climate Change.

Also, the programme has increased the media focus on water issues through initiatives such as the Africa Water Wire and the SADC Water Media Award.  These initiatives have now become institutionalised and are part of the SADC / Water landscape. We are very proud of these achievements.

I understand that tomorrow there will be a seminar giving us the opportunity to listen to experiences from other programmes. This is a very useful exercise. Working in the water sector has so many aspects of both “hardware nature” such as infrastructure, as well as the more soft issues, such as social impacts and community organisation, gender, environment etc. The high complexity makes knowledge sharing a very useful exercise. We must always be ready to learn from others and change our way of doing things.

Climate change is already a factor, which forces you, the water experts, to redefine your ways of working. All studies show that Africa is the continent that will be most affected. We also know that the most marginalized and vulnerable groups with the lowest adaption capacity will be affected the most. Some studies shows that as many as 250 million Africans will, due to droughts caused by climate change,  experience increased problems with access to water.

The community projects of this programme have clearly demonstrated what adaptation to climate change means on the ground. By improving communities’ access to water in a sustainable manner, we make them more resilient to changes in climate. This is a very important outcome of the programme. It is now up to SADC, National Ministries of Water and last but not least the local government in the different countries to build on this good experience.

Denmark took on leadership role in the field of climate change by hosting the COP15 last year in December. The outcome of this conference is the Copenhagen Accord, which provides a strong framework for immediate action and defines important milestones in the global effort to fight climate change. Also, Copenhagen Accord provides a platform for further negotiations towards a legally binding agreement on climate change within the UN.

I hope that all of you will expand your partnership with the Danish government to also work with us in convincing your Governments to associate themselves with the Copenhagen Accord. You have seen the impacts of climate change on the ground and you are aware of the need to act now!

With these words I would like to wish you all a continued good workshop.

Thank  you