The Water Utilities Executive Leadership Conference commenced in Swakopmund on 31 March, bringing together senior executives from Namibia, Botswana, Eswatini, and Lesotho. The conference provided a platform to strengthen regional collaboration, share experiences, and explore solutions to shared challenges in water management.
Opening the conference, Abraham Nehemia, Chief Executive Officer of NamWater, emphasised the strategic importance of the gathering. “The gathering is more than a ceremonial convention ahead of the Games. It is a strategic leadership platform, a space intentionally created for reflection, engagement, and collaboration at the highest level,” he said. Nehemia highlighted the shared challenges of increasing demand, evolving infrastructure, and climate uncertainty. “These are not challenges unique to one country, but they are shared across the region. And therefore, our response must be shared.”
He encouraged participants to exchange knowledge and form partnerships. “Each of our utilities brings a wealth of experience, different models, different approaches, and different lessons. When we come together like this, we create an opportunity to learn from one another, to benchmark our progress, and to collectively raise a standard of water services delivery in our region.” Nehemia also stressed the transformative potential of artificial intelligence in water management, including predictive infrastructure maintenance, optimising distribution, and reducing losses. Jabulile Mashwama, Managing Director of the Eswatini Water Services Corporation, reflected on the shared challenges among utilities in the region. “We are struggling with the same insufficient funds, the rise in changes of the climate change, which results in causing our ability to serve the nation to be much more difficult and maybe a bit more costly,” she said. She emphasized the importance of collaboration: “A problem shared is a problem helped. Every year we come together as water utilities in the SADC region to talk about the issues that face us, to share resources, and to learn from one another.”
Mashwama also highlighted the value of practical learning experiences during the conference, including the visit to Namibia’s desalination plant. “We don’t have the privilege and the advantage of learning from how to now use seawater as a water source. So we’ve got the privilege to go and learn from a desalination plant here in Namibia, and it was absolutely eye-opening,” she noted. Adding to the discussion, Alphonso Khalema from the Water and Sewerage Company (WASCO), Lesotho described the conference as a key forum for sharing knowledge and strengthening long-term collaboration. “For us, the opportunity to participate in these games offers more than just an employee wellness and motivation aspect. The centerpiece of this is this executive retreat. In it, we share lessons learned over the course of our different utilities’ experience,” he said. Khalema stressed the potential for ongoing collaboration beyond the conference through “communities of practice,” which would allow technical knowledge to be shared continuously between utilities. Khalema also reflected on the innovative solutions observed in Namibia, noting, “When we see such vast distances, when we research and learn about water scarcity in Namibia and the issues they have to come up with and invent solutions such as, for example, the desalination plant, it shows that challenges can only be overcome by human ingenuity.” The conference concluded with a renewed commitment to regional collaboration, knowledge exchange, and practical solutions for improving water service delivery. The leaders left with actionable insights, strengthened partnerships, and a shared vision for ensuring sustainable and efficient water management across Southern Africa.
Sharlien Tjambari
