Partners for Water and Sanitation: Bringing Clean Water
and Sanitation to Africa

A U.K.–based partnership between government, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), the private sector and the public at large is helping provide developing countries in Africa with sustainable access to clean water and provision of adequate sanitation.

Partners for Water and Sanitation (PAWS) was founded in 2001 as the result of British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s challenge to private industry, government and the public sector to work together on several key sustainable development initiatives. The organization’s aim is to contribute to achieving Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), international development targets relating to poverty reduction through sustainable access to clean water and adequate sanitation. The partnership’s initial focus is on work with three partner countries – South Africa, Uganda and Nigeria.

Partner organizations range from water companies, to engineering and consultancy groups, a law firm, NGOs such as WaterAid and Tearfund, a trade union group and key U.K. government departments. Each partner organization has a unique set of skills and expertise, which is directed to areas of need and priority that have been identified together with the partnering country at a national or local level and aiming to work alongside existing water and sanitation programs. The emphasis of partner involvement is on capacity building, such as knowledge transfer, to ensure the sustainability of projects and potential for replication.

Severn Trent Water International, the global operating and management arm of Severn Trent Services’ parent company, Severn Trent Plc, has been a partner in PAWS since the organization’s inception. Working with partners in the United Kingdom, including the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and the Department for International Development (DFID), the company has initiated projects with the Department for Water Affairs and Forestry (DWAF) in South Africa and government organizations in Uganda and Nigeria.

Working with DWAF in South Africa, the company has actively participated in delivering seminars focused on issues of change management and managing contractors and consultants. As the lead partner in Nkomazi Municipality (just south of the Kruger National Park), Severn Trent Water International worked with municipal officials to support the delivery of improved water and wastewater services in the Municipality’s supply area. The company has also hosted visits to company sites for South African government officials to study the roles and responsibilities of the U.K. government, private operators, regulators and customer groups within the water sector.

In Uganda, Severn Trent Water International hosted a one-day visit and seminar for representatives of the Government of Uganda aimed at providing a perspective on regulation from the view of a private operator.

Activities in Nigeria have included a scoping survey to assess how partnership skills can improve water and wastewater services to the poor in small towns in Benue State through a partnership team consisting of the private sector, WaterAid and government.

For more information about PAWS and its important work, please visit the organization’s Web site at http://www.partnersforwater.org/.

For more information, email info@severntrentservices.com