Development - cooperation

The demand for Human Capacity Development (HCD) in the water sector is defined by the role that water plays in Africa's ambitions for socio-economic development. In this regard, the African Union Agenda 2063 (The Africa We Want) identifies water security as a key priority area, whereas the Africa Water Vision 2025 highlights the necessity to improve water wisdom in order to overcome capacity constraints in the sector. According to studies from early in the previous decade, Africa had only ‘35 scientists and engineers per million inhabitants, compared with 168 for Brazil, 2,457 for Europe and 4,103 for the United States

1 . This major human resources capacity challenge remains a critical factor in the development, growth and sustainable life for most African countries. In 2014, the International Water Association launched an unusual study, the first of its kind, in an attempt to quantify WASH human resource capacity gaps in 15 developing economies, ten of which were in Africa. The results were telling: ‘In ten countries reviewed in the second phase of the study there was a cumulative shortfall of 787,200 trained water and sanitation professionals in order to reach universal coverage’ with an average of only 16.7% of the workforce in the 15 countries reported to be female professionals.

2 . Following analyses of numerous country water sectors performed by the West African and Southern African members of the AUDA-NEPAD Network of Water Centres of Excellence (CoEs), it was identified that a critical skills and needs gap existed among professionals, qualified technicians and management in the water sector. This prompted the African Ministers Council for Water Executive Committee (AMCOW EXCO) in 2013 to direct the AMCOW Secretariat to work with the African Union Commission and AUDA-NEPAD Water Centres of Excellence to develop a Human Capacity Development (HCD) Programme aimed at addressing junior and senior professional and technician level capacity challenges in the water sector. The result was the HCD component of the ACEWATER II project supported by the European Commission DG Joint Research Centre (JRC) and the UNESCO Intergovernmental Hydrological Programme (IHP) to the Centres of Excellence in the implementation of the Project This review documents the implementation of the Human Capacity Development (HCD) component of the ACEWATER II Project; starting with a sector-wide analysis across a broad spectrum of previous studies and projects, stakeholder and key water sector actors and an ownership process of Government and sector actors in the design and implementation of National HCD Frameworks. National case studies and profiles of project Partner Countries are compiled by the CoEs, supported by detailed data collection from Monitoring and Evaluation and an Impact Study. The results present both a photograph of the current Capacity Skills and Gaps in both the Water Sector and Educational Institutions, as well as the results of piloting the implementation of the National HCD Frameworks in a number of African countries. In the face of the COVID-19 outbreak worldwide, the project partners were able to re-orient the activities of the project to still obtain measurable results; a testimony to both the innovation and flexibility of all Partners and the resilience of the AUDA-NEPAD Centres of Excellence to the unexpected stress test of the COVID-19 pandemic. Conclusions and recommendations are presented from the national level by the CoEs, Regional actors and by the coordination partnership of UNESCO-IHP, the JRC and AUDA-NEPAD Centres of Excellence.