Private sector in South Africa is currently responsible for water and wastewater supply services to more than one billion people around the world.
Also read:Report shows major water deficit in South Africa looming
The Global High-level Panel on Water looked on how the private sector in South Africa can play a different role in water management partnerships than it currently does.
The Strategic Water Partners Network (SWPN) believes that this would lead to tapping into wastewater as a resource for various uses, among other things.
Martin Ginster, who heads water management at Sasol, spoke at the event, citing examples of the private sector’s involvement in many exploratory projects through the use of non-traditional models of collaborating with government and civil society.
The SWPN said that these models of collaboration go beyond the private sector carrying out measures to comply with regulation, delivering on water management contracts, or providing corporate social responsibility funds to government and NGOs.
Through the SWPN, corporates in South Africa, working with the Department of Water and Sanitation and other stakeholders, are rolling out an innovative irrigation water management system that is currently saving 55m m3 of water, an amount SWPN said to be half in comparison to consumption of Nelson Mandela Bay.
Ginster said this and other projects plan to develop a joint understanding of the country’s precise water problems, as well as work together to create solutions to solve these problems.
Nandha Govender, head of water management at Eskom, sighted trust as a huge obstacle for public-private partnership. One of the conclusions drawn from the discussion was that no amount of contract sophistication can replace trust needed to enable public and private organizations working together.
One such successful collaboration would be the Mine Water Coordinating Body in the Mpumalanga coal mining area.
There, coal mine companies and local government have carried out joint problem and opportunity analyses and are testing financial and institutional models for reducing pollution impacts from mining in the long term.
SWPN further added the possibility of public and private sectors in South Africa as pathfinders in developing collective action partnerships that enable a trust-building environment for sustainable public-private-civil society partnerships.
