A working group to ensure the success of the November 11-13, 2014 event is already in place.
Cameroon will from November 11-13, 2014 play host to the fourth edition of the High-level Forum for Water and Sanitation in Africa on the theme, “Breakthrough technologies for emerging water and sanitation markets in Africa.”
The Yaounde rendezvous, like the first three editions, will seek to support African governments to identify practical means of accelerating access to water and sanitation and reducing poverty in the continent.
Against a backdrop of his appointment last year in Abidjan as President of the Water and Sanitation for Africa Council of Ministers for a three-year term, Cameroon’s Water Resources and Energy Minister, Basile Atangana Kouna, constituted a technical working group to ensure a resounding success of the upcoming November forum. Members of the working group were installed on Tuesday January 14 by the Secretary General of the ministry, Manaouda Malachie, who is also the coordinator of the group.
Records show that potable water still remains luxury to some 400 million Africans with over 250 million defecating in open air with all the adverse effects and that some 60 per cent of hospital beds are occupied by people trapped by preventable diseases linked to water and sanitation.
Speaking during the ceremony, the Executive Secretary of Water and Sanitation for Africa, Idrissa Doucoure, said the Yaounde forum is expected to mobilise FCFA 6,000 billion to take off an ambitious priority action programme for Africa to set the scene that will provide responses on water and sanitation. “We have started designing the programme and we are looking for investors and this programme will be launched in Yaounde,” he said.
The Executive Secretary noted that it is a paradox that Africa lacks water given the resources it has which is not the same context in other continents. “The issue is about access to the right technology and financial resources. The Yaounde forum will seek to provide answers to these challenges,” Idrissa Doucoure said.
