African Leaders Adopt Cape Town Declaration To Boost Water, Sanitation Investment

Cape Town: African heads of state and government on Friday adopted the Cape Town Declaration at the conclusion of the inaugural Africa Water Investment Summit, urging reforms to multilateral financial institutions to speed up investment in the continent's water and sanitation sector.

Held in Cape Town from Wednesday to Friday, the summit sought to mobilize funding to bridge Africa's estimated annual water investment shortfall of 30 billion US dollars.

Convened under the African Union Commission, the meeting will take place every four years on a rotating regional basis.

The declaration calls for Africa to be prioritized in global efforts to close the water investment gap and urges scaling up domestic financing, both public and private, through national budgets and innovative funding mechanisms.

Preliminary projections from investment pipelines presented at the summit suggest potential inflows of 10 to 12 billion dollars annually from development banks, investors, bilateral partners, and African governments, excluding additional pledges yet to be confirmed.

The United Arab Emirates and Senegal, co-hosts of the 2026 United Nations Water Conference, were tasked with integrating the declaration into the event's preparations. South Africa, holding the Group of 20 Presidency, will present it for endorsement at the 39th Ordinary Session of the African Union (AU) Assembly of Heads of State and Government in February 2026.

In her closing remarks, South African Minister of Water and Sanitation Pemmy Majodina said the summit had helped consolidate the AU member states' stance on water investment ahead of the 2026 conference.

"We are making a call to governments to help level the playing fields in order to attract investment. Let us eliminate long and unnecessary red tape which undermines and discourages investment," said Majodina.

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