Water Security Africa, co-located with Enlit Africa (19–21 May 2026, CTICC), has announced its full programme, centred on utility and municipal playbooks from regions that have faced acute water stress and responded with measurable operational change.
With sub-Saharan Africa projected to face a 50% gap between water supply and demand by 2030, utilities are under increasing pressure to reduce losses, diversify supply and strengthen operational resilience.
The SAICE CPD-accredited programme focuses on two hard realities: persistent water losses across urban networks and the growing need for diversified and resilient water sources.. Over three days, utility executives, city leaders and technical specialists will share approaches to loss reduction, asset management, smart metering, reuse and desalination, with a focus on implementation pathways, governance and delivery models.
Key programme themes include:
Reducing non-revenue water through targeted leak detection, pressure management, smart metering and performance-led delivery models
Building resilient supply through fit-for-purpose reuse and desalination, including when modular systems make sense and how projects move from concept to commissioning
Strengthening municipal execution by aligning policy intent with local implementation, licensing and operational capacity
The programme also features country spotlights with operational lessons from:
Cape Town: Post-Day Zero recovery strategies and the operational discipline required to sustain long-term resilience
Windhoek: The world’s longest-running direct potable reuse programme and the institutional structures that make reuse investment-ready.
Kampala: Performance-driven approaches to reducing losses while expanding supply capacity
Nairobi and South African municipalities: Accelerating delivery through smart metering rollouts, pipeline prioritisation and partnership models
“Cities cannot engineer their way out of water stress with one silver bullet,” said Claire Volkwyn, Head of Content, VUKA Group “What works is operational execution: reducing losses, strengthening networks and building supply resilience with solutions that can be financed and delivered.”
Confirmed speakers include Emmanuel Khomela (ERWAT), Patrick Hlabela (Department of Water and Sanitation), Hilton Smith (Drakenstein Local Municipality) and additional municipal, utility and industry leaders across the programme.
Download the programme: https://apo-opa.co/41k2nmj
Register: https://apo-opa.co/4tmZUnp
Africa Fact: Malian sailors got to America in 1311 AD, 181 years before Columbus. An Egyptian scholar, Ibn Fadl Al-Umari, published on this sometime around 1342. In the tenth chapter of his book, there is an account of two large maritime voyages ordered by the predecessor of Mansa Musa, a king who inherited the Malian throne in 1312. This mariner king is not named by Al-Umari, but modern writers identify him as Mansa Abubakari II.
Africa Fact: On a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324 AD, a Malian ruler, Mansa Musa, brought so much money with him that his visit resulted in the collapse of gold prices in Egypt and Arabia. It took twelve years for the economies of the region to normalise.
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