Finance Ministers' Meeting 2017

The 2017 SWA High-level Meetings (HLMs) took place in Washington D.C., USA. It comprised  a Finance Ministers’ Meeting (FMM), convened by the World Bank on behalf of the SWA partnership, on 20 April. In the preceding days, 19 and 20 April, a Sector Ministers’ Meeting (SMM) was convened by UNICEF, involving those ministers responsible for water, sanitation and hygiene who accompanied their finance counterparts.

At the ministerial meetings, participants had the opportunity to engage in policy debate, exchange lessons learned and hold each other mutually accountable for progress on improving access to sanitation and drinking water for all. During the preparatory process SWA organized a series of webinars.

These ministerial meetings built on previous SWA High-level Meetings of Ministers of Finance (in 2010, 2012, and 2014) and of ministers responsible for Sanitation, Water and Hygiene (in 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2016). The 2016 Meeting was the first occasion for the sector to come together after the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were agreed. Countries and their partners discussed national planning to meet the challenges of the water, sanitation and hygiene-related targets and required resources.

Finance Ministers’ Meeting 20 April 2017 Video report

Agenda 2017 FMM

The Finance Ministers’ Meeting (FMM), held at the time of the World Bank’s Spring Meetings, focused on how to finance the achievement of universal, sustainable access to safely managed sanitation, water and hygiene. In this 2-hour meeting, ministers discussed the political, institutional and governance reforms needed to make better use of existing funding and for attracting additional resources.

The main objective of the FMM was to get endorsement of key policy principles on sector financing required to meet the water, sanitation and hygiene-related SDGs targets, with an explicit focus on eliminating inefficiencies and achieving universal access.