Sector Ministers' Meeting 2019

WASHing away inequalities: partnering to finance and achieve the water, sanitation and hygiene targets of the Sustainable Development Goals

The past SWA Sector Ministers’ Meeting (SMM) was convened in San Jose, Costa Rica, on 4-5 April 2019 to support the achievement of the water, sanitation and hygiene-related targets of the Sustainable Development Goals. It was held the days after LatinoSan.

It brought together ministers responsible for water, sanitation and hygiene and senior government officials from different regions and development levels, as well as leaders from other stakeholders, including civil society, private sector, donors, development banks, UN agencies and academia.

Unique in the sector, the SMMs are the culmination of robust ongoing strategic dialogue at country level, involving multiple stakeholders bound together by the belief that good governance and mutual accountability are key to achieve water and sanitation for all, always and everywhere.

The 2019 SMM had ‘Leave No One Behind’ as its overall theme and had a single, high-level objective:

To increase awareness and understanding of ‘Leave No One Behind’, its fundamental relationship with WASH, and its implications for leadership, partnership, planning and finance

This was achieved through dialogue, knowledge sharing and learning, involving all interest groups and stakeholders.

To achieve its purpose, the SMM has been designed to deliver four outcomes:

• Leave no one behind. Develop a common understanding of what leave no one behind means, the scale of inequality in WASH, its root causes and its impact.
• Leadership. Highlight the critical role of leadership to focus attention and resources on leave no one behind.
• Finance. Establish how national sector finance strategies can be developed to maximise their impact on eliminating inequality.
• Planning, monitoring and review. Demonstrate how the application of the SWA Framework of Guiding Principles, Collaborative Behaviours and sector Building Blocks can address inequality in WASH.

The SMM comprised plenary sessions, ministerial dialogues and a technical meeting, and was chaired by the Honourable Kevin Rudd, SWA’s High-level Chair.

The preparatory process

Before the event, SWA partners were engaged in a dedicated 6-month preparatory process that includes the joint selection and prioritization of of existing commitments, derived from national plans developed under government leadership. Ministers were encouraged to table specific commitments developed with in-country partners in line with SWA’s Mutual Accountability Mechanism.

Starting in November 2018, the SWA facilitated the preparatory process which was build on national processes and dialogues to foster strategic engagement around inequalities, leadership and the financing required to eliminate inequalities.

The main purpose of the preparatory process was to ensure ministers arrive with thorough understanding of (i) the progress their countries had made towards the achievement of national WASH targets and (ii) the extent of inequalities in service provision.

SWA partners, led by governments, worked together to:

• Strengthen analysis and multi-stakeholder dialogue on the status of the sector regarding leave no one behind, the leadership needed to catalyze progress and the financing required to remove inequalities
• Build political will and engagement among decision-makers (i.e. sector and finance ministers, and other key decision-makers) to agree the necessary priorities and commitments to eliminate inequalities
• Jointly select and prioritize existing commitments focusing on those that improved equality in access to WASH services –this included focus on various aspects of the SWA Framework and should be embedded in existing national processes.

The process made use of SWA’s Mutual Accountability Mechanism, and was be informed with evidence, for example, submitted to GLAAS as part of the 2018/2019 survey.  

Outcomes of the preparatory process included:

1. A country statement which included the status of progress with emphasis on inequalities, priorities for the country and, where possible, the commitments jointly agreed by the government and partners; and
2. A ministerial briefing which included a few slides for the minister’s intervention in ministerial dialogues.

SWA facilitated follow-up activities to support a continued robust engagement of partners at country, regional and global levels.

Know more about

• Recent Sector Ministers’ Meetings: Washington DC, 2017; Addis Ababa, 2016
• Recent Finance Ministers’ Meetings: Washington DC, 2017; Washington DC, 2014