Today, the Sanitation and Water for All Partnership announced that the 2022 Sector Ministers’ Meeting (SMM) will take place on 18-19 May 2022, hosted by the Government of Indonesia.
Building on previous SWA High-Level Meetings, the 2022 SMM is a critical opportunity to link with other sectors, with a view towards increasing the prioritization of water, sanitation, and hygiene across national policies.
With the theme of “Building Forward Better for Recovery and Resilience,” the 2022 SMM will bring together ministers responsible for water, sanitation, and hygiene, and ministers responsible for the environment and other relevant sectors, to meet and review water, sanitation and hygiene-related policies and commitments, and ensure that climate action, health, and economic recovery considerations are well integrated. Delegations from the different SWA constituencies will also join the discussions.
The world is at a crossroads with intertwined health, economic and climate crises continuing to threaten communities. A common thread between these global crises is access to water, sanitation, and hygiene, which, when ensured, has the potential to prevent pandemics, increase resilience to climate change, and boost economic development.
Following the decisions and commitments at COP26 in Glasgow, UK, in November 2021, the meeting will be an important occasion to ensure alignment across sectoral policies, using the SWA Framework, and Mutual Accountability Mechanism as tools for stakeholders to come together and jointly review commitments and progress.
Every SWA High-level Meeting is preceded by a 6-month-long preparatory process. It is composed of discussions at national and regional levels, during which partners jointly analyze progress, identify bottlenecks, successes, and agree on joint future actions. Through these multi-stakeholder dialogues, partners build a closer and ongoing relationship with ministers and professionals from across the interlinked sectors at national level. National and regional activities are complemented by a webinar series, that facilitates mobilization and the sharing of experiences among partners.
This also guides, and facilitates progress towards, the achievement of national and global commitments, including those made in the context of COP26, to be tabled under SWA Mutual Accountability Mechanism.
The primary outputs of this preparatory process are the Country Overviews, prepared by the key actors in each country and used as a brief for the ministers attending the SMM. Sector ministers will use the Country Overview in inter-ministerial discussions with their relevant counterparts, prior to, during, and after the meeting. They also contribute to broader sector activities, such as joint sector reviews.
The SMM’s main conclusions, key messages, and commitments resulting will also contribute to the preparatory process of the UN-Water Decade Conference, to be convened in New York from 22 to 24 March 2023, and the 2023 Finance Ministers’ Meeting.
More info on the preparatory process.