{"id":43228,"date":"2026-08-20T07:56:45","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T05:56:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=43228"},"modified":"2026-08-20T07:56:45","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T05:56:45","slug":"african-leaders-call-for-shift-in-water-sanitation","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/african-leaders-call-for-shift-in-water-sanitation\/","title":{"rendered":"African leaders call for shift in water, sanitation"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">African leaders and Senior Officials meeting in Kigali, Rwanda, are calling for a fundamental shift in how the continent approaches water and sanitation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">They say governments need to move beyond short-term infrastructure projects and focus on building sustainable systems that can provide reliable services over the long term.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">The call was made during the Africa Water and Sanitation Systems Leadership Symposium, being held at the Kigali Convention Centre in the capital Kigali.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">Opening the discussions, Rwanda&#8217;s Minister of Infrastructure, Damien Murwanashyaka, said Rwanda is honoured to host the continental gathering at a time when water and sanitation are receiving renewed political attention across Africa.<\/p>\n<p>He emphasised that the issue goes far beyond the provision of basic services.<\/p>\n<p>Murwanashyaka\u00a0said Africa continues to face major gaps in access, service quality, financing and institutional capacity.<\/p>\n<p>He argued that the continent must now move beyond simply constructing infrastructure and instead focus on building systems that are reliable, affordable, safe, resilient and sustainable.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">&#8211;ChannelAfrica&#8211;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":21206,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[78,26],"class_list":["post-43228","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":"","news_description":"African leaders are calling for a fundamental shift on water and sanitation","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/43228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/43228\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43229,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/43228\/revisions\/43229"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=43228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}