Jaco Seaman Welcome Letter

The WISA Biennial Conference and Exhibition is the region’s biggest water conference – bringing together water sector professionals and other stakeholders from across the country and beyond. Next year’s conference is expected to be bigger and better than ever before.

Our past conferences have provided a platform to discuss problems and solutions facing the water and related sectors. Now is the time to create mechanisms and an enabling environment to set us on a path of implementation and impact. Water is everyone’s business and everyone should be involved in ensuring we have water security. This is now more important than ever as we need to navigate issues of climate change, weather variability, demand growth, infrastructure needs and so forth. For this reason, our 2020 conference will be held under the theme ‘All hands on deck’ and our sub-themes which will read as a to-do list:

  1. Reduce water demand and increase supply
  2. Manage the resource for a capable ecology
  3. Manage and monitor effective water and sanitation services and infrastructure
  4. Govern and regulate the sector
  5. Improve raw water quality and management
  6. Develop skills and technology innovations and disruptors

The conference will consider the broader impacts of water on society and the environment. With this in mind we hope to have as many as eight government departments on board, reflecting the integral role of water in all that we do. The need to close the science-policy-implementation chasm is of a high priority.

As always, the next instalment of the WISA Conference will feature informative site visits, fun social and networking opportunities as well as several conference tracks to ensure that there is something for everyone. Based on your feedback, we will also be increasing the number of workshops for a more interactive experience.

We hope that you will join us in Sandton in 2020 for an exciting, insightful and educational instalment of this premier water meeting on the continent. It is time to action change in the water sector; we hope you will respond to the clarion call to get all hands on deck!

Shafick Adams
Chair of the OC