Conference Agenda

The Opening Ceremony is meant to welcome delegates to the conference.  The hosting institution and their leadership and partners will open the event and express their views on hosting the conference and the importance of the conference theme. The Rapporteurs will provide an introductory report on the Conference and provide the participants with key elements and insights about the Conference 2024.

The Keynote Speakers will tackle today's complex challenges, including the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, geopolitical tensions, and climate change. Emphasizing Einstein's idea that new thinking is required to solve contemporary issues, speakers will explore the need for alternative service delivery models. These models prioritize innovation, collaboration, and flexibility, involving private companies, NGOs, and community groups to enhance public services.

The conference will address critical aspects about the government's role in alternative service delivery, and enhancing societal responsiveness. By fostering diverse perspectives, the IASIA 2024 aims to improve global public service delivery, promoting sustainability and democratic governance.

BRICS is the acronym for an association of 5 major emerging global economies, namely Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The initial four countries constituted “BRIC”, but with the addition of South Africa 2010, it graduated to “BRICS”, the grouping consisting of all leading developing or newly industrialised countries globally. However, several new countries have since made applications to join BRICS, namely United Arab Emirates; Saudia Arabia, Ethiopia, Iran and Egypt.

The BRIC grouping of countries have been characterised by their fast growing and huge economies and resultant impact they have had globally. BRICS countries have since 2009 met formally on an annual basis at global summits. BRICS countries according to Goldman Sachs are G20 members, and by 2050, the initial four founding BRICS members will emerge as the leading economies internationally. BRICS countries since 2015 are representative of a global population that exceeds 3.6 million people or almost 40% of the world populace. BRICS unlike the European Union is not a political coalition, but they can emerge as a powerful economic/trading block if need be. The principles of equality, mutual benefit and non – interference govern their bilateral relations.

The general citizenry, private and the nongovernmental sector have all played an increasingly significant role of late in transforming local spaces to enhance service delivery, due to poor public governance. This has in turn signified a gradual move away from the state sector which was previously the sole provider of public services. The result effect is that the notion of partnership has been placed high on the governmental agenda and key to that process is enhanced state society relations which involves and includes inter alia, co – operation, collaboration, deregulation, outsourcing and shared services.

The BRICS Panel will examine progress on alternative service delivery in selected BRICS countries globally. More specifically, it will focus on : what prompted the need for alternatively service delivery; the current governance framework; progress that has been made to date; challenges experienced and possible solutions in terms of moving the process forward.

There will be 5 panelists and each of them will be given 10 – 12 minutes each for their presentations, and thereafter the session will be open for points of clarity, observations and questions.

The Panel will be chaired by Prof P S Reddy, a Professor in the Graduate School of Business and Leadership and Emeritus Professor in the School of Management, IT and Governance at the University of KwaZulu Natal in Durban, South Africa.

Water and sanitation services are essential basic services that communities must have reliable and sustainable access to, however, such provision must also conform to acceptable national standards. Over the years, municipalities have been grappling to provide clean water and dignified sanitation to communities because of a lack of data-driven water services management processes, use of manual mechanisms to conserve and supply water, aging infrastructure, inadequate project management and lack of skills amongst others. South African municipalities are Constitutionally mandated with the responsibility of providing basic services to communities. This responsibility is enshrined in Sections 24 and 27 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa.

There are 144 Water Services Authorities (municipalities) in South Africa, comprising a network of 958 Water Supply Systems (WSS). The Free State Province accounts for 80 WSSs supplying a population of 3 028 741. According to the Department of Water and Sanitation, the state of wastewater services in Free State are in a critical state and require remedial action. Furthermore, the Green Drop Report (2023) depicts that 64 WWTWs in the province achieved a score of below 31%. Blue Drop (2023) Free State WSSs performance is depicted as follows:Capacity Management (53.3%), Risk Management (37.6%), Financial Management (49.3%), Technical Management (28.1%) and Water Quality Compliance (39.5%). The above scores show a total score of 41.56% on the five area of water supply performance, with a worrying outcome on technical management, risk management and water quality compliance. What this means for municipalities is that there is a requirement to bring about alternative solutions to improve the status quo and provide clean, usable, good quality water to communities.

The 2022 Census data provides a mixed picture of access and quality of service. FS has done well as it has the third highest levels of access to water (3% has no access to piped water), with 58% of households reporting interruptions (ranked number 5 of 9). The FS has made steady progress in the provision of sanitation, with 76.3% of households having flush toilets (third best), however the FS has the second highest bucket toilet use in the country (3.5% of households). This is extremely concerning as government has declared bucket toilets as unacceptable and undermining the dignity of people. The panel discussion is underpinned by the need to entrench alternative solutions for providing reliable, sustainable, and good quality water, complemented by dignified and safe sanitation to all communities. The panel seeks to firstly understand why status quo persists and then consider context appropriate innovative alternatives that can improve the state of municipal water and sanitation services in the Free State. The discussion will be broad leveraging on the experience, exposure, and expertise of the panel members.

Panel Discussion Questions:

1. Setting the scene (question to each panelist): Are municipalities unwilling or unable (or its both) to provide sustainable and reliable water and sanitation services? and why do you hold this view?

2. Water and sanitation are trading services meaning they ought to be financially sustainable. What is the situation in the FS (across the value chain) and how might we improve status quo? What do we do differently?

3. Besides the IGS' advanced work in groundwater research, what sustainable alternative solutions can you advise Water Service Authorities to implement in the quest to provide firstly access to ground water and secondly to clean usable water?

4. Since IGS is an ISO accredited institution, what services can you provide to Water Services Authorities in the Free State Province?

5. Following on the financial sustainability, municipalities claim low revenue collection rates are undermining their ability to provide services and there is an inherent culture of unwillingness to pay. Communities claim they can’t pay for poor and intermittent services how do we solve this chicken and egg situation?

6. As the regulator you have a unique perspective. What are your reflections on FS WSA performance on the Drop Programmes and what are you doing to create an enabling environment (with incentives and disincentives) to improve compliance (effectively quality and sustainability of services)?

7. The WRC, CSIR, DTI etc are all doing good work to solve challenges we face in the sector. Give us some highlights of potential alternative service delivery solutions we could focus on and a reflection on why up-take is not where it ought to be on these solutions, especially in FS and how can we change this?

8. Closing round: Each panelist to share one thing they think we could do to improve the quality of water and sanitation services in the FS through alternative service delivery and sustainable societal responsiveness.