Staff Reporter
AFRICA has a water investment gap of US$30 billion per annum. Closing that gap was the singular purpose of the African Union/Africa Water Investment Programme (AU-AIP) Water Investment Summit 2025 held in Cape Town, South Africa, on Wednesday.
Namibian President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah did not attend the event, but made a powerful statement delivered on her behalf by Agriculture Minister Inge Zaamwani.
She said that closing Africa’s water investment gap would lay the foundation for a continent that is water-secure, climate-resilient, and economically empowered.
“Water is not merely a development sector,” she said, “it is the bloodstream of our economies, the lifeline of our communities, and the guarantor of our food, health, and energy security.”
President Nandi-Ndaitwah pointed out that across Africa, too many communities still lack safe drinking water and adequate sanitation. Too many farmers still depend on rainfed agriculture, and at the same time, rainfall has become more and more unpredictable. Too many industries still face operational risks due to water scarcity.
“Without decisive actions, these gaps will widen under the pressures of climate change, population growth, and urbanisation,” she said.
According to her, water supply security has long been recognised as a strategic national priority in Namibia, a commitment powerfully demonstrated by the late President Hage Geingob, who established the Cabinet Committee on Water Supply Security to fast-track decisions and coordinate national efforts on that critical agenda.
Nandi-Ndaitwah said that under late President Geingob’s leadership, Namibia secured substantial investments for water infrastructure, including concessional financing from the African Development Bank and KfW, which are currently funding projects that expand access, strengthen resilience, and ensure that water remains a driver of inclusive growth, economic stability, and climate adaptation for all Namibians.
She described Wednesday’s summit as a call to action.
She said: “Let us move beyond declarations to concrete commitments — commitments that will be measured not in documents, but in the number of people gaining access to safe water, in the hectares of farmland irrigated, in the megawatts of clean hydropower generated, and in the resilience of our cross-border water governance systems.
The expected outcomes of this gathering — from multi-billion-dollar investment pledges to the inauguration of the Global Outlook Council on Water Investments — will only have meaning if we, as leaders, ensure their implementation.”
President Nandi-Ndaitwah expressed the view that Africa’s admission into the G20 has given the continent a rare platform to speak with one voice. “Let us use that voice to place water at the very heart of the global development and climate agenda — not as a background issue, but as a strategic driver of shared prosperity,” she said before urging the continent’s policymakers, financiers, civil society, and the private sector to seize the moment.
“Let us align political will with financial muscle. Let us build the partnerships that will transform Africa’s water future. And let us ensure that, when history looks back at Cape Town in August 2025, it will say: this was the moment Africa turned the tide,” she said.
