Leadership that actually transforms water and sanitation systems

Published on: 16/12/2025

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Across Africa, the ambition of universal and safely managed water and sanitation is no longer in question. The vision is there. The technical solutions are known. Financing instruments are increasingly available. Yet progress remains uneven, fragile, and too often reversible.

When transformation does happen—at scale and durably—it is rarely accidental. It is led.

Over the past decade, systems thinking has helped the water and sanitation sector move beyond narrow, project-based approaches. This shift has been healthy. It has expanded how we understand complexity, interdependence, and the limits of purely technical solutions. But as the conversation matures, a new challenge is emerging: the need to be precise about what we mean by leadership, and who actually carries it.

This reflection is not about rejecting systems thinking or inclusive approaches. It is about bringing clarity where ambiguity now risks weakening action. 

Transformation leadership is not everywhere — and that matters

Water and sanitation systems involve many actors, each playing important roles:

• advisors and technical experts,
• facilitators,
• civil society organisations,
• development partners and financiers,
• researchers and thought leaders.

All of these roles are essential. None should be diminished. But systems transformation depends on something more specific: actors who hold formal authority, institutional mandate, and accountability to constituencies. Leadership that transforms systems is not diffuse. It is anchored in individuals that have the power to act:

• presidents who elevate water and sanitation as a national development issue,
• ministers who arbitrate priorities, tariffs and budgets,
• mayors who govern cities and service authorities,
• regulators who enforce rules consistently,
• utility CEOs who reform incentives, performance and organisational culture,
• executives of public and development finance institutions who decide whether systems are credible enough to receive long-term capital.

These roles are not interchangeable. And no amount of facilitation, analysis, or advocacy can substitute for them. 

Political economy: where leadership becomes concrete

Political economy analysis is valuable precisely because it grounds systems change in reality. It reminds us that reform is rarely blocked by lack of knowledge, but by misaligned incentives, perceived risks, and entrenched interests.

Seen through this lens:

• “political will” is not absent; it is structured,
• resistance to reform is often rational within existing incentive frameworks,
• change happens when leaders judge that the cost of maintaining the status quo exceeds the cost of reform.

This is where leadership moves beyond ideas and becomes responsibility.

Leadership means:

• taking decisions that carry political cost,
• navigating institutional power rather than bypassing it,
• sequencing reforms in ways that are both technically sound and politically viable.

It is not abstract. It is exercised by people who can decide, enforce, and be held to account. 

Financial credibility: a non-negotiable African reality

Africa’s water and sanitation sector is now confronting a structural shift. As the African Union’s Water Financing Pyramid has clearly demonstrated, the future depends on domestic resources, repayable finance, and long-term investment.

In this context, financial credibility is not a technical concept—it is a leadership outcome. Strong, resilient systems and institutions are financially credible and investment-ready.

Financial credibility emerges when:

• water and sanitation are anchored in national fiscal frameworks,
• tariffs, subsidies and transfers are aligned with service realities,
• institutions perform with discipline and transparency,
• reforms are protected beyond electoral cycles.

Only actors with real authority can create these conditions. No external partner can replace a Minister of Finance. No advisor can approve a sovereign loan. No facilitator can enforce performance inside a utility. This is not about hierarchy. It is about effectiveness. 

What African experience makes clear

African experience offers powerful illustrations of what actual systems leadership looks like.

In Rwanda, sustained presidential leadership has translated national vision into institutional coherence and execution—across public administration, infrastructure, health, and sanitation. Authority, accountability, and delivery are aligned.

In Benin, deep reforms in public finance and water governance were driven by political commitment at the highest level, translated through empowered ministries and institutions. The leadership of ANAEPMR transformed rural water services precisely because it combined mandate, autonomy, and accountability.

In Uganda, the long-term transformation of the National Water and Sewerage Corporation is inseparable from the leadership of its CEO, supported by political backing that enabled professionalisation, performance discipline, and financial credibility over decades.

Across these cases, a common thread emerges: transformation was led by people who could decide, allocate, enforce, and answer for results. 

Why clarity strengthens collaboration

There is a natural temptation, in complex systems, to speak of leadership as something shared by all. Inclusiveness matters. But clarity matters more.

When roles are blurred:

• accountability weakens,
• expectations become unrealistic,
• reform risks becoming everyone’s ambition but no one’s responsibility.

Clear distinctions, by contrast, enable better collaboration:

• leaders lead and take responsibility,
• advisors advise and challenge,
• facilitators enable alignment,
• funders finance and apply discipline,
• civil society holds systems to account.

Each role is essential. Each gains power when it is clearly understood. 

A constructive way forward

If Africa is serious about universal and safely managed water and sanitation, it must be equally serious about leadership.

That means:

• identifying and backing leaders with real mandates,
• protecting reformers who take political risk,
• recognising leadership that delivers structural outcomes,
• aligning all supporting roles around those who carry institutional responsibility.

Systems do not transform through intention alone. They transform through decisions, authority, and accountability. 

Why Kigali matters

This is precisely why the 'Systems Leadership Symposium 2026 - Transforming Water and Sanitation for Investment and Prosperity in Africa' taking place in Kigali matters.

Kigali is not designed as a space for abstract debate or conceptual convergence. It is intentionally architected as a platform where actual system leaders—heads of state, ministers, mayors, utility CEOs, regulators, and development finance leaders—engage with one another, with the support of their advisors and partners, on the hard questions of reform, credibility, and delivery.

It is a space to:

• confront political and financial realities,
• learn from leaders who have delivered transformation,
• elevate leadership that turns vision into functioning systems.

At a moment when Africa’s water and sanitation future depends less on new ideas and more on decisive leadership, clarity is not a luxury. It is a necessity.

Kigali is about making that clarity actionable.

Please note that the date of the symposium has changed, it will now take place 17-21 August 2026.