BY PHUMELELE MKHONTA
MBABANE- Renewed partnerships!
The country and Netherlands have renewed their partnership and collaboration under the ‘Netherlands Blue Deal All Hands on Deck’ programme.
This happened yesterday at Hilton Garden Inn in Mbabane at a Gala event.
Phase II of the project will run from 2023-2030 and will focus on strengthening the Joint River Basin Authority-Project Board (JRBA–PB).
The Blue Deal aims to strengthen the capacity of water authorities focusing on governance and integrated water management.
In 2020, Eswatini partnered with the Dutch Water Authorities to support and assist in the operationalisation of decentralisation of water management in the country.
Acting Minister of Natural Resources and Energy Jabulani Mabuza said the Government of Eswatini was committed to providing continued seed funding to the value of E3.5 million until at least year 2026.
“The Government also commits to avail the staff to execute the project until the Joint River Basin Authority-Project Board has adequate resources to hire its own staff,” said Mabuza.
Nettie Aarnink, Vice-chairperson of the Dutch Water Authority Vechtstromen Executive Board said as Dutch water authorities, they were happy that they could contribute to the development of decentralised water management in Eswatini.
“And we are also happy that the mutual relationships are good,” she said.
Under Phase I, several milestones were achieved and these included E3 million seed funding and E2.1 million received from the Eswatini Government for the financial years 2020/2021 and 2021/2022 respectively, as well as the establishment of HydroNET, a water management system to improve data collection, data management and sharing.
