SWA Sector Ministers' Meeting (SMM), San José, Costa Rica.

Published on: 07/03/2019

Sanitation and Water for All (SWA) is convening the Sector Ministers’ Meeting (SMM) in San José Costa Rica, on 4-5 April 2019 to support the achievement of the water, sanitation and hygiene-related (WASH) targets of the Sustainable Development Goals. The SMMs are the culmination of ongoing strategic dialogue at country level, involving multiple stakeholders.

It brings together ministers responsible for WASH and senior government officials from different regions and development levels, as well as leaders from other stakeholders, including civil society, private sector, donors, development banks, UN agencies and academia.

The overal theme of the 2019 SMM is ‘Leave No One Behind’ and its  single, high-level objective is:

To increase awareness and understanding of ‘Leave No One Behind’, its fundamental relationship with WASH, and its implications for leadership, partnership, planning and finance.

The SMM aims to deliver four outcomes:

• Leave no one behind. Develop a common understanding of what leave no one behind means, the scale of inequality in WASH, its root causes and its impact.
• Leadership. Highlight the critical role of leadership to focus attention and resources on leave no one behind.
• Finance. Establish how national sector finance strategies can be developed to maximise their impact on eliminating inequality.
• Planning, monitoring and review. Demonstrate how the application of the SWA Framework of Guiding Principles, Collaborative Behaviours and sector Building Blocks can address inequality in WASH.

The SMM will comprise plenary sessions, ministerial dialogues and a technical meeting, and will be chaired by the Honourable Kevin Rudd, SWA’s High-level Chair.

IRC CEO Patrick Moriarty is Chair of SWA's Steering Committee.