On 2 July 2026 the Institute for Social-Ecological Research (ISOE) hosted a project exchange with partners from three WASA projects WaReNam, WaMiSAR and MAMDIWAS. The WaReNam project partners participated and organised the exchange to share insights on project learnings and challenges related to water reuse in Southern Africa. The objective was for the different project partners to discuss about technology, capacity development and governance.
For the WaReNam project the exchange meeting was a success, as it enabled the partners to identify overlapping research questions, discuss differences and similarities, and further explore possibilities for collaboration and future research.
The WASA exchange agenda included breakout sessions focusing on different topics. The various project partners of WaReNam attended different sessions according to their project focus. TU Darmstadt joined valuable discussions on water reuse technologies, exploring the possibility of combining treatment technologies, as well as the opportunities and limitations of technology transfer between projects. For ISOE, valuable discussions were those on governance and financing, focusing on stakeholder engagement, the development of water reuse policies and strategies, and their enforcement, as well as discussions on financing models for water reuse.
The WaReNam project partners were pleasantly surprised to identify synergies and opportunities to strengthen collaboration with the WASA projects, MAMDIWAS and MaWiSAR. Furthermore, the WASA exchange meeting provided an opportunity for networking between research and industry partners, as well as individuals. The meeting resulted in a collaboration to organise a WASA Summer School on water reuse in Namibia in October 2026, as well as a consecutive joint meeting in 2027, which will be hosted by MAMDIWAS.
Overall, the meeting fostered the exchange on innovative water technologies and water management practices, which can lead to a greater collective impact of the three WASA projects. The platform fosters collaboration, enables projects to leverage each other’s expertise and contributes to building a research community on water reuse.