The African Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW), in keeping with its decision to institutionalize the annual Africa Water Week (AWW), organised the 3rd Africa Water Week (AWW3) at the United Nations Conference Centre, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from 22 to 26 of November 2010.
With only five years away from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) target date of 2015, the 3rd Africa Water Week provided a unique occasion for a comprehensive stock taking of the challenges faced and progress made across the continent towards achieving the goals and targets set on water and sanitation.
The African Water Week represents a political commitment at the highest level where governments, regional institutions, international partners, the private sector, the scientific community, civil society, and the media from all over the world, and in particular Africa, meet to discuss and collectively seek solutions to Africa’s water and sanitation challenges. Accordingly, this year's event focused on accelerating the implementation of the actions envisaged in internationally and regionally agreed goals and targets in the areas of water and sanitation.
The theme for this year's event was, ''Implementing the Africa water vision and meeting the MDGs: challenges and opportunities in water and sanitation. Sub themes included the following:
- financing investment in water for growth and development
- water and Urbanisation
- water, climate and development challenge
- Institutional development and capacity building
Various side event were also organised the third Africa Week