Sixteen water professionals participated in the Water Institute’s (WI) pilot course, “Water Quality for Climate Adaptation,” following four weeks of intensive training in Wau, Western Bahr el Ghazal, South Sudan. WI is the only WASH training center in South Sudan and meets a fundamental need of training public sector employees to better manage their own communities’ drinking water quality and to train their employees to do so. In this course, participants learned how water quality affects health, about local challenges to supplying drinking water, and how to test water for contaminants. 

This training is vital to supporting a water-secure future for South Sudan. As of 2020, 59% of the population had limited, unimproved, or surface-water and drinking water services; 74% practiced open defecation; and only 10.3% used improved sanitation facilities. Each graduate returned to their home state to apply and share the knowledge they gained. Importantly, because WI is offered to participants across the country, the WI is intentionally designed as a means of peacebuilding across South Sudan’s diverse religious and ethnic groups. It also was designed with gender equity at heart, with 50% female participation.