We recently participated as delegates in the Transnational Meeting on Innovative Responses to Water Resource Management and Drought Resilience in South Africa, organised in collaboration with Stellenbosch University. This meeting was part of our ongoing involvement in the Platform of Vocational Excellence (PoVE) Water project, where we are an active member of the consortium.

The primary aim of the meeting was to strengthen the PoVE Water partnership and continue building a committed team by exchanging knowledge and experiences with international experts. The discussions were grounded in the South African context, with practical, on-the-ground examples feeding into the different Work Packages within the PoVE project.

A key highlight for us was the deep dive into South Africa’s ongoing challenges around water scarcity, ageing infrastructure, and the powerful lessons learned from the Cape Town Day Zero crisis. This experience underscored the need for adaptability and cross-sector collaboration, particularly from a communications perspective. The Day Zero campaign, for example, focused on educating the public and encouraging behaviour change—responding to the reality that one million households were restricted to just 25 litres of water per day during 2017/18.

Another engaging part of the five-day meeting was the Hackathon, a rapid, collaborative learning exercise. Over one and a half days, we joined eight diverse groups—each with a maximum of eight participants—working together through a structured approach known as the Harmonica Model. This method guided teams to understand the context, analyse four key challenges, and develop visualised, practical solutions for training and equipping professionals to support innovative research in water management.

The four central challenges were:

1. How can we improve water quality monitoring and implement real-time reporting?

2. How can we reduce water loss through improved leak detection and infrastructure maintenance?

3. How can we make better use of predictive analytics for drought and flood management?

4. How can we enhance community engagement in water conservation?

We contributed to two working groups, bringing in our gender-focused expertise on hygiene, menstrual health management, education, and the role of civil society organisations—especially drawing from our experience in peri-urban and rural communities in the EECCA region. Here, we are actively engaged in WASH-related activities and research on microplastics.

Beyond these activities, the value of international collaboration was a recurring theme. We emphasised how such collaboration broadens students’ worldviews, especially those in rural vocational programmes who may have limited exposure beyond their immediate regions. International mobility plays a key role in expanding these horizons, making this element of the PoVE project especially impactful.

Finally, we discussed pressing concerns around water supply management, wastewater treatment infrastructure, and the importance of disaster risk reduction, both at regional and international levels.