On September 16, 2026, the Global Parliamentary Water Network (GPWN) convened a session at the 69th Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference in Cape Town, chaired by Hon. Silas Aogon, MP (Uganda) and chair of GPWN’s Global Advisory Board. GPWN’s John Oldfield moderated. Aogon opened by noting that Cape Town came within roughly 90 days of “Day Zero” in 2018. He argued that water security is “not a technical problem waiting for engineers” but “a governance problem waiting for legislators,” and warned that a developing El Niño could bring drought conditions over the coming year.
“Water security is not a technical problem waiting for engineers. It is a governance problem waiting for legislators.”
— Hon. Silas Aogon, MP
Oldfield framed the parliamentary case around three tools: laws, budgets and oversight. He noted that water ministers depend on the legislatures that pass their laws and fund their programs, and that a legislative water caucus can act as an informed, cross-party partner to ministries.
Two other legislators then addressed the group. Hon. Ahmad Kundi presented the new WASH and Climate Resilience Caucus of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Provincial Assembly in Pakistan. It is barely two months old and, he said, the first such caucus in Asia and the seventh in the world. He credited a conversation with GPWN at CPC68 in Barbados in 2025, and said the caucus has already advanced a water policy, a long-pending water act, and a sanitation and hygiene policy. He also stressed that caucuses can take their own initiative in ways standing committees cannot.
Hon. Dave Bryant, chair of the Western Cape (South Africa) Provincial Parliament’s standing committee on local government, environment and development planning, described how Cape Town met the Day Zero crisis in 2018. Measures included a multi-party water resilience advisory committee, a public water dashboard, punitive tariffs, leak repair, aquifer drilling and desalination. He said the lasting legacy is behavior change, and pointed to the province’s publicly available 10-year water resilience plan.
The Q&A drew delegates from Turks and Caicos, Canada (Saskatchewan), Lesotho, Botswana, South Africa (KwaZulu-Natal), Pakistan (Balochistan) and Kenya. Turks and Caicos described a three-week “Day Zero” just weeks earlier, when a desalination plant failed. Others asked how to protect water agencies from interference, how to oversee new data centers, whether water should be a free human right up to a basic amount, and how caucuses can partner with drought-affected regions such as northern Kenya. Panelists pointed to Cape Town’s lifeline tariff for indigent households, water reuse projects, and the importance of strong laws paired with sustained executive accountability. Aogon closed with a call for every legislature to establish a water caucus, starting simply with a secretariat, an executive committee and regular meetings. The session was broadcast live on South African television.