Leading, Committing and Delivering through Accountability
Women at a watering point in southern Djibouti. ©UNICEF/Noorani
Achieving true progress demands genuine accountability. Since its inception, SWA’s Mutual Accountability Mechanism (MAM) has provided a platform for inclusive, government-led processes that unite stakeholders around shared commitments. This year, it is an important component of the outcomes from the Sector Ministers’ Meeting (SMM) happening in October.
The MAM helps countries operationalise the integration agenda that’s at the heart of the 2025 SMM—bringing water, sanitation, climate, and water resource management into one coherent framework. MAM also strengthens coordination. By facilitating joint priority-setting, it brings ministries and partners together to collaborate instead of working in parallel. This approach breaks down silos and embeds integration into planning and implementation.
Governments are currently facing multiple cascading crises, ranging from climate change to economic instability. Moreover, human rights law holds governments accountable for ensuring access to affordable and safe water and sanitation. Shared progress tracking through MAM gives ministers a platform to show leadership, demonstrate tangible results, and connect national action to high-level platforms like COP30 and the 2026 UN Water Conference.
The MAM can help mobilise resources, build partnerships, and turn shared goals into measurable progress. Strengthening existing commitments—or making a first—reflect ambition and real action on integration. Ensuring commitments are aligned with national policies and financing strategies increases their relevance, credibility, and chances of delivery.
The MAM Support Package Leading Up to the SMM
MAM Guidance Note on the SMM Theme: Ahead of the SMM, as country preparation teams meet to review and prepare MAM commitments, we’re sharing resources to support their efforts. The MAM Commitment Guidance Note provides principles and examples to guide the design of high-quality, ambitious commitments that deliver lasting impact.
MAM Highlights by Partner Countries: Our 2025 Commitment Reports reflect current commitments around the world, showing thematic focuses and efforts country by country. Overviews of Kenya, Uganda and Brazil can be seen here.
The Promise of MAM
The MAM can support ambitious, coordinated action that links planning, finance, and equity, thereby turning political will into measurable progress. Argentina, for example, committed to increasing national water coverage from 80.2% to 95.3% and sanitation coverage from 56.1% to 74.4% by 2030 – an example of a high-level, time-bound target embedded in national development plans that strengthens accountability and sector financing.
Mozambique committed to increasing its domestic budget for water and sanitation, with clear targets to reach underserved rural and peri-urban communities, backed by inter-ministerial collaboration and anchored in national budget processes.
We recently highlighted Uganda's commitment to develop a National Adaptation Plan for the WASH sector as well as a climate financing investment plan in one of our 15th anniversary stories. You can read more about their efforts here.
Later this month, SWA will launch a climate-focused MAM micro-brief highlighting how countries are positioning water and sanitation priorities within national climate planning and finance commitments. Momentum is building for this year’s SMM to facilitate opportunities for more countries to make commitments that drive the kind of progress their citizens need to see.
Our work on realizing the human rights to water and sanitation is supported by the European Commission.
