South Africa is a land of contrasts, with an incredible natural environment and is an epitome of cultural diversity, which is not possible to fully grasp, until you experience it yourself. While South Africa is recognised as being one of the strongest economies in Africa, with over two decades of democracy, the country remains one of the most economically unequal countries in the world. This disparity is a consequence of the country’s long and infamous history of apartheid. Furthermore, despite the remarkable natural environmental landscapes, South Africa’s freshwater resources are scarce and extremely limited, with an average annual rainfall of 465mm and are almost fully allocated. As a means of addressing South Africa’s long standing water crisis, research into the practice of reusing wastewater to augment water supplies has been in practice since 1962. Recently, several cities within the Southern Africa region have faced crippling droughts, which have been widely reported. Consequently, the reuse of wastewater for both potable and non-potable purposes has been increasingly considered as an important part of the diversified mix of new water resources to help secure future water supply.

The 14th IWA International Conference on Water Reclamation and Reuse is thus a very key knowledge milestone towards meeting these challenges mentioned and will serve as a platform to showcase the impact and contribution made by the local and other African water research science communities in promoting the adoption of reuse and as a forum to reflect on the challenges, gaps and the different winning strategies applied around the world when implementing reuse initiatives and projects as a means of building local and global water security and resilience.