The Arab Countries Water Utilities Association (ACWUA) is registered as a Non-Governmental & Non-profit organization, and hosted by the Government of Jordan / Ministry of Water & Irrigation. ACWUA has been officially established in 2009 in Amman, Jordan according to Prime Ministry letter number 57/11/1/8171 dated 2 May 2007.
ACWUA was founded as a result of an initiative by a group of key water experts representing the water and wastewater sector in the Arab Countries. ACWUA Steering Committee (SC) was formed during the first consultative meeting that took place in Cairo-Egypt, in September 2006. It was followed by a series of regional meetings led by the SC and strongly supported by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (UN-ESCWA) and the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ). Those meetings had resulted in the formulation of ACWUA establishment process and the development of ACWUA Charter and Bylaws.
The first Board of Directors (BoD) of ACWUA was elected to replace the SC during the first General Assembly meeting in Alexandria, Egypt on 19 November 2008. Also, the decision to locate a permanent ACWUA Secretariat office in Amman - Jordan was taken. On 30 July 2009, ACWUA, was officially launched in Amman-Jordan, after the opening ceremony that was attended by more than eighty high-ranking officials comprising of Arab and International water experts from ACWUA Board members, heads of Arab water utilities, donor agencies and international organizations, and the private sector.
ACWUA was able -in a very short period of time- to steadily and rapidly expand, through developing wide cooperation networks and building strong liaisons with the Arab and international organizations, which led to extensive benefits to the association, and a great support in achieving its strategic goals set in the association’s five-year business plan with membership comprises of 106 utilities from 18 Arab countries.
