Started on Tuesday, February 19th, the joint Africasan 5 / FSM 5 conference ended on Thursday, February 21th, 2019 in Cape Town, South Africa with a call for action issued to governments and other stakeholders in the sanitation sector. Co-organized by the African Ministers' Council on Water (AMCOW) and the Alliance for Sustainable Sanitation (SuSanA), the conference addressed the theme: "Transforming sanitation in Africa: Accelerating progress towards the Ngor commitments to achieve the SDGs".

This conference was attended by about 1,500 participants from all over the world, including a strong delegation from AfWA. They were all committed to continuing advocacy mission and sharing best practices and innovations to improve feacal sludge's management and help meet the needs of 4.5 billion people who lack access to sustainable sanitation services. During the 3-day meeting, industry professionals, governments, decision-makers, public services, development partners, investors, industrialists and service providers had the opportunity to work together to coordinate, develop and share their knowledge to provide accessible and achievable solutions on a continental scale that would transform the sanitation environment in Africa.

The conference focused on practical solutions to sustainably manage the entire chain of autonomous sanitation services, including toilet, storage, emptying, transport, treatment and valorization of by-products, as an essential component of urban sanitation services at the urban level.