Civil society influence and participation in water governance is important because other stakeholders cannot be relied upon to take due account of the needs of the poor. For this reason, FAN works to build civil society capacity to monitor and influence government on the transparency of their governance processes and monitoring their commitments.

Increasing community participation in decision-making is also seen as key.

"For Africa, monitoring of Government commitments as a way of ensuring accelerated access to water and sanitation will be crucial. The role of CSOs will be shifting from service delivery only active advocacy including monitoring. CSOs will have to be more organized and demand for space in decision making processes to accomplish this task" (ANEW).

"Water law and structures are well established: the catchment council has sub-committees which provide space for CSOs; but in practice they don't permit a real participation" (FAN Mex).

A FANSA member noted the importance of “Local Governance (focusing on allocation and utilization of budget, transparency, accountability and capacity building at local level)”

“The commitments made … are not honoured in their true spirit. Inefficiency and corruption are major issues making public investments very futile. The progress reports at National and International level lack transparency and citizens’ voice” (FANSA).