Water and Sanitation Governance & Integrity Consulting

Barbara Schreiner brings more than 30 years of experience in water resources management, water and sanitation governance, and anti-corruption to consulting engagements across Africa and globally. Her career spans senior government leadership — including as Deputy Director-General of Policy and Regulation in South Africa’s Department of Water Affairs and Forestry, and as advisor to three Ministers of Water — alongside 15+ years as a consultant and 8 years as Executive Director of the Water Integrity Network. This combination gives her a rare vantage point: she understands not only how policy should be designed, but how it is actually negotiated, resourced, and implemented inside government systems.

She has worked with governments, development partners, river basin organisations, regulators, utilities and civil society across the water and sanitation governance value chain — from policy and legislative reform, through institutional design and regulation, to anti-corruption strategy and programme delivery. She works comfortably as an individual expert advisor or as Team Leader of multi-disciplinary, multi-country consulting teams, and has a strong track record of building and directing project teams that deliver complex assignments on time, on budget, and to a high technical standard.

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Areas of Expertise

• Team leadership on complex, multi-country assignments — repeated Team Leader roles on GIZ, SADC, and SADC-GMI-commissioned projects spanning up to 16 member states, coordinating multi-disciplinary teams, budgets, client relationships, and government counterparts across diverse political and institutional contexts.
• Water policy, law and institutional reform — over 30 years contributing to water policy and strategy development in South Africa and the SADC region; legislative appraisals, gap analyses, and drafting of policy and legal frameworks, including South Africa’s National Water and Sanitation Master Plan and the SADC Protocol on Shared Watercourses review.
• Anti-corruption and integrity in the water sector — more than eight years working in anti-corruption at the global level, including three years on South Africa’s National Anti-Corruption Advisory Council, and leadership of the Water Integrity Network’s global programme of work.
• Institutional strengthening and organisational design — institutional due diligence, capacity assessments, and strategic direction for river basin organisations and government departments and entities, including transboundary institutions such as the Zambezi Watercourse Commission.
• Regulation, finance and pricing — water pricing and subsidies and regulatory framework design, applied to South African and regional contexts.
• Gender and social inclusion — sustained, deep integration of gender and equity considerations into water law, policy, and programme design, reflected across three decades of published research and practice.
• Climate change and IWRM — more than ten years’ experience addressing climate change and adaptation in the water sector, including strategy development and vulnerability assessments for transboundary basins.
• Research, analysis and high-level writing skills — proven ability to synthesise complex, technical material into clear strategic reports, policy briefs, and plain-English communication for government, donor, and public audiences.
• Governance — extensive international board-level experience, including chairing of boards and of key committees.
• Stakeholder Engagement and Facilitation — skilled at working effectively across multicultural, multi-country teams and diverse stakeholder groups, with considerable experience as a facilitator bringing government, donor, and civil society actors to common ground on complex, often contested issues.

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Global Experience

Barbara’s consulting practice bridges African local and national institutions with global multilateral platforms:

In dialogue at an international water governance convening — advisory practice across OECD, WIN, and multilateral platforms.

• South Africa: Drafting transformative post-apartheid water legislation, pricing strategies, and national water resource strategies.
• Sub-Saharan Africa: Advisory assignments across Kenya, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and SADC transboundary river basins.
• Multilateral Engagement: Advisory roles with the OECD Water Governance Initiative, Open Government Partnership (OGP), and the Global Water Partnership.