The Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Initiative (RWSSI) is an Africa-wide initiative managed by the African Development Bank (AfDB). Its objective is to accelerate access to drinking water and sanitation in rural Africa in order to attain the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) for water and sanitation in 2015 and the Africa Water Vision 2025. RWSSI is expected to play a crucial role in achieving the future Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) dedicated to providing every human with safe water and sanitation by 2030. Since the launch of RWSSI in 2003 the initiative has provided water supply to 88 million people and sanitation to 55 million people living in rural Africa. Yet a lot remains to be done in order to achieve safe water and sanitation for everybody in rural Africa by the year 2030. The RWSSI Trust Fund with contributions from Burkina Faso, Canada, Denmark, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Switzerland has improved the quality of rural WASH interventions and leveraged additional financial resources. The purpose of this side event is to showcase RWSSI as Africa’s initiative for attaining inclusive and sustainable access to water supply and sanitation and to highlight the need for increased efforts to reach unserved populations in rural Africa.