The Decade for Water in the 1980s failed to secure water and sanitation for all. Today the performance of the water sector remains grossly inadequate: more than a billion people have no access to safe water and 2.6 billion have inadequate sanitation. This failure undermines development, and denies people a basic human right.

The UK-based international NGO WaterAid asked its 14 country programmes across sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia how millennium water targets could be translated into effective action. Their assessments of the day-to-day blockages that prevent delivery of new water and sanitation services confirmed that much better use could and should be made of the money available to the sector.

Even using the most basic technology, in at least 12 out of the 14 countries examined, more money needs to be invested. Increasing finance for the water sector ultimately depends on political willingness of both national governments and donors. In Uganda for instance, where communities and an energetic civil society together persuaded the government to prioritise water and use debt relief monies to increase its budget, an additional 2.2 million people gained access to safe water in just three years. If the least developed countries are able to deal with the sector’s investment shortfalls then rich countries need to take genuine action on trade, debt, and aid.

The bigger challenge, however, in the financing of basic water supply and sanitation is how to make the money perform better. This research identifies a number of key concerns:

• Transparency – information on spending and its impact is often hard to access, out of date, or inconsistent.
• Equity – not enough money is being spent in the places that need it most.
• Coordination – officials get trapped in administering multiple overlapping water and sanitation projects of different development partners.
• Capacity – local governments lack the money to meet their newly decentralised responsibilities for water and sanitation.
• Sustainability – the repair, maintenance and management needs of water and sanitation infrastructures are too often not provided for.
• Privatisation – it is often pursued without regard for any evidence that it is the most effective approach.

The water sector therefore needs to deliver much more, more quickly if the poverty reduction benefits of access to safe water and sanitation are to be secured by the Millennium Development Goal target of 2015. To achieve this, the report suggests the following existing commitments that need to be put into action:

• Public scrutiny, combined with a better appreciation of water’s role in reducing poverty, must generate the political will both to demand that the sector delivers and also to provide the funds for it to do so.
• National governments and donors need to produce, finance and work to a single plan for managing national water resources and increasing access to safe water and sanitation.
• Governments and donors must agree coordination arrangements which avoid duplication of reporting systems and ensure efficient targeting of funds.
• From 2006/7 onwards water sector budgets must be fully disbursed and spent with the results publicly reported.

Source(s):
‘Getting to Boiling Point: Turning up the heat on water and sanitation’, by David Redhouse, WaterAid, 2005 (PDF) Full document.
'Getting to Boiling Point 2006 Update' by David Redhouse et al, WaterAid, March 2006 (PDF)

Funded by: WaterAid

id21 Research Highlight: 12 October 2005

Further Information:
David Redhouse
WaterAid
Prince Consort House
27-29 Albert Embankment
London, SE1 7UB
UK

Tel: +44 (0)20 7793 4500
Fax: +44 (0)20 7793 4545
Contact the contributor: davidredhouse@wateraid.org

WaterAid, UK

Other related links:
'Boosting water and sanitation services in Ecuador'

'Halfway to 2015: is the watsan MDG achievable?'

'Creating and meeting demand for sanitation: lessons from Viet Nam'

'Health, dignity and development – meeting global water and sanitation goals'

'Achieving sustainable water supply in rural Africa'