The World Bank’s report on water sector funding (see News) provides important insights. There are no surprises in learning that the world faces a huge funding shortfall for water supply and sanitation and for irrigation. But the report’s authors describe the study, the results of which are presented in the report, as “a first-ever attempt to gain a 360° panoramic view of spending in the entire global water sector.”
Global efforts on the two subsectors have been hindered by a lack of “comprehensive, accurate, current, and detailed information on how much, and how well, financial resources are being spent in the sector at the national, regional, and global levels,” the authors state. They add that, to the best of their knowledge, “no previous studies have succeeded in producing reliable estimates of the spending gaps in WSS and irrigation because of the dearth of comprehensive national spending information from budgetary sources.”
The aim of the report, Funding A Water-Secure Future: An Assessment of Global Public Spending, is to guide thinking on alternative ways to close the funding gaps. It notes recent assessments that have highlighted a need to at least quadruple current rates of progress to achieve universal coverage of safe water supply and sanitation by 2030. It also points to much that can be done by governments and the sector itself.
More than 90% of spending in the sector comes from the public sector, with less than 2% coming from private sector investments, and the rates are not likely to change soon. But while it will not be easy to increase public financing, the study found that most countries are not spending their full budget allocations. Indeed, almost 30% of allocations go unspent. Because of what the authors describe as “systemic constraints on the sector’s absorptive capacity”, spending is hindered by institutional, governance and project management issues.
On top of this, only 14% of water utilities in the Bank’s IBNET database cover their full costs. The study also assessed the ‘efficiency losses’ of utilities in the database, putting these at 16% of average total operating costs for a typical utility. Improving on this is imperative, but needs “drastic changes across the spectrum”, from engineering design to workforce motivation.
The report also highlights the extent to which government support is biased towards service provision for urban and non-poor segments of society. If governments really have the goals of universal access to water supply and sanitation in mind, then these biases need to be addressed.
While it is unlikely that rates of progress will quadruple to meet the 2030 deadline, the report offers grounds for optimism. Rather than being faced with a funding gap that is seemingly unlikely to be filled, there are hugely challenging issues, but ones we know can be addressed.
This is the lens through which to read the articles in this edition. From the technology focus of the opportunities to advance the design and operation of large wastewater treatment plants through to the essential need to support and build the human capacity in the sector. From the policy opportunities for connecting the climate agenda with a drive towards resilient services through to how we manage urban drainage assets. Greater funding is not a useful goal in isolation. A goal of well-run service providers, with institutional and governance set-ups that support them, is, and we know this is something that is achievable.
Keith Hayward, Editor
