Financing the Millennium Development Goals for Domestic Water Supply and Sanitation (original) (raw)

Financing the Millennium Development Goals for Water and Sanitation: What Will it Take

International Journal of Water Resources Development, 2005

The key financing challenge in meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is to arrive at consensus-based, viable and sustainable country-level financing strategies that are integrated into the overall national planning and expenditure process. This requires an assessment of various policy scenarios taking into account economic capacity (as defined by GDP) as well as (plausible) level of public expenditures and affordability at a household level. This paper is prepared to guide the discussions on the characteristics of financing requirements, affordability and feasibility of the MDGs on water and sanitation in Africa. It argues that for African countries to meet the targets, they will need to implement cost recovery policies (leverage more resources into the sector) and use public resources better so as to increase sector performance and help the poor gain access to water and sanitation.

Global costs of attaining the Millennium Development Goal for water supply and sanitation

Bulletin of The World Health Organization, 2008

Objective Target 10 of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is to "halve by 2015 the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation". Because of its impacts on a range of diseases, it is a health-related MDG target. This study presents cost estimates of attaining MDG target 10. Methods We estimate the population to be covered to attain the MDG target using data on household use of improved water and sanitation for 1990 and 2004, and taking into account population growth. We assume this estimate is achieved in equal annual increments from the base year, 2005, until 2014. Costs per capita for investment and recurrent costs are applied. Country data is aggregated to 11 WHO developing country subregions and globally. Findings Estimated spending required in developing countries on new coverage to meet the MDG target is US$ 42 billion for water and US$ 142 billion for sanitation, a combined annual equivalent of US$ 18 billion. The cost of maintaining existing services totals an additional US$ 322 billion for water supply and US 216billionforsanitation,acombinedannualequivalentofUS216 billion for sanitation, a combined annual equivalent of US216billionforsanitation,acombinedannualequivalentofUS 54 billion. Spending for new coverage is largely rural (64%), while for maintaining existing coverage it is largely urban (73%). Additional programme costs, incurred administratively outside the point of delivery of interventions, of between 10% and 30% are required for effective implementation. Conclusion In assessing financing requirements, estimates of cost should include the operation, maintenance and replacement of existing coverage as well as new services and programme costs. Country-level costing studies are needed to guide sector financing.

Meeting the Challenge of Financing Water and Sanitation

Water Intelligence Online, 2013

Water and sanitation services (WSS) generate substantial benefits for human health, the economy as a whole and the environment. WHO estimates that meeting the water and sanitation MDGs would lead to a benefit to cost ratio of 7 to 1.  However, the investments needed to deliver sustainable water and sanitation services, including the funds that are needed to operate and maintain the infrastructure, expand their coverage and upgrade service delivery to meet current social and environmental expectations, are huge. A recent OECD study found that the capital required globally to finance investment in key infrastructure will amount to about USD 75 trillion to 2030, with nearly half of it for water and sanitation.  Yet, most systems are underfunded with dire consequences for water and sanitation users, especially the poorest. Closing the financing gap will require countries to mobilise financing from a variety of sources, which may include reducing costs, increasing the funding from the 3Ts (tariffs, taxes and transfers) and mobilizing repayable finance, including from the market or from public sources.  Planning for the right balance between all these sources of revenues calls for strategic financial planning, so as to evaluate the potential for mobilising financing from each source of revenues as well as reducing costs.  To provide support to governments and water and sanitation service providers, the OECD (in conjunction with a number of other international organisations) has developed a series of tools, including financial tools, benchmarking tools and guidelines with a view to improve the performance of utilities. These tools are presented in a new report "Meeting the challenge of financing water and sanitation-Tools and approaches". WSS generate substantial benefits for the economy Water and sanitation services (WSS) generate substantial benefits for human health, the economy as a whole and the environment. Access to clean drinking water and sanitation reduces health risks and freesup time for education and other productive activities, as well as increases the productivity of the labour force. Safe wastewater disposal helps to improve the quality of surface waters with benefits for the environment (e.g. functioning of ecosystems; biodiversity), as well as for economic sectors that depend on water as a resource (e.g. fishing, agriculture, tourism).

A Primer on Water Economics and Financing for Developing Countries

2008

Water is essential for survival. It has been estimated that human beings need at least 4 to 5 gallons of water a day to survive. While there is enough water for everyone, access to that water is a considerable problem. Recent studies forecast that, under current water management conditions, 35 percent of the world's population will run short of water in the next 25 years. Even in areas where water is not scarce, many people do not have access to it. More than one billion people lack access to safe drinking water (two-thirds of them live on less than $2 a day) and more than 2.6 billion lack access to improved sanitation. Recent UN figures show that there are more than 100 million persons that still lack access to safe drinking water in Europe, contributing to the deaths from diarrhea of nearly 40 children across the region every day. At the world level, current evidence shows that 1.7 million deaths a year could be avoided by providing access to safe drinking water and sanitation. These gaps have been recognized in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), where Target 10 of Goal number 7 calls for halving, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water. It is also dealt with indirectly in Target 5 of Goal 4, which calls for reducing by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the mortality rate of children under 5 years of age.