Water Papers

183 items available

Permanent URI for this collection

http://hdl.handle.net/10986/16997

Water Papers are produced by the Water Global Practice, taking up the work of the predecessor Water Unit, Transport, Water and ICT Department, Sustainable Development Vice Presidency.

Items in this collection

Now showing 1 - 10 of 31

From a Humanitarian to Development Approach: Uganda’s Ground-Breaking Journey to Achieve Sustainable Provision of Water Services to Refugees and Host Communities

(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-06-20) Huang, Ai-Ju ; Njoroge, David Githiri ; Otiego, Lilian ; Danilenko, Alexander

The number of refugees in Africa reached 6.9 million in 2021, nearly tripling over the past 15 years. Uganda alone hosts 1.5 million refugees, making it the largest refugee-hosting country in Africa and third in the world. Uganda has progressive refugee management policies that have welcomed refugees into the country for more than 70 years, with the average length of stay being seven to eight years. The pressure on water resources and infrastructure arising from the massive inflow and protracted stay of refugees is high and cannot be sustained solely through humanitarian interventions. The provision of water services in the refugee settlements under the humanitarian context is fragmented, and the actors supporting the refugee response can no longer provide effective and quality services because of financial and capacity constraints. This paper outlines Uganda’s pioneering shift from a traditional humanitarian water service model, designed for short-term emergencies, to a holistic approach that integrates refugees and host communities in long-term national development planning. It illustrates how Ugandan policy makers, the World Bank, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) have come together to collectively design interventions at the national and local levels that have advanced this transition. The critical analytics, tools, and road maps generated through those interventions anchored the policy dialogues, reforms, and financing mechanisms that supported the transfer of water systems and provision services from humanitarian partners to national utilities. As a result, US$57 million of donor funds were mobilized and 50 water systems have already been transferred to national water providers, serving approximately 12 percent of the refugees and their host communities. Sharing the lessons learned from Uganda’s experience with World Bank project teams, partners, and other countries managing forced displacement may be beneficial as they strive to improve provision of water services to refugees and hosting communities.
Unblocking Sector Financing for Universal Access to Water Supply and Sanitation in Kenya: Sector Note, February 2023

(Washington DC, 2023-03-14) World Bank

This note summarizes the findings of the water supply and sanitation subsector review conducted through the lens of a public expenditure and institutional review. The review seeks to support the government in addressing the challenges impeding the sector’s performance by highlighting the reforms needed to expand the financing for achieving universal water supply and sanitation coverage
Peru - Strategic Actions Toward Water Security

(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022-07-21) World Bank

Water security—the availability of an acceptable quantity and quality of water for health, livelihoods, ecosystems, and production, coupled with an acceptable level of water-related risks to people, environments, and economies is crucial to Peru’s path to shared prosperity while addressing climate risks. Access to this precious resource, however, is increasingly threatened by climate change, pollution, and uncontrolled and inefficient use of existing water resources and infrastructure. Taking strategic action now is critical to ensuring that Peru can sustain its water resource base, continue to deliver water to people and productive sectors of the economy, and build resilience to climatic and non-climatic events.
Wastewater Treatment and Reuse: A Guide to Help Small Towns Select Appropriate Options

(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022-03-31) Brault, Jean-Martin ; Buchauer, Konrad ; Gambrill, Martin

Small towns in low- and middle-income countries are growing rapidly and struggling to meet the increased demands of wastewater collection and treatment. To avert public health crises and continued environmental degradation, small towns are actively seeking safely managed sanitation solutions, appropriate for their scale, institutional capacity, financial resources, and overarching needs. This document is designed to provide a guide of small-town wastewater treatment processes in order to assist engineers, managers and other stakeholders responsible for wastewater service provision in identifying and selecting appropriate wastewater treatment processes for small towns. This guide is part of a World Bank suite of tools and other material to support World Bank teams and their government counterparts in the planning, design, and implementation of sanitation projects in urbanizing areas. Addressing the specific context of small towns, the format of this guide begins with an introduction of key concepts for a decision maker to understand and then applies a suggested five-step approach to exploring appropriate wastewater treatment technologies, culminating with case studies from three regions applying this approach. It delves into the unique considerations for small-town wastewater treatment and the exploration of corresponding technologies. Before demonstrating the application of the approach, the guide also navigates: (a) factors external to the technologies that define the characteristics and environment of a given small town and that will affect technology choice; and (b) technology-specific information that will ultimately influence decision making. Before embarking on the formal planning and design process, the user is highly encouraged to become familiar with the guide methodology in its entirety while drawing on the principles of the Citywide Inclusive Sanitation approach.
Seeing the Invisible: A Strategic Report on Groundwater Quality

(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022-03-23) Ravenscroft, Peter ; Lytton, Lucy

This report describes why, and how, groundwater quality is vital to human health, agriculture, industry and the environment. In turn, this explains why it is so important to World Bank staff and clients, as well as diverse managers and administrators in countries and economies at all stages of development.
Practical Manual on Groundwater Quality Monitoring

(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022-03-20) Ravenscroft, Peter ; Lytton, Lucy

This is a companion volume to “Seeing the Invisible: A Strategic Report on Groundwater Quality,” which explains why groundwater quality is so important to managers of development programs in the World Bank and elsewhere. Its purpose is to provide managers and their teams with practical guidance on how to set up and manage a groundwater quality monitoring program. It provides a logical, step-by-step approach that can be tailored to, and grow with, the capacity to implement such a program. The guiding principle is that monitoring is the fundamental activity that shapes our identification of issues, the framing of problems, the design of solutions, and the measurement of the effectiveness of those solutions. Monitoring is often seen as simple and undervalued, but monitoring of groundwater quality, and its interpretation, is technically demanding. On the other hand, it is also extremely rewarding.
Advancing Knowledge of the Water-Energy Nexus in the GCC Countries

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022) Jägerskog, Anders ; Barghouti, Shawki

Climate change and increasing population pressure make it increasingly urgent to find ways to improve the management of the water-energy nexus. The desalination, pumping, distribution, and treatment of water use significant energy resources. The extraction and production of energy consume substantial amounts of water resources. In addition, negative effects on the environment are often the consequences of the management of the water and energy sectors. The report highlights the prospects for addressing these and other challenges at the water-energy nexus. It does this by drawing, in part, on some of the most important breakthroughs in the nexus that have come from the region.
Glaciers, Rivers, and Springs: A Water Sector Diagnostic of Nepal

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022) Joseph, George ; Shrestha, Anne

Nepal is rich in water resources with a dense network of glaciers, lakes, rivers, and springs that originate in the Himalayas. However, only an estimated 15 billion cubic meters (BCM) of the 225 BCM water available annually is utilized for economic and social purposes. Several elements have contributed to this low rate of utilization, including Nepal’s rugged geography, inadequate institutional capacity, a history of prolonged political instability, and highly skewed seasonality - more than 80 percent of the precipitation in a year falls within a span of four months. For sustained economic growth and poverty reduction, and to enhance shared prosperity, Nepal must increase its investments in water-related infrastructure and institutions and improve the effectiveness of these investments. Although there is much to be done to harness this vital resource, it is important to broaden the development focus and integrate hydropower in a larger water resource management strategy. This strategy will ensure that water is available for basic and economic needs - even through the dry season - as a core component of Nepal’s overall development plan. Given Nepal’s development context and challenges, this document aims to analyze the most pressing sector challenges and identify strategic sector priorities that are aligned with the country’s partnership framework. It offers a snapshot of water in Nepal’s development story and situates the water sector in the broader context of the national economy, highlighting the importance of managing water resources for sustained economic growth and poverty reduction. It then presents five pressing sector-related challenges and concludes with a set of priority areas.
Troubled Tariffs: Revisiting Water Pricing for Affordable and Sustainable Water Services

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-12-02) Andres, Luis A. ; Saltiel, Gustavo ; Misra, Smita ; Joseph, George ; Lombana Cordoba, Camilo ; Thibert, Michael ; Fenwick, Crystal

Tariffs are essential but not the only pathway to cost recovery, addressing affordability, and managing water conservation. To maximize their potential, they must be well designed, complemented by appropriate instruments, adequately regulated, and understood by customers. This report builds upon that one, and provides policy makers with the information needed to design better tariffs to further the economic efficiency, affordability, and environmental sustainability of water supply services. Through a layered and comprehensive analysis of the most prevalent tariff structures, it provides policy makers with specific guidance on pricing water supply services in response to the sector’s often-competing goals. This document comprises a synthesis of fifteen unique research papers that, combined, articulate a step-by-step thought process for designing effective tariffs with a view to achieving sustainable development goal (SDG) 6.
Water in Circular Economy and Resilience

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-09-15) Delgado, Anna ; Rodriguez, Diego J. ; Amadei, Carlo A. ; Makino, Midori

Rethinking urban water through the circular economy and resilience lenses offers an opportunity to transform the urban water sector and deliver water supply and sanitation services in a more sustainable, inclusive, efficient, and resilient way. Circular Economy principles have emerged as a response to the current unsustainable linear model of "take, make, consume, and waste." In a circular economy, the full value of water – as a service, an input to processes, a source of energy and a carrier of nutrients and other materials – is recognized and captured. This report presents the Water in Circular Economy and Resilience (WICER) Framework together with global case studies that show the benefits of becoming circular and resilient. It describes the key actions needed to achieve three main outcomes: 1) deliver resilient and inclusive services, 2) design out waste and pollution, and 3) preserve and regenerate natural systems. The report sets out to demystify circular economy by showing that both high-income and low-income countries can benefit from it.