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 12

Water in Circular Economy and Resilience: The Case of Dakar, Senegal

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-09-09) World Bank

This case study is part of a series prepared by the World Bank’s Water Global Practice to highlight existing experiences in the water sector. The purpose of the series is to showcase one or more of the elements that can contribute toward a Water in Circular Economy and Resilience (WICER) system. This case focuses on the experience of Dakar, Senegal.
Evaluating the Potential of Container-Based Sanitation: Sanergy in Nairobi, Kenya

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-02-14) World Bank

This case study examines the container-based sanitation (CBS) service provided by Sanergy and how its business model fits overall in Nairobi as well as specifically in informal settlements there. Sanergy’s basic business concept is to provide safe sanitation to low-income residents of informal settlements in Nairobi and to create a sustainable value chain that converts feces into premium reuse products for agriculture. Sanergy provides single-cubicle, branded Fresh Life Toilets (FLTs) to franchisees for a fee and collects the excreta from the toilets on a frequent basis (daily or every two or three days). Satisfaction expressed by customers with Sanergy’s toilets was high and users of Sanergy’s toilets are paying much the same rates as they would for other toilet options. Overall, the FLT operation shows promise to provide a highly cost-effective sanitation solution at scale and the evolving policy landscape and significant investment by Sanergy and others has radically changed the status of CBS in a short time. Sanergy plans to scale significantly to serve as many as 500,000 people in its existing areas of operation, an ambitious expansion plan that will warrant further study and monitoring.
Evaluating the Potential of Container-Based Sanitation: Clean Team in Kumasi, Ghana

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-02-14) World Bank

This study is focused on Clean Team, a social enterprise providing container-based sanitation (CBS) services in Kumasi, the second-largest city in Ghana with a population of 2.7 million in 2018. Clean Team is owned by Water & Sanitation for the Urban Poor (WSUP), a nonprofit partnership between the private sector, civil society, and academia. Clean Team delivers a single service: rental and regular servicing of in-house portable toilets, which includes transporting feces to a centralized treatment facility but not the processing and reuse of excreta. Customers find the Clean Team toilet appealing and Clean Team services are affordable compared to other alternatives. External subsidies, provided through public and philanthropic grant funding, have been necessary for Clean Team to cover its costs. Clean Team has been working, with support from funders and external advisers, on improving the efficiency of its services and reducing costs. Going forward, Clean Team could benefit from a clearer policy environment, which would allow them to increase the scale of their operations based on a more cost-efficient business model.
Evaluating the Potential of Container-Based Sanitation

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-02-14) World Bank

In the face of urbanization, alternative approaches are needed to deliver adequate and inclusive sanitation services across the full sanitation service chain. Container-based sanitation (CBS) consists of an end-to-end service—that is, one provided along the whole sanitation service chain—that collects excreta hygienically from toilets designed with sealable, removable containers and strives to ensure that the excreta is safely treated, disposed of, and reused. This report builds on four case studies (SOIL – Haiti, x-runner – Peru, Clean Team – Ghana, Sanergy – Kenya) to assess the role CBS can play in a portfolio of solutions for citywide inclusive sanitation (CWIS) services. The authors conclude that CBS approaches should be part of the CWIS portfolio of solutions, especially for poor urban populations for whom alternative on-site or sewer-based sanitation services might not be appropriate. Customer satisfaction with existing services is high and services provided by existing CBS providers are considered safe but have some areas for improvement. While the proportion of total CBS service costs covered by revenues is still small, CBS services are considered to be priced similarly to the main sanitation alternatives in their service areas. Recommendations include adopting a conducive policy and regulatory environment and exploring ways to ensure that CBS services are sustainably financed. The report also identifies areas for further analysis.
Assessment of Groundwater Challenges and Opportunities in Support of Sustainable Development in Sub-Saharan Africa

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-08-01) World Bank Group

The report confirms that groundwater, if managed sustainably, can be an important development resource across the Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) region. The report presents data related to groundwater resource characteristics and highlights the opportunities and challenges presented in promoting sustainable and resilient groundwater development in the region. Groundwater has significant potential to support human and economic development in SSA, as it has done in other global regions. The report recommends investment in expanding groundwater development as an integral component of national water resources strategy for countries in SSA. Investment in groundwater can be financially viable and a wise policy option to support socioeconomic development if safeguards specific to groundwater are incorporated into investmentprograms. The expansion should be designed within a sustainable framework responsive to thespecial social and cultural and economic features of groundwater resources, compounded bytheir special hydrological, environmental and engineering dimensions to guide sustainabledevelopment of this important component of water resources.
Reviewing National Sanitation to Reach Sustainable Development Goals

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-05) Gibson, Jim ; Eales, Kathy ; Nsubuga-Mugga, Chris

The government of Uganda has given strong emphasis to eradicating open defecation and to encouraging people to invest in safe containment systems. Funding to local governments is spurring sanitation improvement on a significant scale. But as the pace of urbanization picks up in the country and the scale and density of urban settlements rise, local authorities and the ministries that support and service these areas will need to give greater attention to safe management of wastes beyond the on-site facilities of individual users. The SDGs shift the sanitation sector’s targets beyond a measurement of how many people have access to an adequate toilet and define outcomes in terms of safe management of human wastes across the whole service chain. It is only by understanding and managing the processes associated with each component in the chain, and ensuring they link and align with the preceding and subsequent components, that one can begin to define strategic interventions to improve the performance of the system. Developing insight into the nature of these processes and related activities will help to clarify the responsibilities, functions, and possibility for intervention by the various role-players and ministries in the sector as they strive for the realization of the objectives defined by the Sustainable Development Goals
Wastewater: From Waste to Resource - The Case of Durban, South Africa

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-03) World Bank

A set of case studies was prepared as part of the World Bank’s Water Global Practice initiative “Wastewater. Shifting paradigms: from waste to resource” to document existing experiences in the water sector on the topic. The case studies highlight innovative financing and contractual arrangements, innovative regulations and legislation and innovative project designs that promote integrated planning, resource recovery and that enhance the financial and environmental sustainability of wastewater treatment plants. This case study documents Durban, South Africa.
Performance of Water Utilities in Africa

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-03) van den Berg, Caroline ; Danilenko, Alexander

Africa’s urban population is growing rapidly. Between 2000 and 2015, the urban population increased by more than 80 percent from 206 million to 373 million people. Although access to piped water increased over the period (from 82 million urban dwellers with piped water in 2000 to 124 million in 2015), African utilities were not able to keep up with the rapid urbanization as reflected in the decline of piped water as a primary source of water supply in percentage terms. The objective of this assessment is to inform Bank and government policies and projects on the drivers of utility performance. The report describes the main outcomes and lessons learned from the assessment that identified and analyzed the main features of water utility performance in Africa. The report includes the following chapters: chapter one gives introduction, chapter two describes the methodology used in the study, including details on the data collection process. In chapter three, the study team undertook a trend analysis of utility performance of the sector. Chapter four examines the efficiency of utilities using a data envelopment analysis (DEA) while also using an absolute performance approach. Chapter five investigates the effect of institutional factors on utility performance. Chapter six presents an econometric analysis of the drivers of utility performance, using various definitions of utility performance. The results from the econometric models are triangulated with a set of case studies of five utilities (Burkina Faso’s l’Office National de l’Eau et de l’Assainissement (ONEA), Cote d’Ivoire’s la société de distribution d’eau de la Côte d’Ivoire (SODECI), Kenya’s Nairobi City Water and Sewerage Company (NCWSC), Senegal’s Sénégalaise des Eaux (SDE), and Uganda’s National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC), similar to those that the electricity study team undertook, which are presented in chapter seven. The report concludes in chapter eight with the lessons learned from the assessment.
Toward Efficient and Sustainable River Basin Operational Services in Indonesia

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-08) World Bank Group

Since the introduction of the Water Law in 2004, national river basin management in Indonesia has been carried out by 30 public river basin management organizations (RBOs), called either Balai Besar Wilayah Sungai(s) (BBWSs) or Balai Wilayah Sungai(s) (BWSs); the two are referenced together here as B(B)WSs. These national government agencies fill both regulatory and management functions, as well as undertaking construction, operation, and maintenance of river infrastructure and irrigation systems larger than 3,000 hectares. Provincial water agencies also provide water resource and river basin management in provincial basins and basins of national river territories, in coordination with the national river basin agencies.
More, Better, or Different Spending? Trends in Public Expenditure on Water and Sanitation in Sub-Saharan Africa

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011-12) van Ginneken, Meike ; Netterstrom, Ulrik ; Bennett, Anthony

This overview paper tests current public spending patterns against the economic rationale for such spending, including reducing disparities in service delivery and overcoming market failures. Reducing the disparities in access to basic water supply and sanitation (WSS) is a responsibility of government. Individuals have little incentive to build and maintain extensive WSS infrastructure, but communities and societies do. Targeted public spending benefitting households that otherwise would be unable to afford those services can be a component of a broader social policy agenda to redistribute resources to the poor. Several market features call for government intervention in the WSS sector. This review mines the rich data of 15 Public Expenditure Reviews (PERs) conducted in Sub-Saharan Africa and funded by the World Bank over the past years. From 2003 the World Bank has funded more than 40 PERs that contain an analysis of the water supply and sanitation (WSS) sector. In most of these, the WSS sector is discussed alongside other sectors. A set of stand-alone PERs specifically addressing the WSS sector have also been carried out in African countries. The scope of the present review includes expenditures by public institutions (at the central and local government levels) on domestic resources and grants or loans provided by external funding agencies. The review does not include off-budget spending by water utilities. In other words, while the numbers in this review include public subsidies to utilities, they do not include expenditure by utilities, thus disregarding expenditures paid for by consumer cost-recovery. The public expenditure analyses in all reviews focus on WSS services, although some reports also discuss water resources management. Almost all of the PERs, however, are limited to WSS, thus excluding water resources management and irrigation issues from the analyses. The reviewed PERs did not use standard definitions, which has led to some data limitations described later. This review is a data mining exercise of country PERs that were written to serve in the political dialogue on the challenges in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015 and on bottlenecks in enhancing public finance management performance.