Person:
de Waal, Dominick

Water Global Practice, The World Bank
Profile Picture
Author Name Variants
Fields of Specialization
Water infrastructure finance, Utility finance
Degrees
ORCID
External Links
World Bank Blogs
Externally Hosted Work
Contact Information
Last updated: February 21, 2024
Biography
Dominick de Waal is a Senior Economist working with the World Bank’s Water Global Practice. He has worked both in the Africa and the MENA regions leading country and regional reports on water sector financing and performance including financial modeling of the Jordanian water sector, a regional report for the African Ministers Council on Water and this report on the economics of water scarcity in MENA. He has managed lending operations for water sector infrastructure and reform, spearheading an expansion of Bank water sector lending in fragile states across Africa and the Middle East. Most recently he is working on Country Climate and Development Reports helping countries better align their development visions with climate action.

Filters

2020 - 202512000 - 20194
Browse document type tree
Reset filters

Settings

Statistics
Citations

Publication Search Results

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
  • Thumbnail Image
    Publication
    The Economics of Water Scarcity in the Middle East and North Africa: Institutional Solutions
    (Washington, DC : World Bank, 2023-04-26) de Waal, Dominick; Khemani, Stuti; Barone, Andrea; Borgomeo, Edoardo
    Despite massive infrastructure investments, countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region continue to face unprecedented water scarcity due to climate change, population growth, and socioeconomic development. Current policy regimes for managing water across competing needs are primarily determined by state control of large infrastructure. Policy makers across the region understand the unsustainability of water allocations and that increasing investments in new infrastructure and technologies to increase water supply place a growing financial burden on governments. However, standard solutions for demand management—reallocating water to higher value uses, reducing waste, and increasing tariffs—pose difficult political dilemmas that, more often than not, are left unresolved. Without institutional reform, the region will likely remain in water distress even with increased financing for water sector infrastructure.The Economics of Water Scarcity in the Middle East and North Africa: Institutional Solutions confronts the persistence and severity of water scarcity in MENA. The report draws on the tools of public economics to address two crucial challenges facing states in MENA: lack of legitimacy and trust. Evidence from the World Values Survey shows that people in the region believe that a key role of government is to keep prices down and that governments are reluctant to raise tariffs because of the risk of widespread protests. Instead of avoiding the “politically sensitive” issue of water scarcity, this report argues that reform leaders and their external partners can reform national water institutions and draw on local political contestation to establish a new social contract. The crisis and emotive power of water in the region can be used to bolster legitimacy and trust and build a sustainable, inclusive, thriving economy that is resilient to climate change.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Publication
    Turbulent Waters: Pursuing Water Security in Fragile Contexts
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-03-14) Sadoff, Claudia W.; Borgomeo, Edoardo; de Waal, Dominick
    Water insecurity—ranging from chronic water scarcity to lack of access to safe drinking water and sanitation services, to hydrological uncertainty and extremes (floods and droughts)—can cause severe disruptions and compound fragilities in social, economic, and environmental systems. Untangling the role of water insecurity in contributing to fragility is difficult, yet it is becoming a fundamental question for water policy worldwide given the scale of the fragility challenge. This report explores the dynamics between water insecurity and fragility. It suggests that water security is more difficult to achieve in fragile contexts because of a range of factors, including weak institutions and information systems, strained human and financial resources, and degraded infrastructure. This report focuses on three main mechanisms by which water insecurity and fragility interact: (1) failure to provide citizens with basic water services; (2) failure to protect citizens from water-related disasters; and (3) failure to preserve surface, ground and transboundary water resources.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Publication
    Water Supply: The Transition from Emergency to Development Support
    (World Bank, Nairobi, 2017-02) Duret, Michel; Gaju, Anita; Hirn, Maximilian; Huston, Sam; Jain, Nitin; Mirindi, Deo; Mudege, Ngoni; Niyungeko, Deo-Marcel; Richey, Chantal; Ochieng, Christine; Print, Chris; Sitali, Muyatwa; Skilling, Heather; de Waal, Dominick
    Donors supporting countries affected by fragility conflict and violence face a difficult trade-off. Should they deliver urgently needed water supply infrastructure through non-state actors or build the country institutions that deliver water supply? This report confirms that the current response to this trade-off relies heavily on the direct delivery of aid by international agencies and NGOs. This leaves country institutions in their post-crisis enfeabled condition often locking these countries into humanitarian aid modalities. The technical assistance in seven countries across Africa, described in this report, explored two entry points for (re)building country institutions: i) strengthening sector oversight (by using data on service delivery to better orchestrate external support) and ii) utility reform (actively encouraging utilities to cover their operation and maintenance costs through consumer tariffs). Stretching these 'development' interventions into protracted crises and early post-crisis periods opened up greater opportunity for a double dividend: that of improving water supply services and of state building.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Publication
    Improving Utility Performance in Fragile Environments: Lessons from Liberia Water and Sewer Corporation in Liberia and Guma Valley Water Company in Sierra Leone
    (World Bank, Nairobi, Kenya, 2015-07) Hirn, Max; de Waal, Dominick
    This note summarizes lessons from the Water and Sanitation Program’s (WSP) technical assistance to improve performance and cost-recovery at the Liberia Water and Sewer Corporation (LWSC) and Sierra Leone’s Guma Valley Water Company (GVWC). The focus on cost-recovery reflects its critical importance to the viability of utilities. There are ‘almost no examples in developing countries’ of utilities ‘whose operating revenues are significantly below O&M costs and that are nevertheless able to develop and maintain their infrastructure and provide a reliable and efficient service’. (McPhail, et al., 2012). WSP’s technical assistance sought to strengthen reform efforts initiated by the management teams at LWSC and GVWC by improving the utilities’ ability to sustainably fund their operations. Three aspects of cost-recovery were prioritized: (a) improving metering, billing and collection processes (b) reducing commercial non-revenue water and (c) investigating options to expand the utilities’ revenue base by connecting new customers more effectively.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Publication
    The Intricacies of Attracting and Sustaining Investment in WASH in Fragile States: Lessons from Liberia
    (World Bank, Nairobi, Kenya, 2015-07) Hirn, Max; de Waal, Dominick
    The choice made early in the post-conflict transition by the international community to directly fund WASH service delivery through non-state actors rather than through the Liberian government undermined both sector policy dialogue and the formation of robust government institutions able to lead and orchestrate service delivery by non-state actors. This paper aims to inform this new wave of support to Liberia’s WASH sector by looking back at service provision in the country over the period 2003 to 2015 and reflecting on the transition from the post-war emergency response to the nascent development response. The paper first describes key trade-offs encountered by the international community in this transition, describing choices made in Liberia that held back government capacity to orchestrate a national response to service delivery. It then goes on to describe how WSP and other development partners have, since 2011, worked with the government of Liberia to build and attract investment to a country-led WASH development program. The paper presents lessons for sector practitioners operating in post-crisis transition situations, both those in developing country governments and their development partners.