Publication:
Where Should the Next Dollar Be Best Spent?: Policy Advice Drawn from the World Bank Zimbabwe Water Sector Investment Analysis

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Files in English
English PDF (7.84 MB)
169 downloads
English Text (46.83 KB)
39 downloads
Published
2014-10
ISSN
Date
2016-04-19
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
This policy paper records the outcome of a strategic analysis of investment requirements in the water sector in Zimbabwe as of December 2013. The work, entitled Zimbabwe water sector investment analysis, was undertaken in close collaboration with senior officials in Zimbabwe as an exercise in determining where World Bank investments may be most effective in the future, and to assist the government of Zimbabwe to develop its own investment strategies. The analysis was framed around two key questions: (1) what immediate investments are required to ensure that water in sufficient quantity and at adequate quality will be available to underpin recovery? This is in order to ensure that water availability would not constitute a constraint to future growth and development; and (2) where in the water sector should the next dollar be best spent? This paper summarizes the context of the water sector in Zimbabwe at the time of the study and reflects the key elements of policy advice derived from the analysis. It is important to record and recognize the key elements of policy advice provided by the World Bank through the water sector investment analysis.
Link to Data Set
Citation
World Bank. 2014. Where Should the Next Dollar Be Best Spent?: Policy Advice Drawn from the World Bank Zimbabwe Water Sector Investment Analysis. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/24094 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Report Series
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue

Related items

Showing items related by metadata.

  • Publication
    Sierra Leone : Public Expenditure Review for Water and Sanitation 2002 to 2009
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011-07) Bennett, Anthony; Thompson, Darrell; van Ginneken, Meike
    This review focuses on how public expenditure translates into the delivery of water supply and sanitation services in rural and urban areas in Sierra Leone. It describes the legal and institutional framework for the allocation of resources assesses access to Water Supply and Sanitation (WSS) services and past sector performance, and analyzes public expenditure in the sector, including the factors affecting the efficiency of use of resources, and makes recommendations. Water supply includes the supply, distribution, and usage of water for drinking, food preparation, and hygiene. Sanitation is defined as the sanitary disposal of liquid waste and the promotion of hygienic practices. The review covers the period from 2002 to 2009, a period of reconstructing after a decade of upheavals. Since 2002, democracy and a stable environment for development have been re-established in the country, especially since the 2007 presidential elections. Sierra Leone remains one of the poorest countries in the world.
  • Publication
    Berg Water Project : Communication Practices for Governance and Sustainability Improvement
    (World Bank, 2010-06-01) Haas, Lawrence J. M.; Mazzei, Leonardo; O'Leary, Donal T.; Rossouw, Nigel
    The past decade has witnessed a major global shift in thinking about water, including the role that water infrastructure plays in sustainable development. This rethinking aims to better balance the social, economic, and environmental performance aspects in the development and management of large dams. Additionally, it reinforces efforts to combat poverty by ensuring more equitable access to water and energy services. There is also growing appreciation of how broad-based policy reforms come into play and influence decisions around issues related to dams. Apart from democratization of the development process itself, it is increasingly recognized that infrastructure strategies must complement strategies for water, environment, and energy security; they must also address emerging concerns to reduce vulnerability in water resource systems due to the probability of climate change. Communication comes to the forefront in modern approaches to dam planning and management in several respects. Communication is central to multi-stakeholder dialogue and partnerships at all levels needed to achieve sustainability and governance reform in water resource management and infrastructure provision. At the same time, communication drives the advocacy to mobilize political will and public support for beneficial change and continuous improvement in practices. This case study emphasizes that it is important not only to mobilize all opportunities to reconcile water demand and supply in river basins facing increasing levels of water stress, but also to effectively integrate governance and anticorruption reforms and sustainability improvements into all stages of the planning and project cycle-adding value for all stakeholders, not just for some of them.
  • Publication
    Vietnam Urban Wastewater Review
    (Washington, DC, 2013-12) World Bank
    Vietnam is facing the challenge of trying to keep pace with increasing environmental pollution associated with rapid urbanization, especially in the larger cities. Over the past 20 years, the Government of Vietnam has made considerable effort to develop urban sanitation policies, legislations and regulations, and to invest in urban sanitation including wastewater treatment systems. This study is one of three country studies conducted in the emerging countries of Vietnam, the Philippines, and Indonesia as part of the East Asian urban sanitation review. It reviews the effectiveness of the wastewater sector in Vietnam and makes recommendations to the Government on actions to scale up the sector to improve its performance. Lessons that emerge from this study can be considered for the on-going and or the next generation of wastewater systems.
  • Publication
    Socialist Republic of Vietnam : Performance of the Wastewater Sector in Urban Areas, A Review and Recommendations for Improvement
    (Washington, DC, 2013-12) World Bank
    Vietnam is facing the challenge of trying to keep pace with increasing environmental pollution associated with rapid urbanization, especially in the larger cities. Over the past 20 years, the Government of Vietnam has made considerable effort to develop urban sanitation policies, legislations and regulations, and to invest in urban sanitation including wastewater treatment systems. This study is one of three country studies conducted in the emerging countries of Vietnam, the Philippines, and Indonesia as part of the East Asian urban sanitation review. It reviews the effectiveness of the wastewater sector in Vietnam and makes recommendations to the Government on actions to scale up the sector to improve its performance. Lessons that emerge from this study can be considered for the on-going and or the next generation of wastewater systems.
  • Publication
    Grow in Concert with Nature : Sustaining East Asia's Water Resources through Green Water Defense
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2012) Li, Xiaokai; Turner, Graeme; Jiang, Liping
    As countries develop, the demand for water increases while water supply becomes less certain and is often not enough to meet demand. In general, pressures from both environment and human activities can increase the likelihood of water scarcity. Such pressures include increased socio-economic development and population growth, change in people's diets, competition for available water among different user sectors and growing climate variability. Climate change is likely to exacerbate the existing demand and supply stresses, particularly when more frequent and extreme droughts and floods, as well as rising sea level are becoming more evident. In temperate, sub-temperate regions, less rainfall and longer dry seasons are expected. In tropical areas, rainfall is predicted to be similar or greater in terms of annual average volumes, more intense and severe storms and seasonal droughts (IPCC, 2007). These pressures will test the effectiveness of water resource management systems in providing a consistent and secure water supply for all users, with minimum externalities. This study will assess advances in management practices, institutional and technological innovations for managing water scarcity sustainably under a changing climate. This study of 'sustaining East Asia's water resources through Green Water Defense (GWD) is a sub-study of the 'towards GWD in East Asia' study and is complemented by another sub-study 'green water defense for flood risk management in East Asia' that focuses on flood management in delta regions.

Users also downloaded

Showing related downloaded files

  • Publication
    Accessing Economic and Political Impacts of Hydrological Variability on Treaties : Case Studies on the Zambezi and Mekong Basins
    (2012-03-01) Blankespoor, Brian; Basist, Alan; Dinar, Ariel; Dinar, Shlomi
    International river basins will likely face higher hydrologic variability due to climate change. Increased floods and droughts would have economic and political consequences. Riparians of transboundary basins governed by water treaties could experience non-compliance and inter-state tensions if flow falls below levels presumed in a treaty. Flow information is essential to cope with these challenges through water storage, allocation, and use. This paper demonstrates a simple yet robust method, which measures gauge station runoff with wetness values derived from satellite data (1988-2010), for expanding sub-basin stream flow information to the entire river basin where natural flow information is limited. It demonstrates the approach with flow level data that provide estimates of monthly runoff in near real time in two international river basins: Zambezi and Mekong. The paper includes an economic framework incorporating information on existing institutions to assess potential economic and political impacts and to inform policy on conflict and cooperation between riparians. The authors conclude that satellite data modeled with gauge station runoff reduce the uncertainty inherent in negotiating an international water agreement under increased hydrological variability, and thus can assist policy makers to devise more efficient institutional apparatus.
  • Publication
    How Does Violence Force Displacement during Active Conflict?
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-09) D'Souza, Anna; Favari, Eliana; Krishnaswamy, Siddharth; Tandon, Sharad
    The ways in which violence forces displacement are not well understood given difficulties in collecting data during conflict. This paper investigates this issue during the Republic of Yemen's conflict, which has led to a large forced displacement crisis. First, it demonstrates that violence significantly escalated leading up to and following displacement in the districts from which displaced households fled, and this escalation exceeded that of households that did not become displaced and that of regions to which displaced households moved. Second, the paper demonstrates that the escalation of violence around the time of displacement varied by type of violence. Violence from ground battles escalated leading up to and following displacement- the type of violence with the largest number of fatalities per violent incident and that is most associated with the capture of territory; but other prevalent types of violence either peaked prior to displacement or did not appear to be strongly associated with displacement. And third, it demonstrates that there was a significant amount of heterogeneity in the violence experienced by households before displacement. A significant share of displaced households fled during times of no violence, but violence escalated in the regions from which these households fled following displacement. The paper argues that the last result is likely explained, in part, by these households being more averse to potential violence than other Yemeni households were. Combined, these results corroborate that violence is pivotal to forced displacement, but further illustrate the complexities of deciding whether and when to become displaced.
  • Publication
    Strategic Planning for Poverty Reduction in Vietnam : Progress and Challenges for Meeting the Localized Millennium Development Goals
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2003-01) Swinkels, Rob; Turk, Carrie
    This paper discusses the progress that Vietnam has made toward meeting a core set of development goals that the government recently adopted as part of its Comprehensive Poverty Reduction and Growth Strategy (CPRGS). These goals are strongly related to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), but are adapted and expanded to reflect Vietnam's national challenges and the government's ambitious development plans. For each Vietnam Development Goal, the authors describe recent trends in relation to the trajectories implied by the MDGs, outline the intermediate targets identified by the government, and discuss the challenges involved in meeting these. Relative to other countries of similar per capita expenditures, Vietnam has made rapid progress in a number of key areas. Poverty has halved over the 1990s, enrollment rates in primary education have risen to 91 percent (although there is a quality problem), indicators of gender equity have been strengthened, child mortality has been reduced, maternal health has improved, and real progress has been made in combating malaria and other communicable diseases. In contrast, Vietnam scores worse than other comparable countries in the areas of child malnutrition, access to clean water, and combating HIV/AIDS. A number of important crosscutting issues emerge from this analysis that need to be addressed. One such challenge is improving equity, both in terms of ensuring that the benefits of growth are distributed evenly across the population and in terms of access to public services. This will involve addressing the affordability of education and curative health care for poor households. Improvements in public expenditure planning are needed to align resources better to stated desired outcomes and to link nationally-defined targets to subnational planning and budgeting processes. There is also a need to address capacity and data gaps which will be crucial for effective monitoring.
  • Publication
    Rwanda Diagnostic Review of Consumer Protection and Financial Literacy
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-11) World Bank
    Although the Parliament of Rwanda has passed an impressive array of financial sector laws since 2008, the laws relevant to financial consumer protection are very limited and in some cases overlapping. Consumer protection in Rwandan banking, microfinance, and insurance sectors is fragmented because of insufficiently defined roles and responsibilities among institutions and unclear enforcement capacity. While there are some strong provisions in some areas such as electronic money transfer, electronic transmission, credit information, and market conduct regulation in the insurance industry, many other areas are lagging. Rwandan authorities recognize that a sound financial consumer protection framework is fundamental to improving usage and quality of financial services, access to them, and overall deepening of the financial sector. This World Bank diagnostic review was requested by the National Bank of Rwanda (BNR) in November 2012. Modules on banking and microfinance sectors were developed based on publicly available information and data during the World Bank mission in Rwanda, and the review of the insurance sector was conducted through a desk review using the data obtained from BNR data requests and questionnaires, and the analysis is therefore constrained by it. Volume I of the review summarizes its key findings and recommendations, and volume II provides a detailed assessment against the World Bank’s good practices on financial consumer protection.
  • Publication
    Digital Africa
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13) Begazo, Tania; Dutz, Mark Andrew; Blimpo, Moussa
    All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.