Publication: Citywide Inclusive Water Supply: Adopting Off-Grid Solutions to Achieve the SDGs
Loading...
Published
2019-06
ISSN
Date
2019-07-10
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
Today about 676 million urban residents, many of them poor, do not have access to the Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) definition of "safely managed" water supplies. They receive an off-grid water supply service that is not safely managed, accessible, or affordable, and thus not compliant with Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6.1. If the rate of providing piped supplies over the last 15 years continues for another 15 years, and the urban population increases as projected by 1.2 billion, then the current 676 million will be joined by a further 300 million by 2030. Therefore, by 2030, nearly 1 billion individuals, primarily in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, will be forced to rely on off-grid supplies that are not safely managed. These troubling numbers exclude the significant population classified as rural but live on the periphery of urban areas and have urban characteristics and aspirations. Not only are off-grid customers increasing but they are also concentrated in the poorer segments of society. An analysis of 75 low-income countries (LICs) in Asia, Africa, and Latin America shows that more than 68 percent of these customers come from the bottom two wealth quintiles (the poor and the poorest). Within these regions, many countries (24 of these 75 countries) have more than 80 percent such off-grid users from poor and poorest categories. The sector's single-minded focus on piped service delivery is insufficient to meet the challenges of providing safe water supplies due to endemic governance, efficiency, and financing challenges. These problems, coupled with policy, land tenure, and related issues in the broader urban environment, all conspire to leave poor households without access to piped water supplies—a problem that will continue. A laissez-faire attitude prevails in the sector, leaving off-grid customer to fend for themselves. Traditional (piped) solutions alone will not achieve SDG 6.1 by 2030 in providing safely managed water that is accessible at the household level and is affordable to customers. It is critical to re-examine the traditional focus on adding piped connections. Policy makers and others in the sector should explore how off-grid solutions could be "reimagined" as a complementary solution.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Misra, Smita; Kingdom, Bill. 2019. Citywide Inclusive Water Supply: Adopting Off-Grid Solutions to Achieve the SDGs. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/32046 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication City-Wide Inclusive Water Supply(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-05-31)The objective of this report is to better understand the challenges of meeting Sustainable Development Goal 6.1 from the perspective of off-grid services currently being used by a large and increasing proportion of the urban population. For this assessment, two key distinct areas with high current or potential off-grid service dependence have been analyzed-core urban areas and peri-urban areas. The core urban areas comprise primarily the slums or poor population pockets that have not been covered by conventional piped systems. The peri-urban areas are characterized, on the one hand, by the displacement of population, industries, and services from the city center to the periphery, resulting in economically rich growth centers, while on the other hand, by slow or poor absorption of these areas into provisioning of basic urban facilities or services by local bodies, resulting in high dependence on independent off-grid service providers. At its heart, this is a scoping study which can provide the foundation for follow-on work that would lead to "reimagined" off-grid service delivery arrangements that complement piped systems-not as a sub-optimal solution but as an acceptable alternative that will ensure all urban residents have "equitable access to safe and affordable drinking waterPublication Citywide Inclusive Water Supply(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022)This report outlines a proactive vision of how development of the supplementary service provider in the water sector can promote citywide inclusive water supply, ensure rapid progress is made in achieving SDG 6.1, and deliver on the green, resilient, and inclusive development and jobs development agenda. Using case studies from around the world, it analyzes the potential of off-utility provision of water and develops a framework focused on what is needed to formalize, professionalize, and scale up these services. It also presents potential models for high-quality supplementary service provider water delivery and outlines how these can be implemented.Publication Review of Effectiveness of Rural Water Supply Schemes in India(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008-06)The prime objective of this study is to review the effectiveness of rural water supply schemes in different states in India. A total of 10 states have been covered in the study: Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Orissa, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and West Bengal. The study explores the extent to which expenditure on rural water supply has been effective in providing access to safe water to rural households in India. This has been assessed in terms of their reliability and adequacy, affordability, and sustainability. In addition, the study examines in detail the capital and Operation and Maintenance (O&M) cost and the extent of cost recovery in rural water supply schemes. In order to explore the effectiveness of rural water supply schemes, the study looks at the extent to which expenditure on rural water supply under various government programs gets translated into water supply infrastructure and services. This is based on an analysis of the flow of funds, institutional costs, support Organization/non-government organization (NGO) costs, and other costs associated with the programs, as well as an assessment of direct and indirect subsidies for rural water supply. Some of the questions this study seeks to address are: What are the coping strategies adopted and coping costs borne by rural households arising out of the inadequacies/limitations of the current services? How strong is the household demand for service improvement, as reflected in their willingness to pay for improved services? What are affordable payment levels for improved services?Publication Reform and Finance for the Urban Water Supply and Sanitation Sector(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-08)Since 2016 the World Bank has explored a wide range of country experiences in delivering better water supply and sanitation services. The analyses led to publication of three new global frameworks for designing water reforms: Policy, Institutional, and Regulatory Incentives, which looks at the broader sector enabling environment; Water Utility Turnaround Framework, which looks at utility-level reforms; and Maximizing Finance for Development, which looks at shifting the financing paradigm to reach the Sustainable Development Goals. The three frameworks—individually and as a compendium—set forth the key principles of a more holistic approach to reform that diverges from the traditional focus on infrastructure economics to a deeper understanding of the behavior of and between sector institutions and of the people within those institutions. Each country-specific reform path will gradually bring the sector to higher degrees of maturity with a strong focus on improving financial sustainability. This summary note integrates the three lines of work—utility reform, sector reform, and sector finance—for readers to understand the critical links between the three spheres. New contributions of this note are a Maturity Matrix for assessing where a country is in its reform process and where it wants to go and a Maturity Ladder that identifies typical actions to move from one stage of maturity to the next. Tools and references are also provided to help governments start on their reform path.Publication Aligning Institutions and Incentives for Sustainable Water Supply and Sanitation Services(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-05)The objective of this study is to analyze how integrated policy, institutional, and regulatory interventions (institutional interventions in brief) can help align incentives for more sustainable water supply and sanitation (WSS) service delivery. The context for the study is the enhanced global concern about the sustainability of attempts to increase access to, and improve the quality of, WSS services, as exemplified in the sustainable development goals. Aligning institutional interventions refers to harmonization among the objectives for the sector, agreed principles established through political and social processes, and the organizations and mechanisms that implement actions based on such objectives and principles. This report focuses on the formal policy, institutional, and regulatory interventions available to and or prevalent in the water sector, recognizing the critical importance of the informal conventions that will be key factors in the success of any incentive regime. Previous global initiatives offered a range of promising technical solutions that often proved to be unsustainable. New thinking that draws not only infrastructure economics but also on the understanding of political, behavioral, and institutional economics is needed. This new thinking must be grounded within the differing contextual realities of countries globally and in lessons learned from what has or has not worked with regards to achieving specific objectives.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication World Development Report 2020(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2020)Global value chains (GVCs) powered the surge of international trade after 1990 and now account for almost half of all trade. This shift enabled an unprecedented economic convergence: poor countries grew rapidly and began to catch up with richer countries. Since the 2008 global financial crisis, however, the growth of trade has been sluggish and the expansion of GVCs has stalled. Meanwhile, serious threats have emerged to the model of trade-led growth. New technologies could draw production closer to the consumer and reduce the demand for labor. And conflicts among large countries could lead to a retrenchment or a segmentation of GVCs. This book examines whether there is still a path to development through GVCs and trade. It concludes that technological change is, at this stage, more a boon than a curse. GVCs can continue to boost growth, create better jobs, and reduce poverty provided that developing countries implement deeper reforms to promote GVC participation; industrial countries pursue open, predictable policies; and all countries revive multilateral cooperation.Publication Managing the Fiscal Implications of Public-Private Partnerships in a Sustainable and Resilient Manner(Washington, DC, 2023-03-22)Public-private partnerships (PPPs) can sometimes be perceived as a means for delivering infrastructure for free. A more nuanced but still inexact view is that they are a mechanism to overcome fiscal constraints. Some argue, perhaps rightly, that often governments enter PPP contracts without fully understanding their fiscal implications. These misconceptions lead to several challenges. There is evidence that fiscal sustainability is often overlooked or ignored by countries with PPP programs, with long-term fiscal implications the governments did not understand or manage well. Governments also struggle with perceptions that they are not fully transparent about the real, ultimate costs of PPP projects. This report aims to illustrate how to improve fiscal risk management and treatment of fiscal commitments and contingent liabilities (FCCL) arising from PPP projects, to build better Infrastructure post-COVID-19. It intends to be a resource for World Bank client countries, including low income and fragile economies, to design their fiscal PPP management frameworks in a viable way that helps them develop their PPP programs while maintaining medium-to-long-term fiscal sustainability and resilience. With that in mind, Volume I highlights and contextualizes the main findings from a set of case studies that assessed the PPP fiscal risk management framework in select countries, and synthesizes the observable and qualitative results in managing the impact of crises, in particular the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on that, it also explores how this crisis has affected PPP projects and overall PPP programs, and suggests improvements to FCCL management frameworks in order to strengthen the capacity of countries to continue with their PPP programs in a sustainable fiscal manner. Volume II contains the detailed case studies on which Volume I is based.Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)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.Publication The Costs of Environmental Degradation from Plastic Pollution in Selected Coastal Areas in the United Republic of Tanzania(World Bank, Washington DC, 2023-03-16)Plastic waste negatively impacts ecosystems, public health, and local economies in Tanzania. For example, marine plastic and microplastic wastes contaminate beaches, sea grass areas and coral reef habitats, lower the quality of marine ecosystems and biodiversity, and endanger bird and marine wildlife through entanglement and the ingestion of plastics of different sizes. They also endanger human health through food chains. Valuation of the costs of environmental degradation (COED) from marine plastic pollution helps the country to understand the scale of the impacts and prioritize activities for mitigation of these impacts. This study developed the methodology to estimate the COED in the selected coastal areas in Zanzibar and Dar es Salaam. It is the first of its kind for valuing the impacts of marine plastic wastes on local economic sectors, public health, and marine ecosystems. The valuation results reveal that marine plastics pollution causes a net economic cost to the local economic activities, especially tourism, and the natural environment of study areas, and that in some areas costs can be quite significant. The analysis of the costs across study areas and sectors is useful for prioritizing marine plastic pollution management activities.Publication Digital Identity Toolkit : A Guide for Stakeholders in Africa(Washington, DC, 2014-06)Digital identity, or electronic identity (eID), offers developing nations a unique opportunity to accelerate the pace of their national progress. It changes the way services are delivered, helps grow a country's digital economy, and supports effective safety nets for disadvantaged and impoverished populations. Though digital identity is an opportunity, it raises important considerations with respect to privacy, cost, capacity, and long-term viability. This report provides a strategic view of the role of identification in a country's national development, as well as a tactical view of the building blocks and policy choices needed for setting up eID in a developing country. The report presents a conceptual overview of digital identity management practices, providing a set of guidelines at a national level that policymakers can find helpful as they begin to think about modernizing the identity infrastructure of their country into eID. The report also provides an operating knowledge of the terminology and concepts used in identity management and an exposition of the functional blocks that must be in place. Policy considerations are referenced at the end of the report that governments can use as they contemplate a digital identity program. Given its abridged nature, the report is intended to be insightful and detailed, though not exhaustive. Several important topics related to eID are noted though deserve further discussion, including: economic and financial analysis, the development and setup of a national civil register, and cross-border aspects of eID. The building blocks, as discussed, can help ensure that a secure, robust and reliable digital identity platform can serve the development needs of a country for the foreseeable future.