Publication:
Financial Services to Improve Access to Water and Sanitation in Sub-Saharan Africa

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Files in English
English PDF (744.14 KB)
336 downloads
English Text (21.77 KB)
26 downloads
Date
2008-09
ISSN
Published
2008-09
Editor(s)
Abstract
Achieving the millennium development goals, particularly, reducing child mortality (the fourth), and halving the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water (the seventh) requires significant improvements in access to safe water and basic sanitation. In Sub-Saharan Africa a water and sanitation crisis looms. Forty-four percent of the population does not have reliable access to safe water, and 63 percent remain un-served by sanitation facilities. Income poverty is also at a crisis stage. Some 72 percent of the population in Africa lives on less than US$2 a day and 41 percent suffers from extreme poverty on less than $1 a day. Despite the dire need and consensus on the goals, public funds for water supply and sanitation are drying up. Marrying the financial with the water and sanitation sectors to make financial services available to low-income households and small-scale providers of water and sanitation services is a market-driven, market-friendly approach to resolving the credit constraint that is inhibiting the development of water and sanitation infrastructure in Africa. Depending on the situation, this approach: (1) promotes the provision of financial services directly to low-income households in order to enable their investment, (2) extends access to water and sanitation services to poor households by making financial instruments available to micro-, small-, and medium-size private operators, and/or (3) targets public funds more effectively to the extreme poor. Key strategies are: 1) closing the information gap that exists between the sectors at the policy and operational levels, and between service users and service suppliers; 2) supporting competition and financial viability in service provision in addressing policy challenges; 3) financial broadening by widening the range of financial products suitable for small-scale water supply and sanitation; 4) financial deepening by increasing the outreach and coverage of financial institutions to small-scale service providers and users; and 5) tight targeting of grant funding to the extreme poor and low-potential areas, and separating it from loans.
Link to Data Set
Citation
Biesinger, Brigitte; Richter, Maren. 2008. Financial Services to Improve Access to Water and Sanitation in Sub-Saharan Africa. Agricultural and Rural Development Notes; No. 42. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/9504 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.
Associated URLs
Associated content
Report Series
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections

Related items

Showing items related by metadata.

  • Publication
    Policy and Sector Reform to Accelerate Access to Improved Rural Sanitation
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-06) Rosensweig, Fred; Perez, Eddy; Robinson, Andy
    The Water and Sanitation Program (WSP) has provided technical assistance to support government efforts to scale up rural sanitation since 2007 through Scaling up Rural Sanitation (TSSM). One of the central objectives of this initiative is to learn how to improve rural sanitation at a scale sufficient to meet the 2015 millennium development goal for sanitation in Indonesia, Tanzania, and the states of Himachal Pradesh (HP) and Madhya Pradesh (MP) in India, and to then use the lessons learned to help replicate policy, programmatic, and service delivery approaches in other countries. Endline assessments of the programmatic and institutional conditions (referred to by the project as the enabling environment) needed to scale up, sustain, and replicate the total sanitation and sanitation marketing approaches were conducted in all three countries: East Java province in Indonesia; ten districts in Tanzania; and Himachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. Baseline assessments of the enabling environment were conducted in late 2007 during the start-up phase of the overall project. The baseline assessments identified weaknesses in the enabling environment in each country and made concrete recommendations for WSP technical support to help address these gaps. These recommendations were incorporated into WSP work plans in each of the countries. The purpose of this report is to synthesize the key findings, conclusions, and recommendations from these three assessments to provide guidance and insight for other countries seeking to create large-scale sustainable rural sanitation programs.
  • Publication
    Financing Small Piped Water Systems in Rural and Peri-Urban Kenya
    (Washington, DC, 2011-09) World Bank
    In Kenya, community run small-scale water systems play a critical role in supplying and improving access to water services in peri-urban and rural areas. This is largely because municipally-owned water services providers currently supply only 25 per cent of the country's population and 39 per cent of the population within their service areas. Historically, under a centralized institutional structure, a large number of communities were tasked with managing and recovering the operating costs of small piped water supply systems installed by government. The importance of these community providers has been recognized in recent reforms of the sector. These provide for a legal and regulatory framework for community based organizations to engage in water service provision outside major towns and cities. However, a host of problems complicate efforts to support these community organizations to become reliable service providers, including their limited management capacity, low operating revenues and lack of access to finance. Efforts to license and regulate the operations of community water projects have been hampered by the slow implementation of policies aimed at decentralizing water service delivery to communities in areas not covered by municipal water services providers. In spite of considerable liquidity within the Kenyan financial sector, domestic banks do not typically finance investments in water infrastructure because of the long term nature of infrastructure finance and the perceived lack of creditworthiness of rural and peri-urban small scale water providers. Efforts to license and regulate the operations of community water projects (CWPs) have been hampered by the slow implementation of policies aimed at decentralizing water service delivery to communities in areas not covered by municipal water services providers. With the considerable public financial resources available in the water sector, the size of the market for a loan linked product is likely to be limited over the medium term. However, public funds are not sufficient to build the infrastructure required to effectively meet the demand for water services: hence the increasing focus on cost recovery tariffs and the considerable initiatives underway to access supplementary financial resources from the private sector.
  • Publication
    Output-Based Aid for Sustainable Sanitation
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2010-09) Tremolet, Sophie; Evans, Barbara
    Sanitation services are beneficial for communities at large. They generate strong positive health and environmental benefits to society ('externalities'). Public financing is an important way to stimulate the provision of these services, but there are serious issues with the way public subsidies for sanitation have been delivered up to now. Recent estimates show that the sanitation millennium development goals (MDGs) will simply not be met in a number of countries if 'business-as-usual' continues. The study looks at how such Output-Based Aid (OBA) schemes might be designed by analyzing the sanitation value-chain, and what institutional, financing and risk mitigation measures would be required for each type of OBA scheme. Questions discussed include 'what' outputs should be subsidized and 'who' are the most likely candidates to provide output-based sanitation services.
  • Publication
    Sanitation Finance in Rural Cambodia
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-02) Robinson, Andy
    This document presents the findings of a study on sanitation finance in Cambodia conducted for the Water and Sanitation Program (WSP) with support from the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The overall objective of the assignment was to consider sustainable sanitation financing options with a focus on promoting access for the poorest. This guidance note contains an introduction on sanitation financing and subsidies, stating the cases for subsidies as well as some of their practical pitfalls. The study used data (as of late 2009) from two case studies of rural sanitation finance in Cambodia to illustrate the practical issues, sup-plemented by preliminary data from two sanitation marketing projects. The study also examined the potential use and effectiveness of (hardware) subsidies, conditional cash transfers (CCTs), and other financing approaches relevant for sanitation improvement. The document ends with recommendations for improved sanitation finance, including practical suggestions for sanitation programs in Cambodia. These recommendations bear particular relevance for the ADB's Second Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Sector Project, which commenced in 2010.
  • Publication
    Appropriate Groundwater Management Policy for Sub-Saharan Africa
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011) Tuinhof, Albert; Foster, Stephen; van Steenbergen, Frank; Talbi, Amal; Wishart, Marcus
    This paper provides an overview of major groundwater issues for Sub-Saharan Africa, with an assessment of their policy implications in terms of potential development and appropriate management. In terms of construction time, capital outlay and drought resilience, groundwater is the preferred source to meet most water-supply demands, despite hydro geological complexity, natural constraints on water well yields and quality, and institutional weaknesses. The 'new developmental agenda' relates to improving urban water-supply security and expanding irrigated agriculture to meet these challenges many countries need to undertake strategic assessment of their groundwater and prioritize investment on institutional strengthening so as to facilitate appropriately-managed groundwater development. Without effective use of available groundwater resources, improved livelihoods and climate-change adaptation will prove much more difficult to achieve.

Users also downloaded

Showing related downloaded files

  • Publication
    Crime and Violence in Central America : A Development Challenge - Main Report
    (World Bank, 2011-01-01) World Bank
    Crime and violence are now a key development issue for Central American countries. In three nations El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras crime rates are among the top five in Latin America. This report argues that successful strategies require actions along multiple fronts, combining prevention and criminal justice reform, together with regional approaches in the areas of drug trafficking and firearms. It also argues that interventions should be evidence based, starting with a clear understanding of the risk factors involved and ending with a careful evaluation of how any planned action might affect future options. In addition, the design of national crime reduction plans and the establishment of national cross-sectoral crime commissions are important steps to coordinate the actions of different government branches, ease cross-sectoral collaboration and prioritize resource allocation. Of equal importance is the fact that national plans offer a vehicle for the involvement of civil society organizations, in which much of the expertise in violence prevention and rehabilitation resides. Prevention efforts need to be complemented by effective law enforcement. The required reforms are no longer primarily legislative in nature because all six countries have advanced toward more transparent adversarial criminal procedures. The second-generation reforms should instead help deliver on the promises of previous reforms by: (i) strengthening key institutions and improving the quality and timeliness of the services they provide to citizens; (ii) improving efficiency and effectiveness while respecting due process and human rights; (iii) ensuring accountability and addressing corruption; (iv) increasing inter-agency collaboration; and (v) improving access to justice, especially for poor and disenfranchised groups. Specific interventions reviewed in the report include: information systems and performance indicators as a prerequisite to improve inter-institutional coordination and information sharing mechanisms; an internal overhaul of court administration and case management to create rapid reaction, one-stop shops; the strengthening of entities that provide legal counseling to the poor and to women; and the promotion of alternative dispute-resolution mechanisms and the implementation of community policing programs.
  • Publication
    Argentina Country Climate and Development Report
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-11) World Bank Group
    The Argentina Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) explores opportunities and identifies trade-offs for aligning Argentina’s growth and poverty reduction policies with its commitments on, and its ability to withstand, climate change. It assesses how the country can: reduce its vulnerability to climate shocks through targeted public and private investments and adequation of social protection. The report also shows how Argentina can seize the benefits of a global decarbonization path to sustain a more robust economic growth through further development of Argentina’s potential for renewable energy, energy efficiency actions, the lithium value chain, as well as climate-smart agriculture (and land use) options. Given Argentina’s context, this CCDR focuses on win-win policies and investments, which have large co-benefits or can contribute to raising the country’s growth while helping to adapt the economy, also considering how human capital actions can accompany a just transition.
  • Publication
    The Mexican Social Protection System in Health
    (World Bank, Washington DC, 2013-01) Bonilla-Chacín, M.E.; Aguilera, Nelly
    With a population of 113 million and a per-capita Gross Domestic Product, or GDP of US$10,064 (current U.S. dollars), Mexico is one of the largest and highest-income countries in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). The country has benefited from sustained economic growth during the last decade, which was temporarily interrupted by the financial and economic crisis. Real GDP is projected to grow 3.8 percent and 3.6 percent in 2012 and 2013, respectively (International Monetary Fund, or IMF 2012). Despite this growth, poverty in the country remains high; with half of the population living below the national poverty line. The country is also highly heterogeneous, with large socioeconomic differences across states and across urban and rural areas. In 2010, while the extreme poverty ratio in the Federal District and the states of Colima and Nuevo Leon was below 3 percent, in Chiapas, Guerrero, and Oaxaca it was 25 percent or higher. These large regional differences are also found in other indicators of well-being, such as years of schooling, housing conditions, and access to social services. This case study assesses key features and achievements of the Social Protection System in Health (Sistema de Proteccion Social en Salud) in Mexico, and particularly of its main pillar, Popular Health Insurance (Seguro Popular, PHI). It analyzes the contribution of this policy to the establishment and implementation of universal health coverage in Mexico. In 2003, with the reform of the General Health Law, the PHI was institutionalized as a subsidized health insurance scheme open to the population not covered by the social security schemes. Today, the PHI covers all of its intended affiliates, about 52 million people
  • Publication
    Guide to the Debt Management Performance Assessment Tool
    (Washington, DC, 2008-02-05) World Bank
    The purpose of this document is to provide guidance and supplemental information to assist with country assessments of debt management performance, using the Debt Management Performance Assessment (DeMPA) tool. The DeMPA is a methodology used for assessing public debt management performance through a comprehensive set of 15 performance indicators spanning the full range of government Debt Management (DeM) functions. It is based on the principles set out in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank guidelines for public debt management, initially published in 2001 and updated in 2003. It is modeled after the Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA) framework for performance measurement of public financial management. The DeMPA has been designed to be a user-friendly tool to undertake an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses in government DeM practices. This guide provides additional background and supporting information so that a no specialist in the area of debt management may undertake a country assessment effectively. The guide can be used by assessors in preparing for and undertaking an assessment. It is particularly useful for understanding the rationale for the inclusion of the indicators, the scoring methodology, and the list of supporting documents or evidence required, and the questions that could be asked for the assessment.
  • Publication
    Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21) Luna-Bazaldua, Diego; Levin, Victoria; Liberman, Julia; Gala, Priyal Mukesh
    This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students’ literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the design and implementation of early grade reading classroom assessment, provides examples of assessment activities from a variety of countries and contexts, and discusses the importance of incorporating classroom assessment practices into teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers. The structure of the document is as follows. The first section presents definitions and addresses basic questions on classroom assessment. Section 2 covers the intersection between assessment and early grade reading by discussing how learning assessment can measure early grade reading skills following the reading learning trajectory. Section 3 compares some of the most common early grade literacy assessment tools with respect to the early grade reading skills and developmental phases. Section 4 of the document addresses teacher training considerations in developing, scoring, and using early grade reading assessment. Additional issues in assessing reading skills in the classroom and using assessment results to improve teaching and learning are reviewed in section 5. Throughout the document, country cases are presented to demonstrate how assessment activities can be implemented in the classroom in different contexts.