A large financing gap has been identified as one of the greatest barriers to achieving the water, sanitation and hygiene-related targets of the SDGs.
Money is needed not only for the construction of water, sanitation, and waste infrastructure but also for the people and the institutions that maintain and expand services to a growing population.
The World Bank has estimated that to meet Targets 6.1 and 6.2 alone, capital financing would need to triple to US$ 114 billion per annum and operating and maintenance costs need to be considered in addition. Maintaining existing assets would require 1.5 times the amount needed for the construction of infrastructure.
There are large variations in financing needs from region to region and country to country, hence financing strategies are needed based on evidence and realistic proposals for how to fill the gaps. There are ultimately only four main sources of finance (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Potential sources of financing for the SDGS
Source: Djeneba Doumbia and Morten Lykke Lauridsen, 2019, Closing the SDG Financing Gap—Trends and Data.
Attracting more finance, and ensure better use of existing financial sources is highly depended on foundational issues. These need to be urgently addressed if countries are to meet their SDG promises (Figure 2).
Figure 2: Foundational issues to mobilise finance for WASH
SWA Role
There are several ways in which the SWA partnership is making the business case for investing in water, sanitation and hygiene and advocating for more efficient use of existing funding.
We co-organize the SWA Finance Ministers’ Meeting, which regularly gathers ministers of finance from around the world to discuss the political and institutional reforms required to achieve SDG6.
SWA partners also develop tools and materials to support the collection of evidence and advocacy around the funding of water, sanitation and hygiene. For example, the WASH SDG Costing Tool, an Excel-based cost model to estimate the costs of achieving the SDG6.1 and 6.2 targets, is being used in 140 countries. The Collection of Resources on WASH Financing, a collection of resources around planning, implementation, and review of progress on SDG financing. The SWA Tools Portal has several tools specifically around financing.
Water and Sanitation - How to make public investment work
A Handbook for Finance Ministers
This Handbook is a call to action for ministers of finance, with inspirational case studies and forward-looking sector perspectives. It is part of an initiative by the Sanitation and Water for All global partnership to provide succinct insights and curated knowledge to ministers working in the water and sanitation sector.
The Handbook is available in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese.
Facts and figures
To meet Targets 6.1 and 6.2, capital financing would need to triple to US$ 114 billion per annum and operating and maintenance costs need to be considered in addition.
Most countries and territories lack a system for collecting comprehensive WASH budget data.
Many countries have measures to reach populations living in vulnerable situations in policies and plans, but far fewer have corresponding systems for monitoring or financing.
Aid commitments for water and sanitation to Sub-Saharan Africa increased from US$ 1.7 billion to US$ 3.0 billion from 2015 to 2017.
Financing was identified as a main challenge by half of the countries which submitted briefs ahead of the Sector Ministers Meeting in 2019: 21 out of 42 countries.
For sanitation, the gap between richest and poorest has been reduced in 52 countries, it has increased in 22 countries . For water, the gap between richest and poorest has been reduced in 35 countries while increasing in 39 countries.
Global subsidies level for water and sanitation at the moment are estimated to be between 1.59% - 1.95% of GDP of low- and middle-income countries.
Strengthening country systems or systems approaches was rated as one of the highest priority activities in WASH among ESAs and was a major theme in several ESA water/WASH strategies.
Documents
View all Key documentsKey documents | Type |
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Principles of Sustainable WASH Finance | |
Understanding the human rights principle of using ‘maximum available resources | |
A Handbook for Finance Ministers: Water and Sanitation -How to make public investment work |