ReliefWeb

2012 has brought welcome news of the progress made in bringing water and sanitation to the many people worldwide still without access to these essential services. The Joint Monitoring Programme between the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF reported that the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target for water was achieved in 2010, five years ahead of schedule, with two billion people gaining access to clean water over the last two decades. This achievement illustrates how well-planned and well-targeted investment can deliver effective results globally.

But major challenges remain. Global progress on the 2015 sanitation target is off-track and over a third of the world’s population is still without access to basic sanitation – a testament to the low priority accorded to this issue by many of today’s political leaders. There is large regional inequality in both water and sanitation, with progress stalling or even reversed in parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, Central and South Asia, and the Pacific region. People living in rural areas, urban poor people, and remote or marginalised communities often remain excluded from improvements to access, and the burden of inadequate water and sanitation falls most heavily on girls and women. Rapid population growth, rural-urban migration and the adverse impacts of climate change all add to the difficulties ahead.

Addressing the shortfall, commissioned by WaterAid and written by Development Initiatives, aims to complement UN Water’s 2012 GLAAS report by putting resourcing of the sector, specifically the role of Official Development Assistance, or aid, under the spotlight. In particular, it argues that donor countries should act with urgency to improve their support to those who face water and sanitation poverty on a daily basis.

The report considers aid volumes and trends, aid effectiveness, and whether aid is reaching the places and people that are experiencing the highest levels of water and sanitation poverty. It provides profiles of the countries and international organisations that deliver aid and hold influence, and enables cross-comparison of their priorities and how effectively they target their aid. Among the donors profiled are Australia, France, Japan, Spain, Sweden, the UK and the USA, as well as the African and Asian Development Funds, the EU, UNICEF and the World Bank.

The report shows that aid flows are insufficient to address the regional inequalities in access to water and sanitation and achieve the MDG sanitation target. WHO estimates that $190 billion of investment is needed each year until 2015 in order to achieve and maintain the water and sanitation targets in all regions. This compares with $7.8 billion of global aid flows in 2010. Although aid is one of several financing sources for the sector, this is only 4% of annual investment needs.