ADDIS ABABA, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) — According to a World Bank official, 95 percent of the 247 million Africans lacking access to clean water and sanitation live in Eastern and Southern Africa. Victoria Kwakwa, Vice President of the World Bank for Eastern and Southern Africa, made these remarks at the Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Leadership Summit in Addis Ababa.
At the summit, Kwakwa highlighted the alarming increase in the number of people without basic water supply and sanitation in Sub-Saharan Africa. She warned that if action is not taken by 2030, 345 million people in eastern and southern Africa will be without basic water services, and over 500 million will lack access to basic sanitation.
Kwakwa also pointed out that over the past 20 years, access to basic water supply and sanitation in Sub-Saharan Africa has not kept pace with population growth. Without improvement in water and sanitation access, the region will struggle to deliver on promises of poverty reduction, shared prosperity, and job growth.
Additionally, the summit focused on the increasing financial needs to meet the growing demand for basic water supply and sanitation, despite a decrease in domestic funding. Kwakwa noted that the average government budget allocated to WASH in the region is less than 1 percent of GDP, falling well below the recommended threshold of 4 percent.
Kwakwa also highlighted how existing investments are impaired by inefficiency, with a significant portion of public funds being used to subsidize the operational and maintenance costs of large utilities, disproportionately benefitting the wealthiest. She noted that operational inefficiencies, such as water loss in rural areas and failure of new water points, are depleting scarce public resources.
The two-day summit aimed to accelerate access to water and sanitation in the sub-region by bringing a paradigm shift, de-risking the sector for private sector involvement, enhancing sector governance, and improving service provision efficiency.
